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When it comes to return on investment (ROI) among Oregon colleges and universities, Oregon Institute of Technology ranked third, according to a special report by Bloomberg Businessweek.
Oregon Tech followed only University of Portland and Oregon State University for providing graduates the best return on the dollar for their education. Oregon Tech was ranked with 853 other institutions in the United States. Public universities had two ROI rankings, one for resident and one for non-resident tuition.
Bloomsberg Businessweek teamed with the Seattle-based compensation data company PayScale to measure the value of investing in a college degree. PayScale collected data on salaries reported by alumni earning bachelor’s degrees over a 30-year period and compared those earnings to high school graduates’ earnings. The dollar figure assigned to each of the 853 institutions examined – the ROI – represented the amount a college graduate could expect to earn over and above what a typical high school graduate earned during the same period, after deducting the cost of obtaining his or her degree.
According to the magazine’s ROI report, the net cost to graduate from Oregon Tech for students paying in-state tuition was $61,230 and the 30-year net ROI for graduates – taking financial aid into account – was $617,600. Oregon Tech also fared very well compared to other western states, with ROIs that ranked higher than all universities evaluated in Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, and Nevada, all but four universities in Washington, and higher than 23 of the 51 universities evaluated in California.
“In many respects, evaluating students’ ROI in their education is an outcome-based metric that reflects not only success of university alumni, but also reputation and relevance of the universities themselves and the courses that they offer,”said Oregon Tech president Chris Maples. “This is especially remarkable given that Oregon’s state support per full-time-equivalent student in higher education has declined to the point that we now rank third from last in the entire US.”
To view an interactive table of all 853 institutions evaluated in the “Best College ROI” report, go to: http://www.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/colleges_return_on_investment.html.
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Lifelike manikins help simulate true-to-life EMT training in Washington County
Published: Thursday, March 01, 2012, 4:29 PM Updated: Thursday, March 01, 2012, 4:29 PM
By Dana Tims, The Oregonian
The "passengers" riding in the back of a new, one-of-a-kind medical training vehicle may be manikins, but they are certainly no dummies.
The lifelike figures breathe, sweat, bleed and even talk. And their sophisticated ability to create simulated mobile medical emergencies is about to play a critical role training paramedics, EMTs, firefighters and EMT students in Washington County and surrounding areas.
"What we're embarking on here is unique," said Jonathan Chin, head of Washington County's Emergency Medical Services office. "People are watching us not only on the state level, but the national level, as well."
Use of high-fidelity simulation equipment at teaching hospitals and community college nursing and EMT-training programs has grown rapidly in the past few years.
What hasn't been unveiled, until now, is a mobile simulator that is equal parts ambulance and advanced hands-on classroom.
Trainees, including volunteer EMTs in the far reaches of western Washington County, will tackle challenges such as starting IVs, opening blocked airways and injecting fluids and medications directly into the bone -- all under a trained supervisor while rolling down bumpy roadways.
A series of high-resolution cameras inside the vehicle will show the action in real time and capture it for detailed debriefings afterward.
At the whim of a trainer sitting in the front seat, the manikins can change everything from their breathing and abdominal sounds to dilations of their pupils to their heart rates and blood pressure.
"The entire goal of simulation is to suspend the disbelief of the participants," said Dr. Rob Cloutier, director of simulation at OHSU's Department of Medicine. "The more immersive it is, the more effective it can be."
Project partnership
The project, five years in the making, involves four partner organizations: OHSU, Portland Community College's Cascade Campus, Oregon Institute of Technology Portland and Washington County EMS.
The partner agencies say that no one of them could have afforded the estimated $350,000 to $400,000 cost of the simulator. But by splitting a tab dramatically reduced through in-kind donations and industry vendors' price reductions, all pieces of a complicated puzzle finally came together.
"We never intended to be first out of the gate with this," said John Saito, dean of allied health, emergency and legal services at PCC's Cascade campus. "But once things got going, they just pretty much took off."
Although the vehicle will get a public unveiling Monday at 1 p.m. at Hillsboro Fire Station #6, it is already being introduced to the students and professionals who will soon be training in it.
"It's such new educational methodology," Saito said. "Before students actually begin working in the simulator, they need to be grounded in the educational pedagogy surrounding it."
That includes introducing them to the extensive, video-reliant debriefing sessions that will follow all training exercises.
What actually took place during simulations in the past largely hinged on the respective recollections of the students and instructors involved, Saito said.
"But now, with the audio-visual record we'll have, what happened during the simulation is indisputable," he said. "It's there and on the record."
Rural uses
Washington County took the lead on the project, in part because it is the local regulatory oversight agency for emergency medical services. The county holds title to the vehicle and is responsible for insuring it.
Every bit as compelling, however, was the recognition that paramedics and EMTs in rural areas need specialized training just as much as their counterparts in Hillsboro and Beaverton.
"It tremendously levels the playing field for specialized training in both ends of the county," Washington County's Chin said.
Which is precisely why the mobile simulator may well catch on in other parts of Oregon, added OHSU's Cloutier.
"We are largely a rural state, where ambulance transport times can be quite extended," he said. "It's very important that first responders keep their pre-hospital skills current and this is an excellent way to ensure that."
Levi Eckhardt, training officer for Banks Fire District, agreed.
"It will be a great benefit to our EMTs and first responders," he said. "And it means we won't have to travel so far or so long to get the same sort of high-tech training everyone else will be getting."
He is also excited about the prospect of his volunteers working with the new medical manikins.
"They do lots of different things and act in ways that instructors can alter on the spot," Eckhardt said. "It's pretty amazing."
Dummies, it seems, they are not.
-- Dana Tims
Follow @WashCoReporter
© 2012 OregonLive.com. All rights reserved.
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The Oregon Institute of Technology recently earned a bronze rating in an international sustainability assessment program developed by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
More than 140 colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada have participated in the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS) framework. STARS is a self-reporting system designed to help institutions see how they stack up against each other in regard to energy efficiency, waste, water use, renewable energy and other sustainability issues.
OTI has a long track record of successful sustainability projects. The institute in 1974 opened its Geo-Heat Center, and now the entire Klamath Falls campus is heated with geothermal energy. The college also has a geothermal power plant, which will soon be accompanied by a photovoltaic system.
The school is striving to be climate neutral by 2050 via energy conservation, building design improvements, carbon offset purchases and construction of a larger geothermal power plant.
The OTI curriculum also focuses on sustainability issues: The renewable energy engineering program was the first of its kind in the U.S, and the civil engineering and environmental sciences majors also include core classes related to sustainability.
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Oregon Tech is proud to introduce a new Bachelor of Applied Science (BAS) in Technology and Management degree program. The BAS degree will be offered in the College of Engineering, Technology, and Management, beginning January 2012.
The Bachelor of Applied Science in Technology and Management (BAS) is designed for students who have earned an Associate of Science (AS) or Associate of Applied Science (AAS) in a vocational or technical career field and want to obtain a bachelor degree for career enhancement. Examples of AS and AAS technical degrees include:
•Diesel Technology
•Automotive Technology
•Construction Management
•Electronics Technology
•Aviation
•Computer Technical Support
•Engineering Technology
•Environmental Technology
•Criminal Justice
Technical AS or AAS degrees have traditionally been terminal degrees with few credits transferrable into a bachelor degree. Students can now apply up to 60 career and technical education credits toward the BAS, enabling a bachelor degree to be completed with 2-3 years of additional full-time study. Students who pursue the BAS complete a broad general education core plus advanced courses in business, management, accounting, and information technology designed to complement their associate-level technology courses.
“We are pleased to offer this new Bachelor of Applied Science (BAS) degree in Technology and Management. This degree will allow people who have completed a technical Associate’s degree to easily complete a Bachelor’s degree which will enable them to advance their careers. Since this degree will be offered in Klamath Falls, Portland, and online it will be available to help all Oregonians with a technical Associate’s degree.” said Charlie Jones, Ph.D., Dean of the College of Engineering, Technology, and Management at Oregon Tech.
To learn more about Oregon Institute of Technology’s Bachelor of Applied Science in Technology and Management program, visit www.oit.edu/programs/tm or contact Marla Miller, Chair of the Management Department, at marla.miller@oit.edu or by calling 541-885-1478.
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10.27.2011
Oregon Institute of Technology has added five new faculty members, Ryan Wang, PhD, Feng Shi, PhD, Hope Corsair, PhD, Chad Stillinger, PhD, and Teshome Jiru, PhD, to its Electrical Engineering and Renewable Energy Engineering (EEREE) department this academic year.
Corsair, Stillinger and Jiru are located at Oregon Tech’s Portland metro-area campuses, and join four full-time and 18 adjunct faculty members to work with over 150 renewable energy engineering students. At the Klamath Falls campus, Shi and Wang join four faculty members to teach another 100 students in the fields of electrical and mechanical engineering fundamentals, and a full range of renewable energy options in power, storage, biomass, geothermal, photovoltaics, solar-thermal and smart-grid technologies.
“The EEREE department is uniquely positioned to lead initiatives in education and applied research related to energy, power and renewable energy engineering. Clean energy covers a broad spectrum of disciplines, making it difficult for traditional single-discipline engineering departments to be effective in this technical field. Our multidisciplinary department includes full-time faculty with graduate education in electrical, mechanical, chemical, material science, physics, green-building, energy economics, and specialized energy topics, all working together as part of the same unit,” commented Mateo Aboy, chair of the electrical engineering and renewable energy department.
The new appointments follow on the heels of Oregon Tech’s recent accreditation by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) for the Bachelor of Science in Renewable Energy Engineering program.
“I believe this spectrum of excellent faculty and ABET-accredited programs will help us prepare students to drive the growth of the clean-tech economy. Oregon Tech has a long history of generating and teaching renewable energy. This investment provides us with the talent to innovate and strengthen our center of expertise in energy at the university,” said Charlie Jones, PhD, dean of the College of Engineering, Technology, and Management.
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From the Portland Business Journal:
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/print-edition/2011/10/07/oregon-state-diploma-yields-topsalary.html
Oregon State diploma yields top salary
Premium content from Portland Business Journal by Robert Goldfield and Brad Broberg
Date: Friday, October 7, 2011, 3:00am PDT
Want your children to get the best salary possible after graduating in Oregon?
Then send them to Oregon State University, which tops a list of 12 Oregon colleges with a median, mid-career salary of $86,900 a year, according to surveys by salary research company PayScale Inc. of Seattle.
Second to OSU is the University of Portland, at $85,900, according to figures released by PayScale in late July. A close third is Pacific University in Forest Grove and Hillsboro, at $85,500.
Bringing up the rear is George Fox University in Newberg, at $63,600.
When PayScale grouped the results for 137 schools in 13 western states, OSU ranked 31st. The University of Portland ranked 33rd and Pacific University 34th.
But wait. If you truly want to get the best bang for your buck, then another figure, return on investment, takes more factors into account. And by that measure, you’ll want to send the kids to the Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls.
The typical 30-year return on investment for in-state graduates of OIT is $967,100, PayScale said.
PayScale’s ROI report was limited to 691 schools, including eight in Oregon.
OSU then ranks second, with a 30-year ROI of $858,800 for in-state graduates.
OIT ranks in the top 15 percent for 30-year net ROI for graduates when compared to the nearly 700 four-year institutions nationwide that PayScale rated for ROI. OIT ranked 91 out of 691 schools.
However, PayScale added a cautionary note about OIT: Its rank falls dramatically when taking into account its graduation rate, which is only 41 percent — the second-lowest rate among the eight Oregon schools ranked by ROI.
When calculating the net 30-year ROI for graduates and non-graduates alike, University of Portland tops the Oregon list at $539,200.
PayScale is an online provider of employee compensation data. The company collects the data on a voluntary basis from people visiting its website looking for pay stats for various jobs. All of those responses become part of a huge database that PayScale uses to prepare reports for employers that subscribe to its services.
Besides asking for work information such as salary, title and experience, PayScale asks website visitors what college they attended and what degree they earned.
Released in late July, the company’s 2011 College Salary Report compares grads from 1,004 public and private schools (12 in Oregon). The analysis is based on responses from 1.4 million individuals — approximately 1,000 per school — and is limited to students with bachelor’s degrees only.
Topping the list is Princeton University. The median mid-career salary of its graduates is $130,000.
Separately, PayScale’s ROI Report, compares 693 schools (eight in Oregon), with public school rankings based on both state resident and out-of-state tuition costs.
PayScale calculates ROI by comparing the expected earnings of a school’s graduates with the expected earnings of someone going to work right out of high school. It considers the cost of attendance — tuition, fees, books, and room and board — as well as income lost from going to college rather than immediately entering the workforce.
The number of years it typically takes a student to take home a diploma and graduation rates, also factor in.
But what to study matters as much as where to study.
Engineering schools and engineering degrees dominate PayScale’s salary rankings. Schools with a strong engineering and science focus account for 14 of the top 20 spots in the mid-career pay rankings. Geography is another strong influence. Schools from the Northeast account for 15 of the top 20 spots in the salary rankings. The highest ranked school in the West is Colorado School of Mines, at No. 21.
Jeff Strohl, research director at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, believes PayScale’s data has value, but he said the data must be taken with a grain of salt because it is based on a “highly selective group,” that is people who visit the PayScale website and who will to fill out a survey.
While it’s possible that the individuals in PayScale’s database closely reflect the general population, too little is known about them to say for sure, said Strohl.
“What’s lacking,” he said, “is a reference point ... to check against.”
Top five Oregon colleges for median, mid-career salaries
1. Oregon State, $86,900
2. University of Portland, $85,900
3. Pacific University, $85,500
4. Reed College, $83,100
5. OIT, $81,000
Top Five Oregon colleges in terms of starting salaries
1. OIT, $53,600
2. Pacific University, $50,500
3. University of Portland, $47,700
4. Linfield College, $45,400
5. Oregon State, $44,600
rgoldfield@bizjournals.com | 503-219-3416
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Renewable Energy Engineering Degree Receives ABET Accreditation
09.23.2011
The Renewable Energy Engineering (REE) baccalaureate program at Oregon Institute of Technology recently received the Final Statement of Accreditation from the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). “This is a significant accomplishment, making the REE program at Oregon Tech the first engineering program focused on renewable energy engineering to receive ABET accreditation,” commented Mateo Aboy, Ph.D., Department Chair of Electrical Engineering & Renewable Energy at OIT.
In 2005, Oregon Tech furthered its commitment to renewable energy, energy efficiency, and a reduced carbon footprint by introducing the first Bachelor of Science degree focused on renewable energy. The program, initially offered exclusively at Oregon Tech’s Portland campus, is now offered in both Portland and Klamath Falls.
The REE program establishes the engineering principles graduates will need to develop, promote, and implement sustainable-energy technologies. Students learn how to harness the power of renewable resources such as wind, sunlight, biofuels, geothermal heat, and rivers. The Renewable Energy curriculum prepares graduates for engineering careers in the energy and power engineering sector in general, and renewable energy in particular.
Graduates of the program are prepared for graduate study or for immediate employment as energy engineers, field engineers, energy auditors, renewable energy system integrators for homes and businesses, manufacturing engineers for component and subsystem manufacturers, designers for components and subsystems, local and state government renewable-energy inspectors, planners and other positions in the energy field.
“We were the first in North America to offer an REE degree and now we are the first program in this field to receive ABET accreditation. We plan to start the graduate degree in REE in Fall 2012 in conjunction with the opening of our new facility in Wilsonville. Oregon Tech is the pioneering university in REE education and we plan to continue blazing new trails,” said Charlie Jones, Ph.D., Dean of the College of Engineering, Technology, and Management at Oregon Tech.
“What better place to study renewable energy than at a university that practices those principles? Our Klamath Falls campus is the only university campus in the world that is completely heated by geothermal energy. We have a small Geo-thermal plant which generates electricity and we will be installing a larger plant in 2012. We are also installing 7.5 acres of ground mounted solar array on the campus expected to be completed this year. By the end of 2012, the campus will generate all of its electric energy and still meet its heating needs. Our students will be involved in these projects through internships and class projects. That’s commitment to renewable energy,” Jones stated.
To learn more about Oregon Institute of Technology’s Bachelor of Science in Renewable Energy Engineering program, visit www.oit.edu/ree.