Supporting the next generation of AV and IT professionals takes more than talking about the need for new talent. It takes giving people opportunities to learn, develop skills, make connections, and find their way into an industry that can sometimes be difficult to discover from the outside.
That is part of what brings CDW Education to the HETMA Golf Classic in support of the Prism Scholarship.
For Matt Varin of CDW Education, the value of programs like Prism comes down to continued investment and greater awareness of an industry that plays an important role in the learning experience. He also points to CDW’s continued growth around audiovisual solutions, including its work with local integrators and the development of internal practices that can create additional employment opportunities.
For those of us working in higher education AV, that connection between technology and opportunity is worth paying attention to. Classroom AV has become increasingly intertwined with networking, cloud services, security, collaboration platforms, and the larger campus IT environment. Developing the next generation consequently means giving people opportunities to grow across those disciplines rather than preparing them for one narrowly defined technology role.
Creating Paths Into Technology
CDW has put that idea into practice in several ways.
One example is the company’s Legacy Excellence Program, developed with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The program has combined scholarships, paid internships, leadership development, mentoring, professional development, and potential pathways to full-time employment. Students also participate in project work, networking, community service, and leadership activities.
Inside CDW, there are development paths as well. The company has described its Associate Consulting Engineer program as an apprenticeship-style entry point for people pursuing careers as technologists, combining coursework with industry standards, consulting skills, and certification opportunities.
Professional development does not stop when someone gets through the door. CDW offers tuition reimbursement and professional development among its employee benefits, while its Business Resource Groups provide opportunities for mentoring, networking, and professional and leadership development.
Together, those efforts provide multiple ways for someone to enter the technology industry and continue building a career after they arrive.
Learning Beyond CDW
There is another side of workforce development that may be particularly relevant to the higher ed community: helping people who do not work for CDW continue building their own technical skills.
CDW maintains a technology skills and training program with open-enrollment courses, IT and security coursework, certification opportunities, and role-aligned learning tracks. The subjects extend well beyond AV, but that may actually make them more relevant as AV and IT continue to converge.
A campus AV professional increasingly benefits from understanding the networks, security practices, cloud platforms, and other infrastructure surrounding the systems in classrooms and learning spaces. The more those technologies overlap, the more valuable it becomes for professionals to understand what is happening outside the traditional boundaries of AV.
On the education side, CDW also provides professional development intended to help institutions move beyond simply deploying technology. Its education programs emphasize connecting professional development with learning goals, staff training, and the way technology is actually used by educators and students.
That people-first piece is important.
Getting another device into a classroom is relatively easy. Developing the people who will design, support, teach with, and eventually replace that technology takes a much longer investment.
Getting Comfortable With Change
Varin’s advice for someone just entering AV, IT, or higher education technology fits that reality: get comfortable with being uncomfortable because the pace of change is not slowing down.
It is particularly appropriate advice for someone entering higher education technology today.
The systems they begin their careers supporting will change. New platforms will emerge. AV and IT will continue moving closer together. Skills that seem specialized today may become standard expectations a few years from now.
What someone learns at the beginning of a career matters, but so does developing the willingness to keep learning when the technology inevitably changes.
The technologies will continue to evolve. The need for curious people who are willing to learn, adapt, and help others will not.
By supporting the HETMA Golf Classic and Prism Scholarship, CDW Education is helping create another opportunity for those people to find their way into the industry and, hopefully, build a career once they get here.
