The University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) is one of three colleges based in Santa Barbara, along with City College and Westmont College. It's also one of the largest employers in the area and has a student body of 18,900 students, with the engineering department drawing 1,500 graduate and undergraduate students.
What makes UCSB stand out from silicon mainstays such as Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is its nimble approach to education, according to Venky Narayanamurti, dean of engineering. He says the university's tight connection with the community helps it to prepare tomorrow's employees.
But it hasn't always been that way.
Narayanamurti, who joined UCSB in 1992, says 1994 was a pivotal year for UCSB because education, business and community came together for the first time to figure out a way to boost the economy. They decided post-secondary education would be key to that effort; more specifically, the engineering department at UCSB, which was actually one of the first nodes on the pre-Internet ARPANet and is currently doing work on the next-generation Internet.
In addition, the university began to pour resources into its computer science curriculum. He says this helped boost the school into the top ranks in computer science.
Rather than just teaching the nuts and bolts of programming, however, UCSB offers students course such as entrepreneurial engineering, which blends engineering with the economics of startups.
But Narayanamurti has not gone it alone. Business leaders have donated time, money and equipment to make sure that the local colleges are offering the right skills for the next round of employees to enter the market.
Mark Sylvester, cofounder of animation software company Alias/Wavefront, also went to school in Santa Barbara and wanted to stay in town after graduation. When his company, which was founded in 1984, got bought out by Silicon Graphics, Inc. a few years ago, he kept a team of 60 designers in Santa Barbara.
Sylvester, who sits on the Chamber of Commerce and is active in the Economic Community Project, says his company also works closely with UCSB and City College to develop programs that give students the skills they need to stay in town.
For instance, Silicon Graphics has donated money and equipment to City College to create a million-dollar media lab. "We match the local needs of community to the local needs of industry," Sylvester says.
MetaCreations, Inc., creator of graphics software such as Kai's Power Tools and Kai's Power Goo, encourages staff to teach at the universities and works with both institutions to develop curricula. In addition, MetaCreations makes it a priority to hire students and graduates of the local schools, even at the high school level, according to Sallie Olmstead, vice president of corporate communications at the company.
