Gary Packard: Future focused — career ready

Welcome to my first column, titled “Future focused — career ready.” These four words capture the culture and mission of the College of Applied Science and Technology at the University of Arizona’s Sierra Vista Campus.

In this monthly column, I will share information, reflections and ideas related to success in the 21st century world. Sometimes I will muse about programs or initiatives at the college. At other times, I may drift into world or regional events, new technologies or modern business practices. I am always open to topic suggestions.

What does it mean to be future focused and career ready? If I rewind the clock 40 years to my 21st birthday, I was finishing my last year at the Air Force Academy. I drove a 1969 Corvette convertible, listened to music on cassette tapes or vinyl albums and watched the handful of channels I could pick up with the antenna on top of my television. I felt prepared for my future as an Air Force pilot and could not wait to graduate and start pilot training.

Fast forward 20 years to my 41st birthday. I had fulfilled my goal of flying airplanes and some things in the world had changed, but not dramatically. We had a personal computer instead of a typewriter. The internet was a new and novel thing that most of us didn’t quite understand. We listened to CDs and there were more channels on cable. And my mode of transportation actually went backward, I drove a minivan. The kids didn’t fit in the ‘Vette. For the most part, life was much the same as it was 20 years earlier. My education had prepared me for the first 20 years of my adult life.

Fast forward to 2021. My 61st birthday is right around the corner and my education did not prepare me for the world we live in today. This older dog constantly is trying to learn new tricks. The science fiction of my early adult years predicted an age in which machines learn and the world was filled with smart cars, smart watches and smart speakers. Gone are the days of pay phones, writing letters, TV tubes and deliveries that don’t arrive for five to six weeks (for the most part).

I drive a Jeep that has better technology than the mainframe computer I used to learn programming. I don’t own a home phone. In my pocket is a mobile computer, GPS mapping system, all my music, an amazing camera and an extensive library of books. As a bonus, it learns from my behavior, and I can even use it as a phone sometimes.

My daughter is a senior in college and at the same point in life I was 40 years ago. My education prepared me for the first 20 years of my young adult world. I have to wonder: Is her education preparing her for her first 20 years as a young adult? The headlines of her last year in college were alarming — a global pandemic, climate change, racial injustice, political extremism, billionaires in spaceships, ransomware, self-driving cars and drones. If that is her college reality, what will be the headlines when she is in her early 40s and I am 81?

Preparing our students to be ready for the realities of an amazingly complex, complicated and rapidly changing world is what we mean when we say “future focused and career ready.” We live in a time where the machines and computers of earlier times converge with futuristic technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics and cyberspace to create incredible capability; all ideas that were science fiction when I was my daughter’s age.

What will the technologies be able to do in 2041? This amazingly rapid evolution of technologies create a wealth of opportunity but also highlight a host of inequities, stresses and ethical challenges in our society. We must prepare our learners for a world that will change more in the next 20 years than it changed in the entirety of my lifetime.

In this column, I want to write about this future world with all its challenges, uncertainties, volatility and rapid changes. Sounds scary, but I promise, our time together will not be all doom and gloom. By most measures, the world is a healthier, safer and more connected planet than it has ever been. What we want to explore is how to take advantage of the technologically interconnected world to make our region and our world a better place.

In this column, we will explore the attributes, challenges and opportunities of this amazing but uncertain period in our history. I hope you will enjoy the journey as much as I know I will.

Welcome to the future.

Gary Packard is Dean of the College of Applied Science and Technology (www.azcast.arizona.edu) at the University if Arizona’s Sierra Vista Campus. The strategic goal of the college is to “develop intellectually fertile ground to infuse the workforce with future thinkers delivering cutting edge breakthroughs in technological, sociocultural, and training domains.”