Introduction to Neumont Unversity

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Welcome

• Introduction to Neumont Unversity
• Ned Levine, President
• The Neumont Model and How It Can Help Your
  Business
• Aaron Reed, Assoc VP of Employer Relations
• A Professional Perspective
• Mark Stafford, Software Architect Extend Health

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Neumont University

• Neumont University is a software development
  university located in South Jordan, Utah
• The school was founded with a goal of attempting
  to bridge the gap between academics and industry
• Neumont offers Bachelors and Masters degrees in
  Computer Science

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Facts and Statistics

• Founded in 2003
• Student population 301 students
• 41 of NU students are from Utah
• Current graduates 148
• 98 of grads accept jobs in CS field
• 74 of grads accept jobs in Utah
• Employers value grads 20 higher comp
• Companies hiring the most NU grads IBM Extend
  Health

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Todays Presentation

• Why are we here?
• Theres a national crisis related to a lack of
  talented IT professionals
• It was listed as SIMs primary concern in their
  2007 IT survey
• We are working to solve this problem properly, in
  alignment with employers

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• Aaron Reed
• Associate VP of Employer Relations,
• Neumont University

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The Neumont Vision

• Neumont was founded to address the gap between
  academics and industry
• Before NU was founded, we surveyed large number
  of employers to identify key areas in which IT
  job candidates seemed to be lacking

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Survey Results

• Employers Top 5 concerns with candidates
• Cant work together on teams
• Dont communicate effectively
• Dont understand the business environment
• Havent contributed to real projects
• Dont have relevant technical skills
• These five categories became the focus of the
  Neumont curriculum

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The Neumont Curriculum

• Business related theory courses
• Database theory, modeling, logic, etc
• Project based learning
• Over 2/3 of the time a student spends at NU is
  spent in project groups
• work in teams developing essential collaboration
  and communication skills
• follow the entire software life cycle every
  quarter
• experience different roles beyond coding
  including project manager, business analyst,
  database administrator, software architect, Q/A
  specialist, and more
• gain exposure to and experience in dealing with
  critical business-related decisions
• Intense focus on and involvement from industry
• The employer is our primary customer

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• Information Week published an article by Rob
  Preston about the SIM survey entitled
• Down To Business Worried About IT Talent
  Shortage? Do Something About It
• It is here where CIOs and other tech employers
  must step upthey're not working closely enough
  with universities to groom young people and
  establish a base of skills

http//www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?a
rticleID202300143
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It Goes Both Ways

• We agree that industry needs more involvement in
  academics
• How many people here are involved in university
  internship programs?
• Has anybody here ever tried to get a university
  to adopt a certain technology in their
  curriculum?
• Interest from industry often isnt the primary
  problem
• Academic institutions are notorious for their
  inability to adapt
• This is magnified in an industry that moves as
  quickly as the IT field

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Industry Focused Curriculum

• At Neumont University, we not only accept input
  from industry leaders, we actively pursue it
• Neumont Universitys curriculum is extremely
  industry focused and driven
• Input from industry leaders such as IBM,
  Microsoft, Oracle, Novell, EDS, ACS and others is
  continually shaping the curriculum to match
  industry trends

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Employer Involvement

• How are employers involved in Neumonts
  curriculum?
• Enterprise Projects
• Advisory Board/Curriculum Analysis

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Extending the Method

• Students work on projects sponsored by Neumont
  partners
• Students are in their final 3 quarters of
  education
• Student teams of 4-6 students work on these
  projects
• A manager from the partnering company directs the
  students and evaluates their performance
• Companies do not pay the school or the students
  to participate
• Companies dictate everything from methodology to
  dress code
• Industry benefits
• Great way to get additional resources at no cost
• Introduce new technologies and ideas to your team
• 10 week on-the-job-interview

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Enterprise Project Partners

• These external projects are called Enterprise
  Projects
• As of Jan 2008, Neumont has run 100 projects with
  33 different companies
• A list of some of our past and present partners
  includes

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Industry Curriculum Involvement

• Neumont University is constantly monitoring
  trends in IT and gathering input from industry
  partners
• A few examples of this in action
• IBM introduces SSME
• IBM, Novell and others working on Linux
  curriculum
• EDS involved in developing project management
  courses

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Tech Trends

• What kind of tech trends are you anticipating
  over the next year?
• Outsourcing continues
• Industry standards, openness and collaboration
• Agile development within proven methodologies
• Model driven development
• Business rules
• The semantic web
• Service oriented architecture
• Multicore technology
• Security
• Embedded systems

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Tech Forecast

• Neumont University publishes a quarterly
  electronic journal with articles from staff,
  students and alumni
• Each year, the first issue of this journal will
  contain articles on Neumont Universitys Software
  Development Trends
• If youre interested in receiving the tech
  journal, leave a business card with one of the
  Neumont presenters today

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Advisory Board

• Employers are encouraged to evaluate portions of
  Neumonts curriculum in order to
• give feedback on areas of improvement
• introduce new areas of focus that represent
  shifting trends in the industry
• We are currently accepting nominations for our
  Advisory Board
• Suggestions are reviewed by an internal
  curriculum committee before put into action

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• Mark Stafford
• Software Architect Extend Health

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• Before Neumont
• Worked in IT for 10 years prior to coming to
  Neumont University
• Underwriters Laboratories
• Chicago Board of Trade
• Training (MCSE, CIW, A, etc.)
• Already had a bachelors degree
• Had decided on what facets of the job were
  highest priority

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• Choosing Neumont
• Was not looking to go to school again
• If they could do even half of what they are
  promising, thats somewhere I want to be.
• At Neumont
• Learned more than what how
• Theory and history are brought in naturally
• Measure twice, cut once

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• After Neumont
• Accepted a job from an enterprise project
• Was qualified and trained on day 1
• Literally rebuilt database and software from
  scratch
• Design all major software for multi-million
  dollar business
• Current relationship with Neumont our sole
  source for new developers
• No un-training
• Familiarity with advanced modeling and
  development concepts
• References

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How can you get involved?

• In what ways can Neumont benefit your
  organization?
• Hiring needs
• Attend career weeks (next one in February), hire
  quality graduates, etc
• Enterprise Projects
• Run a project with Neumont and test drive some
  students for 10 weeks
• Curriculum involvement
• Evaluate Neumonts curriculum and inform us on
  how we can better serve your company and its
  technology demands
• If you would like to discuss how Neumont can
  serve your organization, contact
• Aaron Reed
• Associate VP - Employer Relations
• aaron.reed_at_neumont.edu
• 801-302-2884