MISEP: Addressing the human resource shortage
The impression of many first year engineering students is that the mining industry is dirty, unsophisticated and requires living and working in remote and sometimes hostile areas. This is not surprising. Society’s infatuation with the sensational means that the media give higher profile to mine disasters than the industry’s benefits–like job creation, GDP contribution, producing the building blocks of modern society and becoming more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
The disdain of students has resulted in unused capacity in mining and geoscience programs at universities, at the very time when there’s a severe shortage of graduates in these areas.
To help reverse this perception, industry needs to be a little more directly involved in promoting mining to students in primary and secondary schools so more will eventually choose to work in this field. Such a campaign is currently being pursued by the Mineral Industry Human Resources Council (www.mihr.ca), though it could take many years before the benefits from such an initiative will be realized. Many companies and organizations such as the Ontario Mining Association, the Mining Association of Canada and the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada, for example, also have education and outreach programs.
However, the Department of Mining Engineering at Queen’s University has launched a program aimed at delivering more immediate results. The Mineral Industry Student Employment Program (MISEP) is an opportunity to fast-track a change in the attitude among current university students. The goal is to deliver more graduates to industry by attracting students who are already at the university into geoscience and engineering programs. The approach is to entice students into these programs by offering well-paying, interesting and meaningful summer jobs.
MISEP is seen as both an invitation to students to consider the opportunities of the mineral industry, and a challenge to the industry to commit to developing its most valuable resource.
Industry-supported summer employment is key to attracting uncommitted first-year students into mining disciplines. First-year students, who are the main target for summer work in the program, are usually unfamiliar with both the university programs and the industry as a whole. MISEP aims to inform the students about available jobs early in the year, and to match students to jobs well before the end of the winter term.
When the program was first proposed by emeritus professor Jim Brown in late 2005, his arguments made it an easy decision for the Department of Mining Engineering to formally endorse and launch MISEP. Its many “early adopters” enabled its launch, and will have a direct role in its success. We invite more companies to get involved.
We hope that other institutions will make use of some of the ideas embodied in MISEP, which are merely a starting point in the long process of renewing interest in and changing public perceptions of the mineral industry.
Dr. Jonathan Peck is head and professor of the Department of Mining Engineering at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ont. He can be reached at jon.peck@mine.queensu.ca or 613-533-3294.
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