DREAM CITY 2020: Youths must be prepared to compete on world stage

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the fourth in a series of columns about the future of the Pikes Peak region written by community leaders and visionaries. It's part of the ongoing community initiative Dream City: Vision 2020.

When I dream of the future of Colorado Springs, I dream of young people, those of this region and those who will follow.

People come to Colorado Springs to enjoy the natural beauty of our state and to live in a healthy environment. Those who are here, and those who will come, will compete not just with each other, but in a global market that is linked electronically, physically and economically.

The bigger dream, then, is that Colorado Springs will be a community that has the intellectual power to drive innovation in industry, in the arts, and in the way that we respect individual differences.

This is the UCCS Southern Colorado Innovation Strategy, a plan that pays homage to this region's geographic and ethnic diversity and builds upon them to create a university focused on regional needs, grows to 35,000 or more students one day, fosters innovation, and leads cooperative efforts within public and private sectors.

This growth will fuel work force needs in health care, science, technology and engineering, but also an expanded presence in the arts and culture.

My dream is that ideas generated at the university will transfer to the marketplace, creating jobs and making our community a center of innovation with a robust economic future.

It is a strategy that is dependent on cooperation with K-12 systems, the region's community colleges and other four-year colleges to singularly focus on reversing the reality of below-average regional education and income levels. We must increase post-secondary education-participation rates if we hope to have positive economic, social and cultural outcomes.

The job of building the dream is upon us. The stakes are high. To reverse the trends of the past and to build the kind of communities we dream about, we must invest in our educational institutions - our public schools, our charter schools, our private schools, our community colleges, and, yes, our region's research university.

Please allow me to expand on the term "invest."

Investment can mean crossing traditional boundaries between private industry, federal government, local government, military and academia to forge agreements that focus not on individual gains, but the benefits of an educated society prepared to compete on the world stage. Specific areas I think about include sports and leisure, homeland security and health. But there are likely many more.

Investment can mean a contribution of time in providing a young person the opportunity to experience life in a laboratory or in other areas not currently within their field of view.

Investment can mean helping to break down barriers that prevent young people from succeeding in middle or high school, and later in college.

I encourage you to join UCCS in this dream of creating a stronger, more robust Colorado Springs and the core values of investing in intellect, innovation and collaboration.