FARGO – North Dakota's new chancellor of higher education has launched a campaign to attract oil workers back to school, and he's asking for the petroleum industry's help.
"You have scholarships for veterans of the wars, you have scholarships for high school kids," Mark Hagerott said at the annual meeting of the North Dakota Petroleum Council here Tuesday. "What about scholarships for people who have been doing this important work, funded by maybe some of these people right here?"
Hagerott announced late last month his Bakken U initiative, an effort by the North Dakota University System's five western colleges to retrain the region's workforce during an oil downturn.
The campaign is directed at "oil field veterans," as Hagerott calls them, who've had their hours cut or are in danger of being laid off.
"There are five wonderful colleges within an hour's drive of these students," he said. "Come to these schools and improve your critical thinking, the skills you have, the knowledge you have, and then go back when the energy comes back up, or maybe you're going to move on to fill some other crucial positions."
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One of his main goals at the council meeting was to get the word out, starting with employers.
"Not everyone knows about the five colleges out west," he said.
But there is also a lack of scholarships available for students in their 20s or 30s, which is why Hagerott is courting the industry and presented Bakken U as a way to keep workers in the state.
"They'll be a reserve of people you can call back," he said to the crowd.
The NDUS is also trying to reach workers through print and radio advertising, he said.
"We're trying to make it welcoming and inviting to these people," he said. "That's why it's called Bakken U and not just Minot State, Bismarck State, Williston State, Dickinson State, application portals. Like, 'Well, OK, that's for high school kids.' No, we actually are directed at you."
