At Albion College, a liberal arts college in south-central Michigan, experiential or hands-on learning is key. Regardless of academic background, students engage in interdisciplinary projects—from computer science to microbiology, robotics to drug design—all aimed at preparing them for the workforce.
But Albion is a small, rural town, and students often face logistical challenges their big-city peers don’t—like how to get to an off-campus job without public transportation. These challenges underscore a broader truth: For rural colleges, forging and sustaining industry partnerships requires navigating limited local infrastructure, smaller labor markets, and fewer regional employers—making such collaborations both more difficult and more essential.
Albion is part of EPIIC’s Connect Four cohort, along with Canisius University in Buffalo, New York; NorthWest Arkansas Community College; and Roanoke College. These small institutions share common hurdles when trying to train students or establish sustainable partnerships with local industry.
Like most EPIIC cohorts, Connect Four is working toward four overarching goals: building capacity to sustain external partnerships; expanding institutional networks; improving stakeholder communications; and turning one-off engagements into repeatable, scalable models.
And, like other EPIIC groups, progress is already underway.
Albion College
Albion College is using the Connect Four initiative to deepen faculty-industry collaboration, expand its regional innovation footprint, and provide students with real-world experiential learning opportunities that directly support workforce development. By establishing administrative support structures and aligning classroom learning with industry needs, Albion is strengthening its capacity to build repeatable, scalable partnerships across Michigan’s regional ecosystem.