Dr. Slaton will be giving a talk titled, “New Promise, Old Premise: Workforce Education and Opportunity in American Nanomanufacturing”

As once-thriving U.S. manufacturing sectors contract, the idea that unemployed citizens will now find work in nano-scale manufacturing draws commitments of educational resources across the country. So-called nanotechnician curricula proliferate at two-year institutions and their enrollments climb steadily. Yet industrial forecasters and even some instructors see few jobs of this kind on the horizon.  This is, in essence, a case of new technological knowledge reproducing old social patterns that have historically brought disadvantage to those groups of Americans most dependent on sub-baccalaureate education.  The newness of nano as a field--one touted as both scientific and economic innovation--disguises long standing class, race and gender-derived inequities in technical education and labor.