Joseph Stiglitz, a 2001 Nobel laureate in economic sciences, told the international co-op educators who gathered at Northeastern in June that the United States must initiate curriculum change if it hopes to remain competitive as the world shifts from an industry-driven to a knowledge-based economy.

The keynote speaker for the fourteenth World Conference on Cooperative Education, hosted by Northeastern, cited growing competition from India and China in the world economy and predicted that the technological advances offering hope to developing economies will work against the United States if it cannot change with the times.

"We need to rethink the role of education, our objectives, and the goals of co-op," said Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor.

A broader range of "soft skills," such as communications, must be taught to today's graduates so they can learn how to get along with workers in other countries and join the throngs of international workers rapidly advancing in technology, Stiglitz said.

And the matter of "learning how to learn" should be taken up with more vigor in today's co-op experiences, he said, by better integrating on-the-job learning with the classroom experience.

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  In his keynote address at the world conference,  Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate in economic  sciences and a Columbia University professor,  called for a reexamination of cooperative  education. Photo by Craig Bailey