UWM and Foxconn announce engineering co-op program

Five UW-Milwaukee engineering students will get the chance to study and work in Taiwan through a newly announced co-op agreement between the university and Foxconn.

“We are delighted to host Foxconn’s first international co-op program in Wisconsin and be a model for other universities in the state,” UWM Chancellor Mark Mone said. “Companies throughout Wisconsin need the well-trained engineers that programs like this will provide.”

According to a release from the school, 80 percent of UWM grads live and work in Wisconsin.

The program will focus on the technology and processes for manufacturing liquid crystal displays, often used in smartphones and other devices. After a recruitment period in the fall, UWM will send five students from the college of engineering and applied science to Taiwan in February 2019.

Participants will take culture and language classes at Chung Yuan Christian University, which already hosts UWM students as part of a separate study abroad program. Since that program started in 2009, 31 students have taken part.

Students in the new co-op program will also work on applied research projects, which they will continue developing after their time in CYCU at one of Foxconn’s Taiwan facilities through June 2019. They will eventually return to UWM to complete their degrees.

UWM says this program could be expanded to other colleges and universities in Wisconsin, and in the greater Midwest.

“Many of us in higher education have talked for years about the need to collaborate more closely with each other and with our business partners, and Foxconn has encouraged us to accelerate that work to benefit our students and our state,” Mone said.

Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn Founder and CEO Terry Gou, added: “We are committed to supporting Wisconsin in expanding the existing strong talent pool and nurturing knowledge workers in the state. This will not only make Wisconsin more attractive to other companies but also contribute to its transformation as a global technology hub.”

This co-op program is the second of its kind for the UWM College of Engineering & Applied Science. Rockwell Automation has had an internship program with the college since 2016, where engineering students work at the company’s Shanghai facilities in partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

–By Alex Moe
WisBusiness.com