Morrison Tech expands curriculum with new facility

MORRISON – The Morrison Institute of Technology is investing in the future of local manufacturing with the construction of a new wing to its Innovation Center, officials said.

The new 6,000-square-foot facility will connect to the Innovation Center and support automation labs, including robotics and computer numerical control manufacturing equipment, while providing students with a new degree emphasis in automated engineering.

Morrison Tech President Christopher Scott said the project has been several years in the making and is a testament to the college’s innovative spirit.

“We’re the best-kept secret in the Midwest, but we don’t want to be a secret,” Scott said. “We place students all across the world and in all 50 states. You name the industry, we’re in there.”

The private nonprofit college offers two programs – engineering technology and network administration – with existing emphases in design drafting and construction technology. Morrison Tech Vice President of Academic Affairs Scott Connelly said the new automation emphasis was driven by the need to support local manufacturing with skilled technicians.

“From the very first electrical course, they’ll be in the lab doing activities,” Connelly said. “Then, as they move through the program, they’ll start to tie these together into automated operations, and that’s where we’ll have the controllers and actuators and the manufacturing robots for the students to utilize.”

Connelly said that during the COVID-19 pandemic, he toured Climco Coils Inc. in Morrison, which was adding automation and using manufacturing robots in its facility due to labor shortages.

“We’re the best-kept secret in the Midwest, but we don’t want to be a secret. We place students all across the world and in all 50 states. You name the industry we’re in there.”

—  Morrison Tech President Christopher Scott

“As you see companies integrate these processes long term, they’re going to have to do things like this to be competitive,” Connelly said. “Our role is to help provide the workforce those local manufacturing needs, while also being a consulting spot for smaller companies that don’t have a lot of money to put into planning and design.”

The entire project, which includes the new facility, equipment, curriculum development and a “hot shop” to house the school’s forging and casting activities, will cost about $2.5 million, Connelly said. Once the addition is finished in the fall of 2025, it will enclose an outdoor courtyard area for demonstrations.

The college received a $1.5 million federal earmark in 2022 to build the facility and the program with help from former U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos and current U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin. An earmark is a provision in a spending bill that directs money to a specific recipient without going through the usual competitive process.

Connelly said the community project funding grant was part of the federal appropriations bill managed through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“The school will pick up the remaining costs,” Connelly said. “But we’re hopeful that we will be able to raise some additional funds from our employer partners.”

Local companies such as Wahl Clipper, Walmart and Mallard Manufacturing of Sterling were instrumental in helping the college develop a laboratory curriculum for its new automation engineering emphasis, Connelly said.

“Wahl Clipper showed us their practice room, where they have these great big boards with all these controllers and switches and actuators,” Connelly said. “They use their employees to design these, and then they can test it to see how they function on a factory floor. That’s one of the activities we’d like to adopt.”

For more information on the college, call 815-772-7218.