Although most of us are familiar with major public universities like Penn State, Colorado-Boulder, Georgia, and Ohio State, we are typically unfamiliar with corporate universities such as Motorola Solutions Learning, Intel University, and the AT&T Learning Center. This is because corporate universities are a fairly new concept, and they are created to serve the needs of a particular company's employees and other stakeholders. The term corporate university has been adopted by firms that have significantly upgraded their training and development activities by creating learning centers within their corporations. These learning centers are typically designed to prioritize a firm's training initiatives, and to quickly share with a firm's employees the skills, techniques, and best practices that are necessary to remain competitive. For example, when a new quality tool or technique is developed, it is often the responsibility of a firm's corporate university to develop a plan to equip the firm's employees with the skills necessary to quickly incorporate the new tool or techniques into their work areas. Following are brief descriptions of two corporate universities. After reading these descriptions, ask yourself the following rhetorical question: Are these corporations well equipped to teach their employees the tools of quality'?" Motorola Solutions Learning (MSL) Motorola Solutions Learning (MSL) began as the Motorola Training and Education Center. Initially, the purpose of MSL was to help Motorola strengthen its training efforts and build a quality-focused corporate culture. Through the years, MSL has grown in both size and stature and now has a staff of more than 400 employees and seven facilities across the world. The stated objectives of MSL are as follows:
• To provide training and education to all Motorola employees.
• To prepare Motorola employees to be best-in-class in their industries.
• To serve as a catalyst for change and continuous improvement to position Motorola Corporation for the future.