Telecommunications firms signal recovery by reviving accent on educational spending.

After several successive semesters of declining enrollment, the University of Southern California Center for Telecommunications Management finally had to cancel its Spring 1992 courses altogether due to lack of enrollment. But the center, which offers continuing education courses to telecommunication professionals, is now enjoying filled-to-capacity enrollment. And that is an early indication that the telecommunications industry is climbing out of recession, claimed Derald L. Sidler, associate director of executive education for USC's telecommunications program.

The fact that telecommunications companies are now once again investing the time and money to send their managers to USC to keep up with the changing global market and better position their companies for growth is a sure sign of recovery, Sidler said.

For the fall 1992 semester, enrollment in USC's management- and executive-targeted telecommunications courses was more than double the enrollment for the spring '92 semester, which was ultimately canceled.

USC filled both its Advanced Management Program in Telecommunications and its Middle Management Program in Telecommunications to capacity (limited to 35 students each) for the upcoming fall 1992 semester. Each program only received approximately 15 registration forms for the spring 1992 semester. They each had 18 students in the fall 1991 semester.

The strong fall '92 enrollment ends a three-semester decline in enrollment, Sidler pointed out.

USC and a handful of other U.S. universities started offering continuing education classes for telecommunications middle managers and executives in the mid-1980s. Such courses are designed to help keep executives abreast of changes in the industry and the growing international market potential.

The enrollment rebound shows global-oriented telecommunications companies have realized their executives should attend forums that keep them sharp on global trends, Sidler said.

USC's two-week courses brief students on critical telecommunications issues such as government regulation and new technology, Sidler said. Each course is offered once per semester, he added.

The USC Center for Telecommunications Management started its open-enrollment Executive Education program in 1985 and has 688 alumni to date. Last year the center was selected to host an intensive fact-finding mission to identify global issues and markets for telecommunications products.

When it first began in 1985, USC's program consisted of nothing more than executive round tables -- two-day, closed-door sessions for senior executives and corporate officers held twice a year, Sidler said.

An advanced, two-week management program in telecommunications was added in 1986. The following year, a two-week middle management program was started. A series of two-and-a-half-day marketing seminars was launched in 1990, which are offered as often as demand dictates, Sidler said.

Experts in the telecommunications field, not USC professors, teach the courses since they have a better grasp of industry changes than do full-time teachers, said Edward St. Croix, a visiting research professor who works for Canada-based Northern Telecom Ltd., a leading global supplier of digital telecommunications switching systems.

St. Croix is leading a research effort under the umbrella of the Center for Telecommunications Management at USC. The study is evaluating the telecommunications needs of various countries around the world, and evaluating their capacity to produce hardware, software and services for the industry, St. Croix said. The study is scheduled to be finished at the end of October.

So far, other Southland universities aren't following USC's lead in addressing the challenges and opportunities of the burgeoning telecommunications industry. Officials at the University of California, Los Angeles; California State University, Los Angeles; California State University, Long Beach; and private institutions such as National University acknowledged a need for telecommunications programs but haven't come forth with their own.

Up north, University of California, Berkeley has been offering a telecommunications extension program for industry executives since 1984, after it completed a study that identified 106 telecommunications companies in the San Francisco Bay Area.

By late 1985, IBM-Rolm, a now-dissolved partnership between IBM and Santa Clara-based Rolm Co., had expressed interest in UC Berkeley's program. Further market research showed 3,000 potential students each semester for the telecommunications extension program in the Bay Area alone. UC Berkeley's telecommunications program also draws from Los Angeles, said Alice Boatwright, a spokeswoman for the university's Public Policy College that offers the program.

"Dick Tsina has been the prime mover for the whole program for the last decade. In addition to the extension courses, he has helped build a telecommunications curriculum for executives that includes software, transmission, systems and technology," Boatwright said.

Tsina is a continuing-education specialist at UC Berkeley Extension, where he is vice chairman of the Continuing Education in Engineering Department.

Like the USC program, all UC Berkeley courses are given for academic credit. But rather than cram courses into a two-week schedule, the UC Berkeley program stretches them over 10 weeks of weekly night meetings, Boatwright said.

Elsewhere, Duke University in Durham, N.C., has a one-week continuing education course for telecommunications executives, Sidler pointed out. And Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., offers a 14-week program for technicians, but not for managers.