On September 12, Nancy Maron, Program Director of Sustainability and Scholarly Communications at Ithaka S&R, and Rachael Bower, Director and PI of ATE Central, presented a webinar providing an overview of sustainability issues of interest to ATE projects and centers. Key topics included the importance of defining what sustainability means in relation to your specific project or center deliverables and goals, how understanding your audience relates to sustainability planning, and why measuring the impact of what you’re doing is critical to the process. If you missed the webinar, you can still watch the recording.

Are you interested in designing a more effective dissemination and marketing plan for your project or center? If so, then check out ATE Central's Outreach Kit at atecentral.net/outreach. This online toolkit includes a Planning Guide to show you, step by step, how to build and execute a realistic and achievable outreach plan. Learn new and innovative ways to reach your audience and connect with the ATE community and beyond with the Social Media Guide. Use the Communications Guide to craft your project or center's message, discover new dissemination paths, and learn to build your own media kit. In addition, you will find a Resources section which will direct you to some best practices within NSF and ATE, other free and low-cost outreach tools, further helpful links, and some suggested reading. If you're ready to show Broader Impacts and ensure your NSF mission, then get started with the ATE Outreach Kit.

The National Science Foundation's Division of Undergraduate Education in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources is requesting comments on possible changes to the current program solicitation, that could include: (1) Adding specific emerging areas to expand the pool of skilled technicians in strategic advanced-technology fields; (2) increasing focus on or highlighting gaps in the program solicitation that need to be addressed; (3) developing new types of partnerships (e.g., NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnerships, partnerships with Discipline-Based Educational Researchers, partnerships with learning scientists, educational researchers and evaluators); and (4) adding Research & Development (R&D) on innovations in curricular, learning materials, tools, assessments, and faculty and student professional development.

The EvaluATE Evaluation Resource Center for Advanced Technological Education (ATE) has released their fact sheet, which summarizes data gathered in the 2011 survey of National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grant recipients. The survey was conducted by The Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University, this was the eleventh annual survey of ATE projects and centers. Included in the fact sheet are statistics about the program’s grantees and their activities, accomplishments, and impacts during the 2010 calendar year. To download the fact sheet PDF click here.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) recently released a report that addresses a fundamental question about community colleges: why are so many of them unable to successfully secure federal funding for computing programs? The report, "Digitally Enhancing America's Community Colleges," offers recommendations designed to spur new grant proposals, inventive initiatives and dynamic partnerships that infuse innovation into community college computing courses and programs. For a link to the 24-page report click here. To read NSF's release about the summit, ACM, and the report click here.

To broaden its impact among two-year colleges, the National Science Foundation (NSF) asked community college educators to explain the challenges they face when applying for grants and suggest emerging issues the NSF should consider funding. The Community College Times and the American Association for Community Colleges published an article discussing NSF's aims and a recent conference that provided a venue for further discussion of the effort. For the article click here.

Revised due dates for NSF funding opportunities that fell between October 1-25, 2013 have been posted on the Resumption of Operations page on the NSF website. This includes the ATE solicitation which has been changed to November 6th, 2013. These revised dates apply whether the proposal is being submitted via the NSF FastLane system or Grants.gov.

Celebrating 20 years of NSF's Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program, the new ATE@20 blog highlights the valuable work being done by ATE projects and centers. Read the blog to learn about the history of ATE and get more information about exciting new project and center deliverables, partnerships, and best practices. We'd also love to hear from you and include your achievements, memories, and pictures in the project. Send them to us at ate20@atecentral.net. We look forward to hearing from you!

AgCareers.com and AgrowKnowledge US Enrollment and Employment Outlook Report is now available here. Through a partnership with AgrowKnowledge, AgCareers.com is releasing the US Enrollment and Employment Outlook Report which includes: enrollment data of associate and baccalaureate degrees in agriculture from the past 4 years, a look at what employment opportunities are available for those graduates, a salary outlook for internship and entry level positions in the agricultural career clusters, and results of a student perception of agricultural careers survey.

The Mid-Pacific Information and Communication Technologies Center (MPICT) and the California Community College Centers of Excellence recently released a "Phase 2 ICT Environmental Scan: Industry and Employment Outlook for the State of California" and it is available to download, free of charge, through the "Currently Featuring" section of the MPICT homepage. The study maps existing industry data and employment data to an ICT framework, and demonstrates how important the ICT industry is to the California economy. Over 600 California companies were interviewed for the study and their responses demonstrate the strong and growing strategic importance of ICT in all kinds of organizations, and they show strong ICT employment growth prospects over the next two years. Click here for MPICT's homepage and more information.