Florida Keys Community College student Cody Moore uses a 3-D printer as he helps with prototype development at Hydrokinetic Energy Corp. The paid internship at the company in spring 2019 is the capstone experience of his Engineering Technology-Renewable Energy Technician degree.

When Patrick H. Rice looks out his office window at the pristine waters of the Florida Keys, lapping at the edge of Florida Keys Community College and surrounding the island campus, he sees more than a fabulous view: he envisions an open-air, controlled lab for students to conduct authentic research on renewable energy.  

“We are surrounded by hydrokinetic power. We’ve got plenty of wind—sometimes way more than we want—and we’re the sunshine state. So it just makes sense to have a renewable energy program down here. The whole goal is to build the program, and, at the same time, have students help us build the program and build those industries,” Rice says. He is the college’s Chief Science & Research Officer and principal investigator of its Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grant (Award # 1601440).

Three of the 11 students in the Engineering Technology-Renewable Energy Technician program, which Rice started with ATE grant support, are in the process of completing capstone internship experiences.

Industry partnerships play a vital role in the way that many ATE projects and centers plan for, design, and implement their various programs, projects, research, and more. Industry partners might act in an advisory role; assist with curriculum or professional development; offer student opportunities for growth and innovation; support instruction, program costs, or research; or offer workplace-based learning opportunities. In this month’s From the Archive blog post, we look at resources, created by ATE project and centers like yours, that help describe a variety of industry partnerships models and explore how one might develop or sustain such a partnership.

The BigBadTech YouTube channel logo pops up whenever Jim Pytel mentions a previous lecture during a video. “It helps remind students the channel serves as a path through the forest. If they ever wander too far off the path the previous lectures will hopefully get them back on track,” he explained.

As the team at ATE Central ramps up to create the ATE Impacts 2020-2021 publication, it is asking the ATE community for nominations of projects with promising outcomes or interesting activities to spotlight.

Nominate your project or someone else’s at https://www.research.net/r/ProjNom.

The book is a great opportunity to increase awareness of the innovations developed by principal investigators of Advanced Technological Education (ATE) projects and centers and to promote technician education in general.

In addition to informing people who read the book, the dynamic photos and compelling data that projects and centers have provided for previous editions have often been re-purposed for other technician-education outreach.

The American Association of Community Colleges, a partner on the ATE Collaborative Outreach and Engagement (ACOE) project that includes the ATE Impacts book and blog, has used ATE Impact photos in its digital and print publications, website, and ATE Principal Investigators’ Conference displays. The ACOE project has displayed large versions of ATE Impact photos at education and industry conventions. The National Science Foundation, which funds the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program and the ATE Impacts book and blog, has reprinted ATE Impact photos too.

Jim Pytel, principal investigator of the Flipped Classroom Resources for Electrical Engineering Technicians project, reports that being one of the 28 projects featured in ATE Impacts 2018-2019: 25 Year of Advancing Technological Education may have contributed to more people accessing his BigBadTech videos. From October 2018 to March 2019 the project’s YouTube channel with 600 instructional videos gained 5,000 subscribers for a total of 27,600 people.

“I’ve got no direct evidence tying the increase in interest to the ATE Impact book, however, both the book and the ATE Principal Investigators’ Conference are a great way of disseminating this work among my peers,” Pytel wrote in an email.

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This recent article by the Community College Journal reveals that employers are always interested in new graduates’ technical skills but, according to a survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), new graduates’ problem solving skills, abilities to work in a team, and communication skills are among the top attributes employers are looking for.

John Kinney, head of claims at The Hartford Insurance, said that one of the most dramatic shifts over the last ten years has been the rise in customer expectations. “Not only must our claims employees satisfy the technical aspects of the job, but they also have to serve as the face of our company in people’s time of need,” Kinney says. “How do we provide a level of service to our customers that will encourage them to promote our brand to their friends and family? You need somebody who is really good at building rapport.”

STEM TP2 student Jonah Veliz, as part of his UC Irvine Introduction to Teaching Math and Science course, leads a math lesson for fifth graders at Workman Avenue Elementary School in West Covina, CA.

As Silvia Torrico explains it, she and her sister Evelyn were always strong math students so they enrolled at Mount San Antonio College (Mt. SAC) intending to become engineers. However, “there was just something about it that wasn’t working for us,” she said.

They read a flyer about the college's teacher preparation program and then went to an information session where they heard about the Mt. SAC STEM Teacher Preparation Program (STEM TP2). This Advanced Technological Education (ATE) project’s strategies for helping community college students become STEM teachers include hands-on teaching opportunities, two University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) courses, and authentic STEM research projects. 

At a subsequent meeting where they learned more about STEM TP2 from Iraj B. Nejad and Charles G. Newman, principal investigator and co-principal investigator respectively, Silvia Torrico said there was a pivotal moment when the professors talked about teaching as a way to change the future.

Diversity and inclusivity are important goals of the ATE program; projects and centers--along with STEM educators, industry, and other community partners--work diligently to ensure the full participation of women, persons with disabilities, Veterans, underrepresented minorities, and others, as these groups pursue STEM education, workforce development training, and employment in STEM fields.

In this month’s From the Archive blog post, we highlight the work of three ATE projects and centers that are addressing the challenge of engaging female students in STEM disciplines. The resources below include one college’s plan to increase enrollment and retention of women in their engineering program, a best practices guide for recruiting and retaining girls, as well as a few case studies about successful strategies and practices. For additional resources about women in STEM, check out the ATE Central Resource Portal.

Seethal Meda, a graduate of the biotechnology certificate program at Montgomery County Community College, points to test results confirming deletion of the frataxin gene during a process she conducted for her research internship.

Seethal Meda’s poster summarizing the discoveries she made during a biotech internship illustrate both her biotechnology skills and the power of synergy within the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program.

The poster she presented during the student showcase at the 2018 ATE Principal Investigators’ Conference featured dazzling photos of differentiated cells illuminated with immunofluorescence as they responded to the “knock-out gene” that a start-up company agreed to have Meda investigate. Her slides and the text descriptions of procedures she executed in the lab at Montgomery County Community College (MCCC) in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, provide prospective employers with evidence of her advanced biotechnology skills.

The complex laboratory tasks that she carried out and described in the poster’s text can be traced back to ATE investments in curriculum and faculty development. And, now the standard operating procedures that Meda developed to conduct her research project are part of one of the modules accessible via the Instructor’s Portal that the Northeast Biomanufacturing Center and Collaborative (NBC2) offers as a free resource for high school and college educators.

A special thanks to Rachel Flynn for contributing this month’s From the Archive blog post. Rachel is a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison iSchool.

Many ATE projects and centers extend the scope of their reach by developing materials to be used in K-12 classrooms. These STEM-focused materials teach students a variety of concepts related to science, technology, engineering, and math; many of the materials that are made available through the ATE Central Archive can be used and adapted to fit a variety of classroom settings. In this month’s From the Archive blog post, we’re highlighting the work of three ATE projects and centers that support the education of middle school students in STEM. Resources featured include a workbook about energy, an assortment of lesson plans, and an activity designed to teach middle school students about manufacturing. For more information, explore the links provided below. To find more resources in the Archive geared towards middle school students, try browsing ATE Central by Education Level.

Three National Science Foundation (NSF) program directors are encouraging ATE principal investigators to become involved in The Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier (FW-HTF) and Harnessing the Data Revolution—two of NSF’s Ten New Big Ideas for Future Investment—because they have the potential to overlap with technician education.  

At the first convening of the Preparing Technicians for the Future of Work (PTFOW) project on December 13 in Washington, D.C., Jordan Berg, a program director in the Division of Civil, Mechanical & Manufacturing Innovation (ENG/CMMI),  said NSF program directors would “very, very much like to see people who have their sleeves rolled up and their arms plunged in to education playing major roles in the intellectual merit and research component of these proposals.” 

Berg and two other program directors—Robert Scheidt and Stephanie August—presented information about these funding opportunities to the 26 ATE center principal investigators who the PTFOW project had gathered as an ATE Leadership Caucus to help inform its work over the next four years. The project led by Principal Investigator Ann-Claire Anderson, vice president of special projects at the Center for Occupational Research and Development (CORD), seeks to enable the ATE community to collaborate regionally and across disciplines with industry partners to transform associate degree programs to prepare US technicians for the future of work.  

The project’s 10 industry advisors also attended the meeting. At the meeting the ATE educators and industry advisors identified the following technologies as drivers of transformative workplace changes: artificial intelligence, the internet-of-things, cybersecurity procedures, advanced robotics, digital design, and prototyping.  See http://preparingtechnicians.org  for more information about the ATE Leadership Caucus meeting and the project’s podcasts, regional convenings, and workshops.

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Part of our focus at ATE Central is to create pathways to information and experts that can support and strengthen the work of ATE grantees. ATE Central recently sat down with Farra Trompeter, VP of Big Duck, a communications firm that works exclusively with nonprofits based in Brooklyn NY, to discuss how branding and marketing can enhance the work of projects and centers.

Please tell us a little bit about Big Duck and your role there.

Big Duck (www.bigducknyc.com) develops the voices of determined nonprofits by creating strong brands, campaigns, and teams. We specialize in working with nonprofits experiencing significant growth and change. I’ve been a member of Big Duck’s team since 2007. As Vice President, I guide organizations through major brand overhauls, fundraising campaigns, and much more. I also speak around the country, training nonprofit professionals on marketing, online fundraising, and donor engagement. You can learn more about me here and connect directly via Twitter via @Farra.

What exactly is branding and why should ATE grantees be concerned about branding their project/center work?

A brand is your project or center’s voice. It’s what your audiences hear, see, experience, and feel—and the impression that is formed as a result of their experiences with you. Your voice may be disjointed, murky, and barely louder than a whisper. Or your voice can ring out, differentiate, and reverberate.

A strong brand isn’t just a temporary fix or a website update. It’s built for the long haul, often to embody a new strategic plan, the vision of a new leader, or other seismic shifts. Rebranding means expressing that vision deeply and authentically, internally and externally.

For a project or center, a strong brand can help you reach and engage with students, faculty, program partners, and other key audiences. It can also help you build relationships with funders and donors for programmatic sustainability.