Energy Services & Technology students at KVCC learn advanced skills in multiple technical areas. The female student in the photo hopes to return to the program in the future; the male student is a veteran with a bachelor's degree who wants a more hands-on career.
Kennebec Valley Community College (KVCC) administrators and faculty crafted a versatile Energy Services and Technology program after Maine employers told them a stand-alone plumbing program would provide technicians with only a fraction of the skills that owners of energy efficient buildings and energy businesses need.
"We really need multi-faceted technicians with the licenses, to boot, and the experience, because their jobs are changing on a daily, weekly, monthly basis," Dana Doran said, summarizing industry's feedback to the college's initial idea of starting a stand-alone plumbing program. Doran is director of KVCC's Energy and Paper Programs.
The other "loud and clear request" from industry was that KVCC's new program teach critical thinking.
With the support of a $735,944 grant from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education program, KVCC devised the Energy Services and Technology (EST) program. It teaches multiple trades and uses problem based learning (PBL) to develop students' critical thinking across academic and technical courses. In addition to awarding students associate in applied science degrees, the EST program prepares students to take four state licensing tests and four separate national industry certification exams.
Recent evidence of the success of the new program comes from the selection of KVCC's Bradley Harding as 2014 Plumbing Instructor of the Year by a national industry association.