Partnerships with industry and academic institutions are required for Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grants. But how recipients of these National Science Foundation awards form and use partnerships is not prescribed. Consequently, the two-year college educators who have leadership roles in ATE grants can be quite creative. Here are some examples.
This article comes from the October/November issue of the Community College Journal, the bimonthly magazine of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC).
Outcomes from the four community college-university pairs that participated in the Microelectronics and Nanomanufacturing Veterans Partnership (MNVP) were so promising after three semesters that Penn State University added three more pairs of institutions. They began offering the intense 12-week hybrid nanotechnician education program to veterans and veterans’ dependents this fall.
Penn State’s Center for Nanotechnology Education and Utilization provides the two-hour live lectures virtually Monday through Friday for 12 weeks. Each community college and university pair determines where participants view the lectures, how they get to the university, what hands-on lessons they do in the cleanrooms, and the types of academic support that community college instructors provide outside the labs.
In Arizona, Rio Salado College has enjoyed strong enrollment in the certificate program it offers with Arizona State University, which provides the space and instructors for the labs.
“ASU has been a tremendous partner … But we were partners with ASU well before this [the MNVP] ever came into existence, and I think that’s why we have a little bit of a leg up,” said Rick Vaughn, chair of STEM Initiatives at Rio Salado and occasional instructor of nanotech and other subjects
With the support of the National Science Foundation, AACC will host the 2024 ATE Principal Investigators’ Conference this week in Washington, D.C. Look for coverage in CC Daily.
Vaughn also praised the work of Jessica Arroyo, the student success coach he calls “a rock star” at recruiting veterans and helping them find jobs.
Arroyo has developed partnerships with the veterans’ services offices at all 10 Maricopa Community Colleges and KJZZ, the community college district’s National Public Radio station. Wide brochure distribution, lots of one-on-one encouragement from Arroyo and veteran services personnel, and radio announcements yielded so many applicants that Rio Salado’s fall 2024 cohort has 13 students and 24 will start in January 2024.
When she began work in 2023, Arroyo focused on introducing herself and the program to micro-and nanotechnology employers in the region. Some were officially partners of the project, but everyone was still figuring out how they fit in.
“The industry partner wants to be engaged, but they’re not going to offer. They’re going to wait for you to invite them,” she said.
In spring 2024, she asked five companies to conduct mock interviews with the six veterans then in the program.
“I really wanted to put the participants through an interview without any repercussions … I wanted the employer to really tell the candidate, ‘Your resume is good,’ or ‘Here’s what you need to change,’” Arroyo said. “And so I wanted that specific personal feedback for the participant so they understood how to go forward.”
With resumes truly polished by the end of the semester, four students were hired by companies involved in the mock interviews. Another participant had a nanotech job by midsummer.
Reaching out to tribal college educators
Key deliverables of the Environmental and Natural Resources Technology (EARTh) Center at Central Carolina Community College (North Carolina) are the augmented virtual reality (AVR) simulations its team creates to teach hazardous waste site safety and about expensive personal protective equipment in a low-stakes environment.
Another aspect of the center is the professional development it offers for tribal college educators. This outreach builds on relationships initiated by the Advanced Technology Environmental Education Center (ATEEC), a previously funded ATE center, and the National Partnership for Environmental Technology Education (PETE), an AACC-affiliated council.
In May, EARTh Center leaders convened a summit with 12 tribal college educators and a tribal community elder at Michigan’s Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College (SCTC) to gather their insights for a best practices guide.
Sharyl A. Majorski, EARTh’s Tribal College consultant and an adjunct instructor at SCTC, moderated discussions among tribal college educators with whom she has developed relationships as part of her previous outreach work for ATEEC and PETE.
“The key to sustaining partnerships is respect. Often, people come in with good ideas for improvement, however, they do not include the people they are wanting to help, until last minute. True respect values the people from the very beginning of a concept and listens to what they have to say throughout. Communication begins with listening to concerns and listening to what is needed, not in coming in with what is perceived,” she wrote in an email.
The summit participants also recommended that EARTh’s weeklong Fellows Institute for Tribal Faculty in June 2025 on Beaver Island, Michigan, focus on water quality issues, the impact of climate change in tribal lands, and what environmental jobs are available in tribal communities.
