Advanced Technology Center (ATC)

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Advanced Technology Center (ATC)

• El Paso Community College
• Jose Ricardo Canales, Director

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Creating the Pathway

1. Overview
2. Framing Our Thoughts
3. Challenges Faced by Higher Education and
   Workforce
4. Placing Education at the Center
5. Explaining the Pathway Conceptual Model
6. Goals of the Process
7. Conclusion

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ATC Mission

• The instruction at the El Paso Community College
  ATC focuses on state-of-the-art cognitive and
  mechanical skills development through

• Industry-specific training
• Curriculum that meets today's industrial needs
• Flexible class scheduling which provides
  opportunities for students to attend classes
  either day, afternoon, evening or weekends
• Dialog with local and national industry which
  keeps our programs current
• Staff and faculty of the ATC work in concert with
  economic development agencies and business
  leaders to cultivate partnerships and ensure the
  validity of it's programs and classes

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Features of the ATC

• 20M State-of-the-Art Facility
• Seven (9) areas of learning
• Distance Learning Lab
• Certified Lab Assistants
• Coming soon
• Online Education
• Wireless communication

• Eight (8) student labs
• Precision Machining
• Industrial Maintenance
• Plastics Technology
• Welding
• Electrical Journeyman
• Robotics and Automation
• Office Technology

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Benefits to Students

• Acquire high-technical skills training
• Skills upgrade
• Job Placement after completion of program
• On-site counseling
• Resource Lab
• Resumes
• Access to Internet
• Online registration
• Free placement testing
• Free tutoring

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Benefits to Community

• Manufacturing and industrial resources and
  technologies meet the training needs
• Workforce Development
• Industry-specific training
• Partnerships with community and business leaders
• Opportunities for state-of-the-art instruction
• Industry-based apprenticeship programs
• Provide highly-qualified applicants

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Programs

• Plastics Technology
• Precision Machining
• Electrical Journeyman
• Industrial Maintenance
• Welding Processes
• Robotics and Automation
• Quality Control
• ISO
• Diesel Mechanic

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Framing our Thoughts

• To what extent is El Pasos educational entities
  involved in economic development?
• Are the educational entities presenting a
  seamless, united front as they investigate,
  collaborate, and educate our current and future
  workforce?
• Do our city/economic officials seek/trust the
  council of the educational entities? Do we have
  a systematic way of doing this? And do we have
  evaluative tools to gauge our success?
• Is education in El Paso being proactive in new
  and high tech fields and leading the way to new
  innovative business/industrial processes?
• Do we react to situations and thus limit our
  impact on strategic planning?
• When we seek funding, are we doing this through
  integrated efforts that consolidate resources
  from EPCC and UTEP/NMSU?
• Are we communicating? Is it effective?

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Challenges to Higher Education

• Traditional institutions are facing shrinking
  budgets and enrollment challenges
• There are major technological advances in
  education methodology -- the information age is
  here
• There are shifting demographics in the higher
  education workforce -- graying of the
  instructor/tenured professor
• There are shifting demographics in the higher
  education student body -- increasing adult and
  minority and off-campus enrollment
• There is a greater demand by organizations for
  skill-based education to prepare graduates for
  the challenge of the workplace in the global
  marketplace in the new millennium.
• BOTTOM LINE DO MORE WITH LESS

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Challenges to Workforce/Voc Ed Programs

• Challenges within Academic Settings
• The logical path that connects workforce
  courses with traditional academic tracts is
  either non-existent, or extremely blurred
• Traditional academia reduces workforce training
  to shop training and tragically is failing to
  see the important relevance that these applied
  courses have to academic areas such as math,
  science, and engineering
• The value these type of courses add to the
  student, the curriculum and the workplace
• Training and Research facilities, specifically in
  areas such as engineering are very limited and
  costly
• Facilities are expensive to build, maintain, and
  properly tool and thus the trend in education is
  to require less hands-on labs and more academic
  type courses
• We are producing scientists as opposed to
  engineers UTEP faculty

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Challenges to Workforce/Voc Ed Programs (cont..)

• Challenges in the Economic Sector
• As technology changes and the economic panorama
  shifts, little or inconsistent communication is
  given to local future economic expansions
• As a result education becomes reactive to
  problems, rather than proactive in the planning
  phases and thus becomes a small factor in
  economic development initiatives

• Social and Cultural Challenges
• Everyone wants their child to go to college.
  What this really means is they want them to go
  study a four-year career
• Parents and counselors are pushing 4-year
  academic degrees rather than their definition of
  workforce training
• Workforce is sent the problem children. Those
  that were deemed by some entity that they would
  not make-it in college (It is seen almost as a
  last chance)
• Workforce is seen as a step down, rather than as
  an extension of education

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Placing Education at the Center

• First step is to create a seamless pathway in our
  educational system
• Partnerships are the key
• Education should be at the center of
• Economic Development

Economic Development
Industry
EPCC
H S
Re- search
4-YR
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Fundamental Premise
Practical Application
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
RELEVANCE
Academics
Soft Skills
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Benefits of placing educationat the center

• When the focus is student success within our
  economic structure
• This facilitates the creation of policy and
  procedures that allow students to easily transfer
  from one institution to the other
• Creation of higher levels of evaluative tools
  because our outcomes directly impact industrys
  productivity
• It aligns the goals and outcomes of education
  with the goals and objectives of business and
  industry
• Research data becomes the center to economic
  initiatives and the cornerstone to skill
  development and future economic expansions
• Acquiring national and state resources for
  retooling training centers at all educational
  levels can now be a collaborative effort, rather
  than a competitive one
• Students are in tune and responsive to the local
  and future workforce needs of the community
• Programs are launched to meet specific current
  and future needs of the economic sector
• The pathway to student success would now be a
  pathway that they have choice and that business
  and industry see their success as well

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Conceptual FrameworkThe Pathway
Level IV
Level V
Level I
Level II
Level III
Level V
Level VI
Level VI
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Level 1 High SchoolAND EPCC-ATC

• Introduce Dual Credit to Workforce classes
• Diesel Mechanic
• Machining
• Electrical
• Robotics and Automation
• Industrial Maintenance
• Electronics
• HS students could begin their technical/pre-engine
  ering degree while still in high school and still
  benefit from our facility
• Currently working on dual credit pilot program
  with the El Paso Independent School District and
  the Center for Career and Technology Education

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Level II EPCC/ATC

• Mainstream ATC courses into existing
  pre-engineering degree plans
• Include applied coursework or labs into the
  pre-engineering degree plans that adds value to
  the education of our students and value to
  existing course offering
• Students would now have the choice to either
  continue a technical degree and find a well
  paying job, or move into a pre-engineering degree
  without losing credits

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Level III EPCC to UTEP/NMSU

• Articulation agreements are currently in place
  and becoming more prevalent
• Pre-Engineering articulation is currently being
  negotiated
• The ATC is currently offering 2 required
  undergraduate labs for senior-level industrial
  engineers
• Currently planning the expansion of
  undergraduate/graduate Robotics and Automation
  labs, mechanical engineering, electronics and
  expanding industrial engineering labs at the ATC
• Value of practical hands-on training

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Level IV - The Graduate Student

• Research support
• The ATC and UTEP are currently working on a joint
  National Science Foundation grant to create
  research cells in the ATC facility
• Areas of research will include Robotics and
  Automation, Industrial Engineering, Electronics,
  Mechanical Engineering and possibly metallurgy
• In this initiative a high-tech industrial library
  will also be funded to provide research
  capability and support to students and business
  entities alike

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Level V - Mentoring

• Doctoral, pre-engineering and High school
  students will have the opportunity to work in
  teams in real world projects that will benefit
  themselves and the community
• Graduate students will also teach lower-level
  courses as part of their internship

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Level VI Industrial Incubation Center

• Logical Outcome of Research cells
• Open to business/industry to create, test, or
  evaluate existing manufacturing processes
• Create a direct link to business/industry
• Create real world opportunities for students to
  work on industrial processes
• Teams will consist of faculty member, graduate
  student, technical student and possibly high
  school student
• Community Service

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Conceptual FrameworkThe Pathway
Level IV
Level II
Level III
Level V
Level I
Level VI
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Goals of Process

1. Give students the educational prerogative to
   choose their future
2. Open communication at levels of education and
   workforce training
3. Open solid, outcome based communication with
   business/industry
4. Create community-based evaluative tools
5. Effectively prepare our students for productive
   employment
6. Raise the overall skill level of El Paso/Juarez
   Region
7. Position Education as the center for economic
   development

Business/industry
Academics
Workforce Education
HS/EPCC/ATC/UTEP
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Conclusion

• Partnership at all levels is key for overall
  success
• ATC is partnering with the Center for Career and
  Technology Education and ardently working to
  offer HS students dual credit (pilot program)
• ATC is partnering with UTEP/CCTE/business and
  industry in the creation of the Robotics and
  automation program
• ATC is working to partner with Mesilla Valley
  trucking for our Diesel Program
• ATC WANTS TO PARTNER WITH YOU !!!