FLATE Team Continues Florida College Visits

Florida State College at Jacksonville

FLATE is continuing to visit college partners and meet with faculty around the state. This year, representatives from Florida Advanced Technological Education Center (FLATE), Dr. Marilyn Barger and Ernie Friend, plan to visit all 23 colleges that have ET-related programs. So far, they have visited seven colleges in north, central, and south Florida.  The latest schools visited are St Johns River State College (SJRSC) and Florida State College at Jacksonville (FSCJ).  The schools visited earlier this year include St. Petersburg College (SPC), Pasco-Hernando State College (PHSC), North Florida College (NFC), Tallahassee Community College (TCC), and Palm Beach State College (PBSC). The schools are as different as the parts of Florida they serve.  Two things all seven schools have in common are dedicated faculty and established hands-on labs. 

The visits included a detailed tour of the labs and a deep dive into the individual ET programs.  Each college has unique challenges, but common themes included attracting more students and increasing partnerships with the regional manufacturing industries. Growing enrollments and industry partnerships are not just challenges for colleges but many post-secondary education institutions in Florida and across the country. FLATE, along with FloridaMakes, is committed to working on both challenges by finding creative ways to connect schools with potential students and using the FloridaMakes network to identify new companies to work with colleges.   With more school visits on the schedule, a complete picture of Florida colleges’ value in workforce development for the manufacturing sector will become even more evident.  

A sincere appreciation goes out to all the colleges visited so far for sharing their achievements and challenges and allowing FLATE to be a partner in their success. Special thanks to the all faculty and staff that collaborated with us during the visits.  The team at FSCJ included Patrick Land and Darrell High. The team at SJRSC included Dean John (Jay) Paterson, Director of Computer Education John Etienne, Timothy Gilboy, Vincent Elston, and Susan Frandsen.  We are excited to announce that SJRSC has agreed to host the Fall 2022 ET Forum on September 29-30, 2022 at the beautiful Thrasher-Horne