The Florida Advanced
Technological Education Center of Excellence, FLATE, uses its NSF-ATE resources
to strengthen the advanced manufacturing technician education system in
Florida. This effort exemplifies the
creation of partnerships among the colleges, manufacturers, economic
development organizations, Workforce Florida, and Florida Department of
Education. Using this mutual effort among
its partners, FLATE has brokered strong working relationships among faculty in
the community and state colleges in Florida as well as with supporting industry
and the Florida Department of Education initiatives. Collectively, this effort has produced a
first in the nation, a statewide-articulated A.S. Engineering Technology Degree
program that also recognizes a national workforce credential as a substitute
for 15 hours of program course credit. FLATE
has continued to strengthen the existing Engineering Technology college network
as well as add others to the network. A
strong expanding college network happens because of mentoring activities,
curriculum alignment, professional development opportunities, resource
development, and interfacing between and among the colleges and the Florida
Department of Education. FLATE continues
to weave the strong, thin, transparent thread that interlaces these activities.
The FLATE designed and
crafted A.S. engineering technology degree program is a model credential-based articulated
pathway for manufacturing that was implemented by the Florida Department of
Education in 2008. The steady growth in
the number of colleges adopting the degree as well as colleges partnering with
FLATE to create an education system in Florida to meet industry needs is a key
element in the growth in program offerings at each college. The end result has
evolved into a strong community of practice amongst educators and industry
professionals across the state. With the
national lens now strongly focused on manufacturing and innovation, this community
of practice has become the seed for the genesis of several successful proposals
with the U.S. Department of Labor.
The 2012 Trade Adjustment Assistance Community
College Career Training (TAACCCT) grants have been announced. These grants are intended to help ensure
that the Nation’s institutions of higher education are helping adults succeed
in acquiring the skills, degrees, and credentials needed for the high–wage,
high skill occupations that satisfy the requirements of employers of this
skilled labor force. An excellent
example of this emerging partnership among NSF-ATE supported A.S. programs in
Florida and the Department of Labor is the TAACCCT grant to the Florida TRADE
program administered through St. Petersburg College. This award is among the largest TAACCCT second
round awards in the Nation and the largest in Florida. TRADE’s goal is “to improve upon Florida’s
existing training and education system in advanced manufacturing by aligning
its vast resources and partnerships and offering wide access to training that
will help address the growing critical skilled workforce shortage faced by the
state’s manufacturing industry and related industry clusters.”
TRADE has assembled a
cohort of workforce and academic partners to address this goal with the essence
of both groups being the two year college programs that will address the skills,
degrees, and credential elements of the grant.
Of the 12 colleges identified within the TRADE program, 75% of these
colleges already offer the Engineering Technology A.S. degree program and FLATE
is working with two of the remaining four to help them adopt the ET Degree. The FLATE developed ET degree is a foundation
piece for training and education in the Florida TRADE consortium. FLATE will work with these colleges and the
Florida Department of Education to academically align additional nationally
recognized workforce credentials to college credit certificates and degree
credit.
Outside the TRADE
consortium, Northwest State College (NWSC), Chipola College (CC), and Pensacola
State College (PSC), partnered with an Alabama consortium housed at George
Wallace Community College in Dothan, AL that is also focused on the
manufacturing sector. Together the three Florida colleges have been awarded $5.2 million to educate and train industrial
electricians, welders, machinists, automation technicians, and industrial
maintenance technicians. In
anticipation of this award, Northwest State College adopted the ET degree this
past summer and is offering its first courses this fall. PSC will expand its
existing ET certificate offerings to meet its training and education
requirements. FLATE will also be working
with Chipola to define the best ET degree specialization programs to meet its
consortium goals.
St Petersburg College
is also engaged with a Forsythe Technical Community College Consortium for
TAACCCT funding focused on Biosciences. SPC will be awarded $700,000 to
participate with the group funded to define specific training and credentials
for medical device manufacturing. The strong
medical device manufacturing cluster in the SPC service area will be supporting
this effort. The Biomedical Systems College Certificate and the Biomedical
Systems Technology Specialization in the ET Degree are foundations of SPC’s
participation in this primarily North Carolina consortium.
Although Florida was
not awarded significant funding in round 1 of the TAACCCT grants, Florida State
College at Jacksonville (FSCJ) is a significant partner in the STEM Consortium
housed at Ann Arundel Community College in Maryland. This $20M consortium funded in 2011 is
focused on a number of discipline areas with its college partners across the
eastern US. One working team of this group is developing a 30 credit hour
college certificate for Mechatronics. At FSCJ and in Florida, this certificate
is an easy fit under the ET Degree Advanced Manufacturing Specialization. FLATE and FSCJ will be submitting the
required curriculum frameworks and justification to the FLDOE this month. Embedded in this certificate will be an
alignment to the MSSC CPT as well another to the Siemens mechatronics
certification.
Adding to the
investment in Florida manufacturing education and in support of FLATE’s ET
community, a number of the 2012 NSF-ATE awards are projects that use the foundation
of FLATE’s Engineering Technology Degree.
Polk State College was funded to evolve their ET Degree in to open entry/open exit format to address the needs of the working students in their
service area. This innovative idea
allows the college to transition its ET Advanced Manufacturing Degree courses into
one credit hour modules and offer an open lab with faculty coaches. Tallahassee
Community College (TCC) was awarded funding to help adopt the A.S. ET degree,
after having adopted a number of the ET college certificates two years
ago. TCC has partnered with three high
school engineering programs to build a pipeline of students for the new
degree. Lastly, our home
institution, HCC, was awarded $2.8 million that will allow FLATE to continue as
a statewide NSF Center of Excellence for an additional 3 years.
Working together and
leveraging our early NSF investments, we are building a strong infrastructure
for manufacturing education. When added
up, the new investments are staggering. We must not only invest the incoming funds
to meet the specific deliverables of all these grants, but continue to build
our Florida manufacturing community. Hopefully, we can be good stewards of the new
funds, investing it wisely to create a sustainable and strong future for
manufacturing education in Florida.
William C. Schwartz Industry Innovation award winners were recognized at a special luncheon on September 6, 2012 at SeaWorld’s Ports of Call in Orlando. The event, sponsored by the Orlando EDC, MACF and other organizations, was attended by more than 100 guests who had the privilege to see some of the many things that are currently “Made in Florida”. FLATE, as the leading resource center of excellence for advanced technological education, could not miss this opportunity to support Florida Manufactures whose innovation, entrepreneurship and hi-technology are making the difference to help improve our Florida’s economy.
The VEX box Robots are a sample of the “Made in Florida” Summer Robotics Camps promoted by FLATE every year for middle and high schools students. This program, which includes an introductory and advanced camp, is designed to introduce students to robotics and teach them STEM concepts used in modern manufacturing. During the camps, students learn to programming robotics and understand the science behind it in an environment of fun, team work and competitive problem solving. 
