Advancing STEM Technician Education & Innovation: The Community College Leadership Role

Community and technical colleges have long been leaders and innovators in STEM reform and improvement efforts in the United States. As community-based institutions, they are uniquely positioned to keep pace with advances in technology to offer technician education programs that meet growing and evolving workforce needs. By providing affordable and accessible entry points into higher education and enrolling nearly 40 percent of all U.S. undergraduate students, community colleges represent a significant national pathway to meeting the growing and diverse needs of a global workforce critical to our nation’s competitiveness and future economic growth. As workplace and employer skill demands evolve, it is imperative that community colleges continue to engage in efforts to cultivate students’ ability to learn new skills, such as analytical and creative thinking, as they become increasingly essential. This project features activities designed to broaden the impact of community college leadership in advancing STEM technician education; encourage greater numbers of community colleges to develop or strengthen ATE-related programs; create and support venues for developing and nurturing STEM professional and leadership development opportunities for two-year college administrators, faculty, and students; cultivate innovation and entrepreneurship; support institutional STEM capacity building; and raise awareness of the resources and contributions of community colleges working in STEM technician education. Project activities include: 1) Hosting three national ATE Principal Investigators’ Conferences to provide professional and leadership development for the ATE community, 2) Launching a national application to select cohorts of the MentorLinks activity to enable community colleges to develop new or strengthen existing STEM technician education programs, 3) Leading the Community College Innovation Challenge (CCIC) to foster the development of students’ innovation and entrepreneurship skills through a national team pitch competition and summer Boot Camp modeled on NSF’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program, and 4) Developing an ATE Future Leaders Fellows pilot to: (a) enable 12 community college STEM professionals to participate in the AACC Roueche Future Leaders Institute or AACC Future Presidents Institute; (b) contribute to a national dialogue on STEM capacity building and creating a grant culture in support of ATE awards; and (c) raise awareness of the STEM education landscape to help shape the practice and competencies of community college leadership. The project will also conduct national outreach on the role and resources of community colleges in the ATE program and evaluate all grant activities to ensure the activities meet the needs of the two-year community and technical college community. This project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the Nation's economy. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.