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Award Abstract # 1501449
The SMART Center: Creating the Next Generation of Credentialed, Skilled Technicians for the Maritime and Transportation Industry

NSF Org: DUE
Division Of Undergraduate Education
Recipient: TIDEWATER COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Initial Amendment Date: September 9, 2015
Latest Amendment Date: November 14, 2019
Award Number: 1501449
Award Instrument: Continuing Grant
Program Manager: Virginia Carter
vccarter@nsf.gov
 (703)292-4651
DUE
 Division Of Undergraduate Education
EDU
 Directorate for STEM Education
Start Date: September 15, 2015
End Date: August 31, 2020 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $2,987,753.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $2,987,753.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2015 = $2,032,236.00
FY 2017 = $955,517.00
History of Investigator:
  • Thomas Stout (Principal Investigator)
    tstout@tcc.edu
  • Sarah Janes (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • George Hagerman (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Brad Mason (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Sandra Weber (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Barbara Murray (Former Principal Investigator)
  • Erika Bowles (Former Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Jennifer Palestrant (Former Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Tidewater Community College
121 COLLEGE PL # 623
NORFOLK
VA  US  23510-1938
(757)822-1063
Sponsor Congressional District: 03
Primary Place of Performance: Tidewater Community College
1800 College Crescent
Virginia Beach
VA  US  23453-1901
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
02
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): GX1LMNCH1K79
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): Advanced Tech Education Prog
Primary Program Source: 04001516DB NSF Education & Human Resource
04001718DB NSF Education & Human Resource
Program Reference Code(s): 1032, 9178, SMET
Program Element Code(s): 741200
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.076

ABSTRACT

The Southeast Maritime and Transportation (SMART) Center stands well-poised to increase the pipeline of educated, credentialed technicians working in our country's vitally important maritime and transportation industry. The SMART Center will build on work to change students' and educators' perception of the maritime and transportation industry and the educational pathway leading to highly-paid, highly-skilled careers. Increasing industry leaders' awareness of the potential to build a more highly-qualified and credentialed workforce will catalyze partnerships between employers and colleges. Increasing the number of veterans, women, first-generation college students and under-represented minorities is the first goal of the proposed work. Connecting educators to employers through the SMART Institutes will increase the number of students enrolling in and completing academic programs to become credentialed technicians.

The SMART Center's four high-level goals are:
Goal 1: Career Awareness -- Increase career awareness by replicating and teaching career pathways to produce a greater number of increasingly diverse students entering the maritime and transportation industry pipeline and exiting with academic and industry-valued credentials.
Goal 2: Identifying Industry Standards for Curriculum -- Expand the SMART Center digital repository of industry competencies linked to courses and credentials embedded in registered apprenticeship and building related pathways in maritime logistics and emerging maritime-dependent offshore industries.
Goal 3: Professional Development -- Deliver scalable models of industry-validated professional development built on existing partnerships, including expansion of the SMART Institute model, to create a network of SMART educator-ambassadors.
Goal 4: Partnerships -- Model effective industry and educator partnerships to maintain national focus on maritime and transportation industry workforce needs and to influence formation of federal, regional and state policies and pathways to meet those needs.

The SMART Center will scale the SMART Maritime Technologies pathway built on the registered apprenticeship model which incorporates in-demand industry certifications and academic courses that confer college credit toward degrees. Work will include adaptation of successful SMART Center career pathway tools to each of the four maritime transportation industry sectors: (1) shipbuilding and ship repair, (2) seagoing/vessel operations, (3) marine logistics/port services, and (4) emerging maritime-dependent offshore industries. The SMART Center will build a replicable education model for the emerging maritime-dependent offshore wind energy industry by identifying competencies needed for academic and industry credentials and creating relevant courses.

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

 

The Southeast Maritime and Transportation (SMART) Center serves as a national resource for maritime education, successfully increasing the number of educated and credentialed technicians working in our country's crucially essential maritime and transportation industry. The Center has been recognized as a strategic leader in spearheading the collaboration of industry leaders and educators to create replicable education pathways - ones that produce work-ready technicians who meet national maritime industry standards.

Aligned its work with the three primary industry sectors in maritime and transportation: Shipbuilding and Ship Repair, Vessel Operations, and Ports and Maritime Logistics. These three segments are interdependent and technician skills can transition between them. The SMART Center's work has been able to grow industry and educational partners across the country to begin to meet the national needs of the maritime industry for increased education pathways. Nation-wide career outreach which included SMART Institutes, workshops, maritime summer camps and youth outreach events ? assisted in increasing the number of students entering the pipeline.  

 

The SMART Maritime Technologies pathway enables students to earn a series of academic certificates that ?stack? toward an Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.) degree in Maritime Technologies. Completers can simultaneously earn nationally-recognized, industry-valued credentials. The 2+2+2 pathways have been created for all three industry sectors that begin with high school students earning college credit for dual enrollment, continuing through community college certificates and an A.A.S. degree with industry credentials, and on to four-year college programs. Over the last five years, this pathway has had 2,826 enrollments, awarded 431 CSC or AAS degrees, and had 4,621 certifications completed.  The SMART Center has also created 113 crosswalks for non-credit certification to academic credit within the maritime pathway.

 

Core maritime curriculum and textbooks previously developed by the SMART Center were published as open sources resources for other educators to replicate the pathway work done by the Center. These materials include DACUM results, textbooks, syllabi and exams for Maritime Welding, Shippfitting and Introduction to Ship Systems and Maritime Technology.  These materials were used by the Hampton City Schools to create the core of their Maritime Academy curriculum and were approved by the Virginia Department of Education for use by any of the state?s public schools.

Website at www. Maritime-technology.org website had over 23,531 visits in the last five years.  All of the resources for direct download. 

 

Resource and Career Guidebook was created by the Center as a comprehensive career guide featuring information about careers in every sector of the maritime industry, as well as information on apprenticeships and educational resources available for the maritime industry.

Twenty-four new Make the SMART Choice videos were created to promote maritime careers and pathway.  During the grant, these videos were viewed online 40,446 times. SMART videos are able to be viewed or download at the SMART website or our YouTube channel at 

Created an industry-validated ?SMART Resource Toolkit for Students and Educators.? The Resource Toolkit contains the SMART Resource and Career Guidebook, SMART pathways and 2+2+2 documents, and a DVD featuring 26 ?Make the SMART Choice? video segments.

SMART Maritime and Transportation Institute is a week-long professional development program that engages, educates, and equips STEM and CTE educators, college faculty, industry leaders, guidance counselors, and career coaches with the information and tools necessary to inspire and drive more students into the academic pathway. Eighty-eight educators attended SMART Institutes during the last 5 years.  Additionally, the SMART Center created shorter workshops including, Get SMART and , Maritime 101.  These workshops engage educators in a similar approach within a shorter timeframe and with more local applicability to the training. To date, 574 educators have participated in these workshop.  It was reported that 4,325 have been affected from the professional development educators received from these events.  

The capstone event for the Center was the All Hands on Deck National Maritime Education Conference.  This national conference produced by the SMART Center feature keynote speakers from the maritime industry, session presentations from high school and community college maritime education programs across the country, as well as industry tours.  Additionally, this conference had regional sponsors and national industry and education sponsors. The conference had a total of 105 participants representing education, industry and government. 

Over the last decade, the SMART Center has achieved significant results toward its goals: increasing career awareness, creating and communicating effective career pathways and industry standards, providing innovative professional development and modeling effective industry and education partnerships. The work completed by the SMART Center will continue at our partner locations, Tidewater Community College, Anne Arundel Community College, San Jacinto College, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, and Skagit Valley College.  We hope the collaborations that we have created will continue to positively influence maritime education for many years to come. 

 

 


Last Modified: 12/30/2020
Modified by: Thomas Stout

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