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Students who participate in ATE projects and centers are serious about their careers. They often seek a clear picture of their future work life, including a cost-benefit analysis of how much they will have to give (in terms of money and time), and how much they will get (in terms of salary, job satisfaction, security, and other measures). ATE grantees need data to help support a variety of project and center initiatives, whether its for tracking progress, gaining institutional support, or helping students understand employment opportunities. This is where the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Occupational Outlook Handbook, which is fully available on the BLS website, can help. Students, parents, ATE grantees, and their collaborators may search the handbook in a number of convenient ways. 

The authentic biotech lab experiences Sonja Lopez-Tellez had as an Austin Community College student will become more plentiful when the college opens a $4.9 million biotech research wet lab in 2016.

The small, but real, work projects Sonja Lopez-Tellez completed as a biotech student at Austin Community College (ACC) in Texas helped her succeed in two internships, with the second at XBiotech leading to a full-time job.

Authentic work experiences are something ACC biotech students will get a lot more of when the college opens a new $4.9 million biotech research wet lab with business incubator space.

ACC is the first two-year college to receive such significant funds from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund Research Award program. The ACC Biotech Department's application with the support of a dozen community and corporate partners is a bold effort to address the shortage of wet labs that biotech start-up companies need to fine tune their new products and production processes for them.  

"Once a company has discovered the value of using our interns to do projects, they ask for more. That is the bottom line ... because we get things done for them that would normally cost them quite a bit of money. And we can accelerate their product development," said Linnea Fletcher, chairman of the ACC's Biotechnology Department. Fletcher has been the principal investigator of two National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grants and the co-principal investigator of ATE grants for Bio-Link, a National Advanced Technology Education Center of Excellence focused on Biotechnology and Life Sciences at City College of San Francisco.

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For its 12th annual survey concerning the development of online education in the United States, the Babson Survey Research Group received responses from over 2,800 Chief Academic Officers (CAOs) who develop instructional plans for a range of higher education institutions. The sample included a range of institutions, including public universities, not-for-profit private colleges, and for-profits, such as the University of Phoenix and DeVry University. The results of this survey can inform ATE projects and centers around the country as we make our resources accessible to students, administrators, instructors, and industry partners:

1. Growth Continues

While growth in distance enrollments has slowed somewhat in recent years, there was still a 3.7 percent increase in distance enrollments between 2012 and 2013. Interestingly, the trends were not consistent among the three classes of institutions surveyed. While private not-for-profits saw an increase of 12.6 percent, private for-profits witnessed a 7.9 percent drop in their online class numbers. With an increase of 4.6 percent, public universities steered the middle course between these two extremes.

During a tour of Twitter's office, Bridges students learned about social media etiquette and how to converse with industry influencers.

The peer mentoring was so dynamic during the Bridges to STEM Careers project at the Bay Area Video Coalition that the San Francisco non-profit will give peer mentors more prominent roles in its new Next Generation Bridges Fellowship.

The fellowship program, which begins this summer, will sustain peer mentoring along with other successful aspects of the recently concluded Bridges to STEM Careers project that was funded by the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education program.

For the mentors' take on Bridges see BAVC's "The Role of Peer Mentors" video.  It is one of nine three-minute video vignettes that BAVC produced with ATE grant support to inform underrepresented students and their families about media arts and technology careers, and the process for gaining entry to them.

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Over the past several years, social media has become an essential marketing tool for many ATE projects and centers. Still, it’s not always easy to know how to effectively reach out. The Pew Research Center’s Social Media Update 2014, published early last month, can help. The report tracks how people are using social media, providing valuable insight for all of us in the ATE community who want to reach targeted audiences - whether they are students, industry partners, or other educators. 

Here are the top five tidbits that ATE PIs need to know about how social media is trending, based on the Pew Report:

1. Facebook is still king

Despite some bad press in 2014, Facebook easily maintained its lead as the most popular social media platform in the world. According to the Pew Report, 71 percent of Internet users subscribe to a Facebook account, and more than half of those account holders interact with their pages multiple times daily. Compare these numbers to LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter, who all capture the interest of between 23 percent and 28 percent of Internet users, and there is no doubt that Facebook is still the social media platform of choice for must users – something to consider when posting information about your ATE project or center.

Marcus Maximin talked about his family and his maritime technology apprenticeship at the 2014 Advanced Technological Education Principal Investigators Conference in Washington, D.C.

The notion of family as a motivation, inspiration, and support comes up again and again when Marcus Maximin talks about the four-year maritime technology apprenticeship program at Tidewater Community College.

He acknowledges it can be "tough" working eight-to-10 hour days and then going to class two evenings a week.

"To tell you the truth, what keeps me going is my two boys. They are 12 and 4. And every time I walk in that door I get a hug and that, "Daddy!" That keeps me going. I do it for them," he explained.

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One of the central concerns of every ATE project is getting the word out to the people who can benefit most. And ATETV is designed to do just that. Its current series is composed of 250 video segments, and each video can be a ready made recruitment tool. In fact, ATETV already has an audience of over 400,000 web viewers, more than 100 cable access stations in 42 states air their videos, and over 300 colleges and organizations have requested or downloaded ATETV’s custom clips on a panoply of ATE related content.

Inside an ATETV Video Shoot

ATETV boasts an impressive production schedule. According to ATETV creator and executive producer Anthony Manupelli, it all starts with their network of educational partners in the ATE community. They work with these field experts to identify interesting projects, faculty, and students that will be suitable for ATETV videos. Through a series of pre-interviews, the producers of ATETV suss out things like what’s being taught and how, who’s involved, and what the impacts of the project might be. If they find that the program is a match, they start working with an institutional contact person to determine everything from the schedule on shooting day to permission to record to a confirmation of insurance certificates.

The Marine Advanced Technology (MATE) Center, organizer of the student ROV competition, is at Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey, California.

The remotely operated vehicle competition sponsored by the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center has a pivotal role in two movies and a new book. It is the backdrop for Spare Parts, a feature film being released in January, a new book with the same title, and Underwater Dreams, a documentary released in theaters this past summer.

The central plot feature of all these works is MATE’s remotely operated vehicle (ROV) competition in 2004 when the underwater robot constructed by a team of immigrant Hispanic students from a Phoenix high school beat other high school, community college and university teams, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jill Zande, MATE’s associate director and coordinator of the center’s ROV competition, is working with the feature film’s marketing team to attract attention to the center’s educational activities and marine technology careers.

“We’re excited that the films and book are calling attention to STEM programs and the powerful impact that they can have on students and student learning. They also demonstrate what students—no matter what their background or socioeconomic status—are capable of when given the opportunity," Zande said.

The MATE Center’s Facebook page currently includes a video summary of the 2004 competition (Carl Hayden Community High School's champion ROV appears at 4:12).The trailer for the Hollywood version starring George Lopez, Carlos PenaVega, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Marissa Tomei is online too.

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The newest NSF ATE RFP stipulates that grantees funded under this solicitation archive appropriate materials and resources with ATE Central. In the following interview, Kendra Bouda - ATE Central's Metadata and Information Specialist - defines archiving in the context of ATE, and explains why it’s important for ATE projects and centers to think about archiving early in their funding cycle. She also touches on the new NSF ATE requirements, outlines licensing protocols, and offers advice for grantees just getting started with the process.

Chris LaBranche enjoys the precision work he does as a tooling technician at Dymotek.

Chris LaBranche signed up for a career day field trip to get out of classes his senior year in high school. "I had no intentions of going and looking for work or a career," he said.

But the CNC machine and other industrial equipment on display as well as the conversations with machinists and others manufacturing employees caught his attention. Then Asnuntuck Community College staffers told him of the generous scholarships and paid internships available to their manufacturing technology students. By the time he learned of the 90% employment rate for the graduates of the one-year certificate program, LaBranche was set on a manufacturing career.

"That got me hooked right there. I wanted a job right out of school," LaBranche said. He is now a toolmaker for Dymotek Plastic Injection Molding in Ellington, Connecticut.