Mentor-Connect is looking for a few experienced ATE program participants who want to give back to the ATE community by serving as mentors to faculty teams while they prepare ATE grant proposals.

The Mentor Fellows internship program prepares individuals who have worked within the ATE community to become Mentor-Connect mentors. With guidance from Mentor-Connect staff members and experienced Mentor-Connect mentors, Mentor Fellows develop the skills they need to guide new-to-ATE college faculty in the preparation of competitive ATE grant proposals.

The Mentor Fellows internship program is part of the far-reaching effort of the Mentor-Connect: Leadership Development and Outreach for ATE-2 project (DUE #1501183) to involve more members of the ATE community in the development of new talent to carry on the important work of preparing technicians for advanced technology workplaces.

Applicants to the Mentor Fellows program should have experience writing or significantly contributing to a minimum of two successful ATE proposals and at least three-to-five years of involvement with an ATE center and/or project(s). Internships last approximately one year, and include a stipend and reimbursement of travel expenses.

More information and the Mentor Fellows application are here.

This year's ATE PI Conference is fast approaching! This year's theme is Innovation and Impact: ATE for the Future, centering on "the significant role that ATE projects and centers play in creating and implementing successful and impactful career pathways resulting in a highly skilled U.S. workforce."

In this vein, conference organizers are accepting session proposals demonstrating "how the ATE community has successfully broadened impact through partnerships and collaboration with key stakeholders." These proposals can be formatted in several ways, including as a forum, demonstration, discussion session, breakfast roundtable, high impact practice workshop, or synergy meeting.

Any of the following criteria may also be addressed: evidence-based project or center impact in one of the six session track topic areas, focus on multi-discipline-relevant learning experiences and strategies, interactive learning activities with take-away resources, or collaborative efforts among multiple ATE centers or projects.

Those interested in submitting session proposals before the August 23 deadline can do so here.

The showcase sessions are a highlight of the PI conference, with opportunities for projects and centers to share and display their work and learn about what others in the community are doing. It's also a great opportunity to connect with NSF program officers.

This year, showcases will take place in two sessions, the first on Wednesday, October 23, and the second on Thursday October 24. When reserving their slot, participants can select their preferred session. Showcase booths will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.

First-time ATE grantees will share a booth with other new grantees and are asked to prepare a poster and/or one-page handout for display and sharing purposes. Other ATE projects and centers, whose funding is not new as of the FY19, will each be assigned their own booth. Booths will have electrical access and non-new grantees can also request a flat screen monitor.

All projects and centers are required to have a display at the showcase sessions, so don't forget to fill out your showcase submission before the September 19th deadline!

As part of ATE Central's most recent funding we are looking to create a second round of our Student Success Story videos. There will be fifteen new videos in this series and we are actively looking for a diverse set of ATE students with engaging stories and successes to feature.

Do you have a student who you think might fit the bill? Fill out this short survey to tell us about them! Vox Television will be producing these new videos for the community; production will begin in late fall and continue over the next two years.

We look forward to working with you on this exciting project and featuring these and other videos from the whole community on the ATE Central portal. Please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions about the video series or our other tools and services.

Hone your accessibility expertise with this webinar designed to assist in developing classroom materials that meet the core principles accessibility.

The hour-and-a-half program presented by the NSF- ATE-funded AccessATE project and the National AEM Center at CAST uses revision of a course syllabus as a context to explore how accessibility guidelines can be "distilled into four core principles, as captured by the acronym POUR (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust), that define four qualities of an accessible user experience." Then the webinar offers practical, applied techniques educators can implement right away. Instructors can build upon their higher-level understanding of the POUR core qualities to ensure their classroom materials "are accessible and work for all learners from the start, by design."

For more insight into making your classroom documents accessible, view the webinar slides or watch the recording.

Book orders and general inquiries about ATE Impacts 2018-2019: Twenty-Five Years of Advancing Technician Education can be emailed to [email protected].

Upload your curriculum, professional development materials, or other deliverables created with ATE funding directly to the ATE Central resource portal via the new archive submission form.

CWIS is open source software, created with NSF funding, that can help your project or center showcase resources online. It's free and very easy to use. The latest version (CWIS 4.1.1) was released on May 18^th and is available for download on the Scout site. Please email [email protected] if you have any questions or would like a quick tour of its features!