Charting the Course: Career Advancement Strategies & Planning for Two-Year Technical Educators

It is often assumed that a technologically trained workforce requires a four-year degree. However, the workforce has a significant need for skilled technicians educated at two-year colleges. Recent employee surveys and government reports have noted concerns that the U.S. faces an increasing shortage for the technically trained workers needed to maintain the country's competitiveness and economic growth objectives. For these jobs, education and training programs at community and technical colleges have proven to be effective and efficient in producing right-skilled graduates who are ready for the workforce. The ideal faculty members to educate such students are those who have more than just the appropriate technical skills. They also need additional knowledge, skills, and connections. Examples include knowledge about how to update course content to match emerging trends, contacts with industries that will employ their students, knowledge about and capabilities for obtaining funding for course and career advancement, and access to professional networks with like-minded educators. The goal of this project is to empower faculty at two-year community and technical colleges to acquire such additional knowledge, skills, and connections. To that end, this project will develop and deliver two workshops that will assist faculty in Advanced Technical Education fields to become better educators, to increase their awareness of new career growth opportunities, and to develop career-building skills. This project aims to advance the professional growth of two-year college faculty by enhancing their ability to train, mentor, and prepare students for current and emerging workforce needs.

The project will develop and deliver two workshops that, together, will engage ~60 ATE faculty. The workshops will assist the faculty with developing and implementing career advancement plans that increase career progress, diversify interests, provide further job satisfaction, and boost the quality of their teaching and educational efforts. This effort is a collaborative project between current ATE Principal Investigators who have extensive experience in mentoring and guiding two-year college technical faculty, and the COACh program at the University of Oregon that has extensive experience in developing and providing career building workshops to thousands of scientists and engineers at all levels of academia. The workshops also have the potential to draw new faculty and new institutions into the ATE community. The workshops will provide information about the opportunities for faculty to remain current in their disciplines. Examples of topics will include industry interaction and involvement, American National Standards Institute Certification, certification development, professional society leadership opportunities, board of director opportunities, travel through faculty study exploration, collaborative grant writing, and obtaining funds to attend professional meetings. Workshops will also help faculty develop develop a plan for further professional development, including skills to take advantage of and succeed in new leadership opportunities. Evaluation data collected from the workshops will be used to inform future career development offerings and related efforts to meet the needs of the ATE community.