The Institutional Impact of the Advanced Technology Education Program on Community Colleges

The Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University is performing case studies on four centers and six projects funded by the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Program to develop recommendations to strengthen both the ATE centers and projects and the colleges at which they are housed. The ATE program encourages change in the education of technicians particularly at two year colleges. For this change to be sustained and replicated, it must extend beyond the grant period and achieve institutionalization at the community college. Using primarily qualitative methodologies, the study documents the extent to which the ATE projects have become integrated into the broader activities of the community colleges, and the effects of the program on the underlying barriers known to frustrate initiatives aimed at reforming and improving technician education. Questions to be addressed include how the projects affect the pedagogy of technicians and others in the two year college; how the partnerships with industry and business affect the relationship between those institutions and the college; how the projects affect the development of articulation agreements with four year colleges and relations with secondary schools; and how the projects influence the relation between technical and academic faculty at the institution. The study identifies mechanisms by which activities and improvements generated in the projects are embedded in the missions of the schools, and how they engage faculty in professional development and the activities used to educate students.