Florida s Engineering Technology Associate Degree Cornerstone of a Unified Educational Path for Manufacturing

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1 ETD445 Florida s Engineering Technology Associate Degree Cornerstone of a Unified Educational Path for Manufacturing Marilyn Barger, Ph.D., P.E. Executive Director Florida Advanced Technological Education Center Tampa, FL Abstract FLATE, the Florida Advanced Technological Education Center for Manufacturing, partnered with eight Florida Community colleges that have programs in manufacturing or related technologies assess and reconstruct the statewide curriculum frameworks that govern these technical programs. Consensus was achieved to construct a degree in Engineering Technology with five specializations. The two-year Associate in Science (A.S.) and Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.) are structured as a one-plus-one format. The first year of the degree program includes a technical core of six courses with general education making up the remainder of the credit hours. The technical core courses include skills and knowledge that are required to successfully pass the Manufacturing Skills Standards Council (MSSC) certification examinations among others. The second year of the program will include twenty-seven credit hours of technical courses in one of the degree specialization areas. This new A.S. /A.A.S. degree is now the cornerstone of a much wider effort to build a coherent and unified plan for Manufacturing Education in Florida. A statewide articulation agreement provides a powerful connection to manufacturing related technical high school programs and incumbent workers. Academic curriculum alignment to the national MSSC Certification for Production Technicians (CPT) validates both the curriculum and fundamental skills of the students 1. A variety of seamless pathways to 4-year Bachelor s degrees complete the unified system. The Need Addressing the needs for skilled workers is a required competitive and survival strategy for most manufacturers in the United States. Recent Advanced Manufacturing Conferences are echoing the words of Northrop Grumman Corporate Vice President and Chief Human Resources and Administration Officer Ian Ziskin: The future is a high tech one. But it s a double edged sword for companies like mine and many others you work with every day. Our dependence on trained, educated, technical workers will only grow, but the demographic trends indicate the supply of such workers is going to shrink. 2 Another important fact is that many manufacturers are expecting large numbers of retirements in their skilled and technical workforce within the next 5 years, with few workers in the pipeline to fill the positions. Manufacturers and high tech companies are at a critical juncture: they must choose to invest in growing their own future employees or partner with the local educational systems to prepare new generations of technicians as well as building and sustaining a secure pipeline. Florida manufacturers are in the same position. Demand driven response to Florida s manufacturing community called for revision to the curricular frameworks for manufacturing-related technical educational programs. Several important factors were identified during the study 3 :

2 Some of the curricular frameworks that, in principle, inform the outcomes of manufacturing related A.S. and A.A.S. degrees, which may potentially address many of the high skills required by manufacturers, are outdated, some by years. Manufacturers are concerned about the lack of a qualified labor force in the State of Florida. They have voiced their concerns to the State legislature. This is also a national crisis. Eighty-one percent of the respondents to the 2005 Skills Gap Survey of the American Manufacturing Workforce said they couldn t find qualified employees to fill their open positions 4, 5. Community Colleges are not currently addressing all of the needs of manufacturers for qualified personnel (for lack of communication, inadequate offering or inadequate timing or limited graduates). There is limited or, at best, inefficient communication between the manufacturing sector and the community college sector at a state-wide level on workforce education and training issues. It seems difficult for manufacturers to know what competencies community college graduates bring, given the nine different manufacturing related degree options, varying course names and descriptions. There does not appear to be clearly defined positions (and career pathways) for A.S. and A.A.S. graduates to assume in the industry, and therefore, the level of compensation for such graduates is also unclear and/or unknown. There are new Federal and state guidelines in Perkins IV as well as directives from both the Florida Department of Education and Workforce Florida that states every technical program should be aligned to a national certification. The ET Degree FLATE has addressed these issues by proposing and developing a one-plus-one associate degree in Engineering Technology. This effort regroups and reorganizes the diverse frameworks related to manufacturing and various engineering technologies that have developed and addresses the skills and knowledge being asked for by industry. The basic premise of this approach is a core curriculum offered in year one of the A.S. (or A.A.S.) program that aligns with the Manufacturing Skills Standards Council (MSSC) Certified Production Technician credential 3. Five engineering technology degrees specializations are currently defined in the degree program that has this common Engineering Technology technical core. The 18 credit hour Engineering Technology core covers Electronics, Quality, Safety, Computer-Aided Drafting, Manufacturing Processes and Materials, and Mechanical Measurements and Instrumentation. After the ET core the degree plan flows to a specialization tract. Each specialization (Quality, Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Technology, Electronics, Mechanical Design and Fabrication) is defined by competencies that are delivered through hours of technical courses. Additionally, like any 2-year degree, students must take at least 15 credit hours of general education courses. Each community college that adopts the Engineering Technology degree is free to adopt any one or more of the specializations depending on their local community. In addition to currently approved specializations, others are currently under development. We anticipate that the curriculum frameworks for specializations in Medical Systems and Industrial Design will be approved by the FLDOE and available for adoption by May 2009.

3 In addition to the flexibility of the degree, each specialization also has at least one college credit certificate (12 20 credit hours). For example, the Quality specialization has a 12-hour certificate in Green Belt Six Sigma and a second 12 credit hour certificate in Black Belt Concepts. These short term certificates provide a mechanism for colleges to document completers for FLDOE as well as meet industry needs for short term technical training. They are very cost effective for industry and can generally be scheduled and delivered to meet industry s needs and time constraints. The certificates award college credits that can be applied to the ET degree. The win-win program for industry offers solutions to meet both its short (skills training) and long (educated and skilled workers) term goals. Pathways to the ET Degree The FLDOE approved a FLATE developed statewide articulation agreement in February 2008 that provides 15 credit hours of the ET Core to be awarded to anyone who holds the MSSC CPT certification and is enrolled in the Engineering Technology degree. Administrators at the colleges that have adopted or are in the process of adopting the ET Degree submitted their approval and the agreement is binding to all colleges who adopt the ET Degree in the future. This means that no local agreements have to be developed for 5 of the ET core courses (Electronics, Quality, Safety, Manufacturing Processes and Materials, and Mechanical Measurements and Instrumentation). This certification-based articulation agreement is now a model for other technical disciplines offered in the state technical programs. With receipt of the MSSC CPT Certification, a student or incumbent worker will be awarded 15 credits of the ET Core if/when he/she enroll in the ET Degree program at any college that offers it. Students enrolling will have to meet all other college entrance and degree requirements including taking whatever placement test the college uses. They will also be bound by college residence requirements (e.g., the credits must be used toward a degree, and will typically be awarded after 9 credits are earned in residence at the college.) Community colleges can also choose to create an additional local articulation agreement for courses beyond these 5 core course that are aligned with the MSSC CPT certification. For example, Introduction to AutoCAD is often easily articulated between a particular college and its local high school partners. And, standing articulations or dual enrollment opportunities for general education courses may allow students to enter the Engineering Technology degree programs with additional credits. FLATE s statewide articulation agreement strongly supports Florida s Career and Professional Education Act (CAPE) which was passed in This bill was a response to recent reports from all industry sectors across the state that have noted that high school graduates entering the workforce are not prepared for work. This legislation: (1) Ensures that Career and Technical Education is academically rigorous and relevant to the workplace; (2) Creates a statutory bond between Career and Technical Education and the Workforce Development System in the State; (3) Ensures that Workforce Education meets current and future needs of Florida s economy; and, (4) Ensures that every student who completes a Career and Professional Academy program will graduate from high school with: a. one or more industry certifications b. a high school diploma c. a clear pathway to higher education Implementation of the CAPE has just begun with school districts submitting action plans to the state for a staged rollout of Career Academies. Each district must have one Career or Professional Academy in

4 place during the academic years. The statewide articulation based on the MSSC CPT certification supports this legislation providing a nationally recognized certification as well as offering a clear path to higher education for high school students who complete a manufacturing related program. FLATE ensured that MSSC certification was considered and adopted it as an approved certification for these academies by the FLDOE and Workforce Florida. And currently, FLATE is facilitating high school adoption of the MSSC certification in related programs. This means dissemination of the certification and competencies and its testing procedures as well as providing access to teacher training in the MSSC Skill Standards. During the same period of time that FLATE was working with colleges and the K12 Career and Technical Education system on the academic side of this project, it was also working with industry to identify their current and future workforce need through the FLATE advisory board, local college advisory boards, and the professional organizations across the state. FLATE compiled all of this information and data to validate the final state curriculum framework proposal for the new degree. Pathways from the ET Degree In Florida, there are 3 options for transfer of the Engineering Technology A.S. Degree into four-year programs. The A.S. Degrees do transfer to the Bachelor s of Science in Engineering Technology at the University of Central Florida (UCF), Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), the University of West Florida (UWF), and Florida Institute of Technology (FIT). UCF has been particularly agreeable to developing articulation agreements with the ET AS degree and negotiations are currently underway to develop statewide versions of the agreements. These will have to be developed by specializations and transfer into specific tracks that they offer. The second alternative in Florida is the relatively new Bachelors of Applied Science (B.A.S.) Degrees. These degrees have been created by the state as Workforce Professional Degrees. These degrees are only upper level and are required to articulate 60 credit hours of any A.S. degree. The B.A.S. degrees may require specific grade point averages or other local requirements and are meant to offer educational pathways for career development for occupations that require A.S. Degrees. Typical B.A.S. degrees include Technology Management, Supervisory and Administration, Organizational Management and others. At the same time that the B.A.S. degrees were defined, the community colleges in Florida could propose to offer them for critical workforce disciplines. Currently, 13 of 28 community colleges in the state offer at least one B.A.S. degree, making this pathway to 4-year degrees very affordable and accessible for working professionals. The third alternative for transfer of the A.S. Degree in Engineering Technology is the Bachelor s of Science in Applied Science (B.S.A.S.) offered at USF Polytechnic in Lakeland, Florida. The B.S.A.S. may require students to take additional courses as pre-requisites as well as additional courses of General Education. The B.S.A.S. also has a foreign language requirement that can be fulfilled by high school, community college, or university courses. Holders of B.S.A.S. degrees can continue on to a Master s program. Concluding Remarks The reform effort has been led and facilitated by FLATE, a Florida Advanced Technological Education Center (ATE) funded by the National Science Foundation. It is a center of excellence for Manufacturing Education housed at Hillsborough Community College (HCC) in Tampa, Florida and serves the entire state. Although located at HCC, FLATE is not an academic unit, i.e., it does not offer classes or host

5 academic curriculum. There are several advantages for FLATE to take the leading role in this project. The most important advantage is that the Center can speak as one voice for the participating community colleges with the appropriate state-level offices such as the Career and Technical Education Division in FLDOE and Workforce Florida. It is void of local institutional political posturing and competition between departments, resources, etc. It has been able to focus Center resources on the project that a single institution could not afford in a timely manner. Additionally, FLATE has been able to accumulate and consolidate significant statewide industry input to support and validate the new degree program for local implementation. Some industry input came from the individual community colleges themselves, and some has been collected and consolidated by FLATE. All the community colleges will be able to take advantage of the statewide industry data when implementing the programs locally. FLATE is also positioned to help participating community colleges implement the new curriculum in their own college processes; assist new and emerging programs get started in a well-founded technical curriculum; build partnership with local high school programs; and offer professional development for faculty and teachers offering related programs. There are also a number of benefits to this change or consolidation of Engineering Technology 2-year programs in Florida. These include: 1) all Community Colleges in the State can market jointly to students and industry employers with a common degree program and certification; 2) Completion of the core creates a portable completion point that allows students to transfer within the community college system to an institution with their desired specialization; 3) MSSC certification assesses a student/worker s foundational skill and knowledge in four broad areas common to all manufacturing sectors: Manufacturing Processes and Production; Quality Assurance; Maintenance Awareness; and Safety. This certification is portable across manufacturing sectors and has been defined by industry; 4) Selecting the MSSC competencies to inform and anchor the curricular frameworks of the core allows currency, precision, relevance and abundant competencies; and, 5) Selecting the MSSC competencies to inform the curricular frameworks core also allows the seamless articulation pathway from technical and high school academies that also align their curriculum to these same competencies. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. References 1. Blueprint for Workforce Excellence Manufacturing Skills Standards Council (MSSC), published by MSSC, Advanced Manufacturing Workforce Conference Presentation by Northrop Grumman Corporate Vice President and Chief Human Resources and Administration Officer Ian Ziskin, Los Angeles, CA, Oct2007, 3. Engineering Technology Curriculum Reform in Florida, M. Barger, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Convention, Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute, Training and Development, Florida Senate Bill 1232 (2006)