Planning for Regional Center for Automotive Technology

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This planning project pulls together the educational and workforce development efforts of two-year colleges in Alabama to address the education of technical workers in the automobile manufacturing industry. Target audiences are industry and the faculty and students of the partner colleges and K-12. The major goals of the planning grant and accompanying objectives are: To design an infrastructure that will effectively coordinate the partnering institutions of the Consortium; To link Consortium institutions with industry partners to promote understanding and cooperation to meet both academic and industry standards; To develop alliances and establish the necessary communication flow between industry and education that will lead to the establishment of an ATE Regional Center.Intellectual Merit The project enhances Alabama's efforts in workforce training and economic development by exploring the development of an automotive manufacturing technology curriculum, to include both certificate and degree programs. In a planned Regional Center, faculty, through their interaction with industry, would become more knowledgeable and technically skilled. Students would have opportunities for hands-on experience with industry and, therefore, improve their intellectual capacity, while also comprehending the intricacies of the automotive industry and its manufacturing processes. These consequences would occur as the result of a stronger technology core and improved SMET education being offered in the State's two-year colleges. Broader Impacts The Consortium is developing and implementing activities that broadly impact the individual colleges, students and faculty, and the community as a whole. In a planned regional center, the level of automotive technical education would be raised to a level higher than that of the ordinary repair/mechanic programs. For students, the programs in the Center would motivate them to higher levels of achievement, making them more highly skilled, more highly paid, which in turn would provide a better standard and quality of life. The Center would also provide greater incentives for a larger number of minorities. The Center's programs would provide for improved teaching according to the latest industry standards and equipment, as well as personal contacts with industry representatives.