Regional Technical Workforce Based Student Projects Development

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This project is developing and hosting two workshops, one each year of the project, that are helping build collaborations between regional technical workforce employers and New Mexico two-year community college faculty. During these workshops, faculty and regional industry personnel will develop outcome-based measures of needed engineering technician and engineering skills, industry sponsored student projects, and topics for short training classes for current engineering technicians and engineers. This project leverages New Mexico's rural Native American and Hispanic students' cultural values of natural resource stewardship in project based work to help them succeed. The industry sponsored student projects and instructional activities that are being developed are combining real-world industry problems, technology, field research, and student project work in transformative ways to engage rural New Mexico's two-year community college students. This project's intellectual merit is in making the rigors of technical education relevant to rural community college students and preparing these students to serve in the growing regional technical workforce. The establishment of a permanent Industry Advisory Committee helps maintain a connection between New Mexico State University (NMSU) Grants, other New Mexico two-year community colleges, and the regional technical workforce employers in a way that enables continued relevance and growth of NMSU Grants' and New Mexico's engineering technician and engineering programs. The broader impacts of this project are being realized through the distribution of the learning outcomes, materials, and industry projects and contacts with New Mexico two-year community college faculty and the broader ATE community through annual conference participation.