Building Pathways to Innovation in Skilled Technical Workforce Education Through Strategic Employer Engagement

该项目将通过确保更多的大学技术教育项目与当前和新兴的商业和工业需求保持一致，从而服务于强大的美国劳动力的国家利益。2020年5月，美国劳动力政策咨询委员会发布了一项行动呼吁，要求美国经济中的主要利益相关者“共同、协调和持续努力，建立一支由熟练的美国工人驱动的有弹性和敏捷的未来劳动力队伍。”投资于美国工人加快经济复苏发布了三个目标：1)通过投资于职业道路和实施基于技能的招聘实践，加快美国工人重返就业和向上流动；2)消除美国教育和培训现代化的障碍，加快再培训，促进劳动力发展的创新；3)建设未来工作所需的技术基础设施。这些目标与美国国家科学委员会、美国国家科学基金会和美国国家科学基金会的先进技术教育（ATE）计划的当前努力密切一致，通过针对当地社区需求的熟练技术劳动力计划，培养具有stem能力的美国劳动力。为了支持劳动力发展，该项目将解决加强和扩大企业/行业与社区学院之间的伙伴关系的基本需求，这些社区学院通过职业发展计划培养熟练的技术劳动力。通过促进技术教育领域的公私伙伴关系，该项目将促进为许多以前无法获得这些职位的人提供高工资、高技能的工作机会。当地和地区的商业和工业将受益，因为他们的合格候选人渠道将扩大。最后，参与的大学、它们的教师以及现有和新兴技术学科的未来学生，将从一种由工商业共同主导的创新文化的启动工作中受益。该项目将在技术教育项目和希望聘用这些项目毕业生的雇主之间建立强有力的商业联系，同时战略性地增加每年提交给技术教育项目的竞争性资助提案的数量。基于麻省理工学院支持的商业行业领导团队（Business Industry Leadership Team， BILT）模型，这是一种经过验证的战略雇主参与方法，参与该项目的大学将发展雇主关系，从而产生深度和频率的劳动力情报，以促进持续的项目改进和创新。该项目将启动三个互补的举措：1)BILT学院将支持社区大学的团队有效地跟上不断变化的劳动力需求和不断发展的技术，为国家培养熟练的技术劳动力；2)建立一个指导学院，提高人们对ATE注重创新的认识，并指导大学团队使用BILT的基本要素作为基础，在此基础上制定有竞争力的提案，以实施符合雇主需求的创新项目；3)项目团队将与ATE国家中心协调工作，通过按需资源和Ask-an-ATE专家帮助热线，帮助新受助人有效地管理赠款，并实施战略性雇主参与。为了开展这些活动，该项目将开发一系列可以虚拟和面对面使用的材料，以及一个精心策划的资源集合，以支持正在进行的大学创新，通过战略性雇主参与来创建和加强技术教育项目。该项目还将开发一种更新的指导方法，以现有的科技学院提案写作研讨会材料为基础，加强对BILT的重视。该项目将识别并记录Ask-an-ATE专家帮助台提出的新的常见问题，以便为受资助者开发新资源提供信息。该项目开发的所有点播、策划内容都将免费提供给公众。甚至更远。该项目由先进技术教育计划资助，该计划侧重于为推动国家经济的先进技术领域培养技术人员。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will serve the national interest in a strong American workforce by ensuring that more college technical education programs align with the current and emerging needs of business and industry. In May 2020, the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board published a call-to-action challenging key stakeholders in the U.S. economy to “engage in a shared, coordinated, and sustained effort to build a resilient and agile workforce of the future powered by skilled American workers.” Investing in American Workers to Expedite Economic Recovery issued three goals: 1) Expedite American workers’ return to employment and upward mobility by investing in career pathways and implementing skills-based hiring practices; 2) Remove obstacles to the modernization of American education and training to accelerate reskilling and facilitate innovation in workforce development; and 3) Build the technological infrastructure necessary for the future of work. These goals closely align with current efforts of the National Science Board, the National Science Foundation, and the NSF’s Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program to grow the STEM-capable U.S. workforce through skilled technical workforce programs tailored to the needs of local communities. To support workforce development, this project will address the essential need to strengthen and expand partnerships between business/industry and community colleges that prepare the skilled technical workforce through career pathways programs. By fostering public-private partnerships in technical education, the project will promote making high-wage, high-skilled job opportunities available to many people who have not previously had access to these positions. Local and regional business and industry will benefit because their pipeline of qualified candidates for open positions will be expanded. Finally, participating colleges, their faculty, and future students in existing and emerging technical disciplines will benefit from initiating work on a culture of innovation co-led by business and industry.This project will develop strong business engagement between technical education programs and the employers who want to hire graduates of these programs, while also strategically increasing the number of competitive grant proposals submitted annually to the ATE program. Building on the ATE-supported Business Industry Leadership Team (BILT) model, a proven method for strategic employer engagement, colleges engaged in the project will develop employer relationships that yield workforce intelligence at a depth and with a frequency to facilitate continuous program improvement and innovation. The project will launch three complementary initiatives: 1) A BILT Academy that will support teams from community college to effectively keep pace with shifting workforce demands and evolving technologies to prepare the nation’s skilled technical workforce; 2) A Mentoring Academy that will increase awareness of ATE’s focus on innovation and mentor college teams to use BILT’s essential elements as a foundation upon which to build competitive proposals for implementing innovative programs responsive to employer needs; and 3) The project team will coordinate efforts with ATE National Centers to assist new grantees in effective grant management and implementation of strategic employer engagement through on-demand resources and an Ask-an-ATE Expert helpline. To carry out these activities, the project will develop a body of materials that can be used virtually and face-to-face, as well as a curated resource collection that will support ongoing college innovation in creating and enhancing technical education programs through strategic employer engagement. The project will also develop an updated approach to mentoring by building upon existing ATE proposal-writing workshop materials augmented with a BILT emphasis. The project will identify and document new frequently asked questions by the Ask-an-ATE Expert Help Desk to inform the development of new resources for grantees. All on-demand, curated content developed by the project will be made available without cost to the public. and beyond. This project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the nation's economy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.