I attended the most recent Technology Education Business Alliance (TEBA) meeting on Friday. There were approximately 25-30 people in attendance at the Cheyenne campus of the College of Southern Nevada and approximately 20 or so at the northern campuses. The topics discussed were the Tech Prep Program for high school students, and the Nevada Information Technology Project (NVITE)
Tech Prep Program
There was an excellent presentation on the Tech Prep Program by retiring director, Dr. Andrea Anderson. This is a program that allows high school seniors and juniors to earn college credit for courses they take in high school. They must earn an A or B in the course and pay a $10 administrative fee to get the credit. High School students are eligible to earn up to 15 college credits from CSN through this program. The goal is to have the kids go on to college, knowing they can do the work. An added benefit is the significantly reduced cost per credit. The kids and their parents can save over $250 per course.
An interesting statistic is that in 2008, there were 10, 654 students taking eligible courses with 1639 earning college credit. Both numbers are record highs for the program. I asked why there is such a large gap between the number of students eligible versus the number earning credit and was given three reasons:
- $10
- The requirement to earn an A or B
- Interest / awareness level of the high school teacher
It is a shame that $10 could be a reason to not participate, and lack of interest or awareness by the high school teacher is also a shame. Since 2000 this program has saved parents and kids more than $487,000 in tuition costs. We need to do more to get the word out and to get money for those who cannot afford the $10 per class.
Nevada owes Dr. Anderson a huge thanks for all the lives she has helped influence through her management of this program. Education is a proven path out of poverty, and she helped many kids have opportunities they would have missed without this program. Enjoy your retirement Dr. Anderson.
NVITE
The NVITE portion of the meeting was spent brainstorming ideas for courses or degrees that the college could offer that would meet the needs of the business representatives in attendance. There were three major themes:
- Security
- Data Centers
- Mobile technologies
Security dominated the conversation. Most of the security topics rolled up into the 10 domains of security as defined in the common body of knowlede for the CISSP certification. It was very apparent that the business representatives are extremely concerned about security in all aspects.
Data center technologies were discussed as they related to virtualization, cloud computing, and understanding power and cooling requirements.
Mobile technologies were discussed as they related to understanding wireless protocols such as 802.11, Zigbee, RF propagation, and mobile devices and applications.
The colleges have courses that address some of the requests, but the scope of the security topics were overwhelming. They wondered if they could cover everything in two years. The colleges are going to review the requests and try to consolidate the information into something they can use to develop courses and degrees.
On a personal note, the obvious concern for secuirty education made me feel very good about my decision to get my Master of Science in Information Assurance (MSIA) from Norwich University.
I think these education and business alliances are extremely important. By working together, we can get improve the quality of education in the areas that businesses need most, and hopefully get kids interested in math, science and technology.
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