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| navigate: home: magazine: spring/summer 1998: article | |
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Educating Pennsylvania’s workforce Berks campus and Lucent Technologies team up | ||||||
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A Penn State Berks–Lehigh Valley College partnership with Lucent Technologies and the Enhanced Training Opportunities Program (ETOP) is providing education and training to Lucent Technologies employees at two plants in eastern Pennsylvania. “The Enhanced Training Opportunities Program is designed to help employees learn new job skills, as well as learn new skills to enhance their current job effectiveness,” Walt Fullam, director of continuing education at Penn State Berks, said. ETOP is part of the national contract between Lucent Technologies (formerly AT&T) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union, Fullam said. In 1993, ETOP established an Enhanced Learning Center at its Reading plant. After setting up the center, ETOP invited area educational institutions to submit proposals outlining how they would provide counseling and educational programming for the center. ETOP selected Penn State Berks as its educational partner for the learning center, Fullam explained. Karen E. Kihurani is the current adult counselor at the learning center. After the breakup of AT&T in 1995, which resulted in the creation of three separate companies (AT&T, Lucent Technologies and NCR), the Reading plant became a Lucent Technologies facility. When Lucent Technologies and IBEW opened a new ETOP center in Breinigsville, they invited Penn State Berks to provide an adult counselor and programming for this plant, as well. In spring 1997, Diane Shellenberg was hired as the adult counselor. The partnership between Penn State Berks–Lehigh Valley College and ETOP also benefits the University, Fullam noted. Having University employees on-site at both plants enables Penn State Berks to respond quickly to the company’s education and training needs. In addition to offering an associate degree program to Lucent Technologies employees at both plants, Penn State Berks offers a new bachelor of science degree in business, a credit business management certificate program, a noncredit electronics certificate program and a noncredit production management certificate program, as well as noncredit training classes, such as an AutoCAD certificate program. The programs are taught by campus faculty members and adjunct faculty. Members of the American Production and Inventory Control Society teach the production management certificate courses. Penn State Berks also offers an associate degree in business administration on-site at the Reading plant. “For many employees, going back to school is an adjustment,” Fullam said. “Some are older and have been working at the plant a long time. After they complete some courses in the noncredit program, we are finding they become more confident about their ability to learn.” Lucent Technologies/Microelectronics Group designs, manufactures and sells integrated circuits (or microchips), power systems and optoelectronic components for communication and computing applications. The Reading plant employs about 2,000 people, of whom about 1,350 are IBEW members. The Breinigsville plant has about 600 employees, of whom about 260 are IBEW members, Fullam said. Prior to the creation of the learning center at the Reading plant, Penn State Berks offered on-site certificate programs and noncredit training classes to employees. “ETOP is a successful program,” Fullam noted. “It not only helps employees advance to other jobs, but it also prepares some for jobs outside the company. Both Lucent Technologies and IBEW are supportive of efforts to enhance employees’ skill sets to better prepare them for employment opportunities down the road.” | |||||
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