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Penn State Erie collaborates to meet regional workforce needs By Loretta Brandon
This is an artist’s rendering of the new Advanced Training Center now under construction in the Knowledge Park at Penn State Erie. The center will help area businesses and industries meet their workforce training needs.	Educators and manufacturers in northwestern Pennsylvania are partnering to address the workforce training needs of the region. The Advanced Training Center in the Knowledge Park at Penn State Erie is bringing together the Northwest Pennsylvania Technical Institute, the Regional Skills Center and Penn State Erie to develop manufacturing technology courses.   Penn State Erie already has taken the first step toward collaboration by creating a new associate degree in manufacturing technology. The two-year program began last fall and was initially offered through Penn State’s Center for Corporate and Adult Learning. This degree offers options in both general manufacturing and plastics processing. Penn State Erie faculty and staff developed both options with input from industry representatives. In addition to meeting the needs of traditional students, the program incorporates a flexible curriculum designed to meet the needs of those already employed in manufacturing who wish to upgrade their skills.   Two more degree options are being added: metals and nanofabrication.   The metals option, under development, is expected to include options related to casting, machining and tool-and-die work. Members of the northwestern Pennsylvania chapter of the American Foundrymen’s Society (AFS) and members of Penn State Erie’s Industrial Metalworking Advisory Committee have been working for more than a year to develop a metals option curriculum that will meet the needs of employers and the requirements of the University. The AFS also has a committee working to determine the equipment needed to implement the metals option and ways to obtain what is needed.   “As a society, we got involved to attract young people to the metals industry,” Jerry S. Sequeira, president of Performance Castings Inc. and a member of AFS, said. “By involving ourselves in obtaining equipment and developing a metals curriculum, we can ensure that the skills taught in these classes will be identical to the skills needed in the industry’s workplace.”   In addition to the efforts of AFS, the School of Engineering and Engineering Technology at Penn State Erie has submitted a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation seeking $1.4 million to implement the metals option of the manufacturing technology degree at Penn State Erie and two other Penn State locations.   The nanofabrication option for the associate degree in manufacturing technology will focus on this technology, which was developed by the semiconductor industry. Nanofabrication is used for miniature sensor arrays in biology and medicine; miniature valves and turbines for fluidics; flat panel displays for computers and wall-hanging TVs; and integrated-circuit microchips for electronics, computers and communications. This technology has made integrated-circuit manufacturing the nation’s largest industry — larger than the steel and automotive industries combined.   Students who choose the nanofabrication option at Penn State Erie will benefit from Penn State’s affiliation with the National Science Foundation’s National Nanofabrication Users Network (NNUN) and from the training offered at the Nanofabrication Facility at Penn State’s University Park campus.   Graduates in the general manufacturing option of the two-year manufacturing technology program will qualify for positions involved with the manufacture and testing of products, supervisory management, technical sales, field service, maintenance and plant operations. Graduates in the plastics processing option may become technicians in the plastics industry, and graduates in nanofabrication may qualify as technicians in the semiconductor technology industry. Two-year graduates may also choose to continue their education and pursue a four-year engineering technology degree at Penn State.   “With the addition of the associate degree in manufacturing technology, Penn State Erie now offers courses that reach across the education and training spectrum from certificate programs to baccalaureate degrees,” Dr. Richard Progelhof, director of Penn State Erie’s School of Engineering and Engineering Technology, said. “We have the resources needed to develop a strong workforce for the region.” W
© 2002 Outreach Communications,   Outreach & Cooperative Extension,   The Pennsylvania State University phone: (814) 865-8108,   fax: (814) 863-2765,   e-mail: outreachnews@outreach.psu.edu