Technical Education in NV?

Letter to Mr. Garza

Mr. Garza
Reading your article of 4/4/04 re: the need for more technology education, I agree wholeheartedly.
What I have found (especially in my case) is that it is extremely hard to get "traditional" educators to even understand the term" technology", let alone actually support the programs!
I'm a bit bitter right now having been just given my "terminal contract for 2004-2005 (a not so subtle way of saying your history after next year) from TMCC. My area of expertise is Industrial Control (Automation & Telecommunications).
I find it very difficult to understand how TMCC could get a $390,000 grant for Manufacturing Technology last January, and lay of the only person even remotely qualified to teach motion control & automation!
No reason was given, (I'll admit to low enrollment, although I think a lot of it had to do with the department title if "Industrial Maintenance" which scared of a lot of the younger students who compared "Maintenance" to "work") but I’ll also defend the time it took to put the program together (when I arrived 5 years ago, they handed me a binder prepared by Michelin to train their electrical personnel). Having virtually no money, I thought I put together a pretty good program (developed 6 new classes, lecture & web) and filled the labs with equipment (mostly hand-built by myself & students with parts procured by “beg, borrow & steal”).
What is really maddening, is the thought that there may finally be some money available to actually build decent labs, and I can’t even tell my current students if the program they signed up for will be in existence after the next two semesters! If they have found someone to replace me, and keep the program in some form operational, no one seems to be willing to convey the information to me. On that note, another problem with technical education is the wages paid to the instructors. Bill Verbeck (the former Dean at Edison whom the administration sacked) fought like mad to get me a salary which was livable (although only about 65% of what I was previously earning in industry). It is my understanding that TMCC pays their part-time faculty about $16/hour and really wants them to hold degree’s.
Sorry for the rambling e-mail here….. what I’d really like you to look into is how we are going to train new people, when the skills of those who have learned technology (hell I started in telecommunications when it was two soup cans & a string!) and have a passion for teaching, cannot find a job (let alone one that pays the bills) teaching.
CL Dickinson

posted by cl @ 10:52 PM