Technical Education in NV?

Letter: UNLV Div. of Ed. Outreach

UNLV Div. of Ed. Outreach
4505 Maryland Parkway
Las Vegas NV 89195-9413

Additional comments (& explanation)….

After writing my (brief) comment… I thought I should explain:
I was hired to develop curriculum and tech subjects relevant to the field of Industrial Maintenance & related technologies. When I started, there was one leftover binder of training for Michlin (which I assume was the foundation on which they were running a fledgling program). I developed the current program from scratch (wrote new curriculum, there are six IMT classes currently on the books, taught these classes, built all the labs required for these classes AND tried to develop all into web or web assisted classes , which I still feel is the future for this area… but there is a lot of work still needs to be done). In addition, I have also developed & taught specialized classes for industry delivered through MAP, TMCC & WNCC. I pretty full plate…

Whoever said “Do what you love & the money will follow” was really full of **** as far as I’m concerned. I stared this job a little above the pay scale of the cook at the jail. I will finish this job at about mid-level for the streetlight mechanic for the city of Reno (according to the latest “want-ads” of which I have been actively perusing).
Bitter… Yep…. But I’ll get over it. I haven’t made up my mind whether to attempt to stay in education or go back to the private sector (where my last job paid $84k/yr plus bonus’s plus benefits). I would probably have to leave the area to again regain such a salary, but, as the sign on the trucks say, “We really love this place”. For a region that, according to the papers anyway, is promoting training for “high skill, high wage” jobs, it seems incredulous to me that I am being let go. Although no reason was given, I assume it has do to low number of enrollments in my program (which I believe is a marketing problem) especially after our campus receivied a $390,000 grant for a “Manufacturing Technologies” type program (of which I believed Industrial control be a key component).

What’s done is done. I really enjoyed working at TMCC’s Edison Campus. It was a job I loved with people who really cared about the programs. But with new administration comes new ideas. I hope they will pan out for them, and the skills of blue collar workers will be upgraded.


Charles L. Dickinson
Former Instructor
Industrial Maintenance
TMCC Edison Campus

posted by cl @ 12:06 PM