Expanding Participation in Advanced Manufacturing

Manufacturing is a leading economic driver across the country and the demand for highly skilled technicians continues to grow. In Nebraska, the regional manufacturing industry, which includes molding and plastics processing, is a significant economic driver, and the medical supply industry is one of the leading industries requesting employees. Local employers and national industry leaders (e.g., Becton Dickinson (BD), Majors Plastics, and Cardinal Health) are in critical need of plastics technician employees.

Central Community College (CCC) assessed and determined that students in Adult Basic Education classrooms expressed a strong interest in Advanced Manufacturing. The students in these classes, the majority of whom are English language learners (ELL) or multilingual learners, are interested in pursuing higher education and highly motivated. This project will develop and disseminate a new model for recruitment and retention of Adult Basic Education students (with a focus on ELL) into the Plastics Engineering Technology (PET) program and disseminate a guidebook to support scaling this effort to other advanced manufacturing industries.

CCC will collaborate with industry, Adult Basic Education's ELL program, as well as area service agencies to create tools and resources that will help recruit and retain their students in the PET program within Advanced Manufacturing. The project will promote the PET program during awareness sessions held at Adult Basic Education sites within the service area, as well as at three high schools targeted by the project which serve a high percentage of students from groups underrepresents in the plastics industry, tapping into an underutilized resource.

While this project centers around injection molding and plastics technology, the lessons learned will be distilled into a step-by-step guidebook usable by other STEM programs that wish to recruit and support a diverse population of students (specifically ELL students). This project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the nation's economy.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.