In today’s high tech world, electronics technicians are in great demand with many positions going unfilled due to a lack of qualified applicants. But at the same time electronics technology programs at community colleges across the US are seeing dwelling student enrollments and low retention rates leaving many Deans wondering if they should not just shut these programs down all together. We are experiencing a great disconnect with the general public’s knowledge about these job opportunities as well as where they can go to learn the skills and knowledge to enter into them.
As the Project Manager for the Work Ready Electronics Project (WRE), a collection of twenty-four online modules of electronics technology topics, I have been privileged to speak at numerous teacher conferences over the past two years on it’s benefits to improve and update electronics technology curriculum topics. It has never failed that I get asked to participate in a discussion on how to recruit and retain electronics technology students.
At the most recent conference, the Texas Community College Teachers Association, held in Austin Texas in February, I presented two Work Ready Electronics presentations along with my colleague Lou Frenzel, an electronics faculty at Austin Community College and the author of numerous electronics technology textbooks for McGraw Hill. We were both asked to attend a Saturday breakfast meeting after the conference to discuss retention and recruitment. The general consensus of the approximately twenty electronics technology faculty was that their programs were in enrollment decline and becoming the next program to go on the chopping block.
Only two colleges had increasing enrollments and both of these colleges did active recruiting at high schools and with other media forms. They also visited local industries to gain an understanding of the current job requirements for electronics technicians as well the number of job positions that were available. Innovative approach? No! Required? Yes. Are there other successful approaches out there? Let me know what is working for you by posting to this blog.
Some faculty stated they were teachers and not marketing people…but these same faculties were ones that at the beginning of this meeting that stated their programs were in jeopardy. Yikes!!!
As these meetings generally progress they eventually hit the moaning and whining stage, but in this case some very useful suggestions came forth. The first suggestion was to get more grants. Infuse the programs with money for new equipment, lab exercises, and new textbooks… In this case most of the present faculty had never won a grant because as they stated “their college grant writers would not help them.” Lou told the group that to get a grant, they the instructors needed to come up with the idea first andthat the idea was not going to come from a grant writer who had no knowledge of an electronics technology program. One faculty confirmed this and this came as a surprise to most who wanted grant funding but were not willing to put forth the effort to generate the idea or do some of the writing. I do believe it is a good idea to search for funding sources to help make improvements in your electronics programs or for new lab equipment. The new curriculum topics or new lab equipment can help attract new students and retain the your current ones as long as you know what the funding will be used for and what the expected outcome will be for your students.
The second suggestion, was to write letters to the local and state congressmen to let them know that without funding or support from the State, electronics technology programs would be going away leaving a large vacancy of open technician positions. This could be the greatest stumbling block that prevents a State’s ability to attract and keep new high technology companies flourishing in their districts. Have you written to you local congressmen?
I mentioned that at a conference a few months before I heard a power supply manufacturer who has five plants in the US state that he was very close to shutting down all of their plants here and taking these jobs back to Germany where they have the trained technicians to run these production operations. Companies are willing to do business here if they can find the right technicians. An add on suggestion was to go out and talk with local technology industry partners about writing similar letters of concern. When is the last time you have talked to the local industry partners? What did they say?
Through out these discussions it was never suggested that the electronics technology curricula be updated, or taught differently, or even to offer new programs. Lou stated that he guessed electronics technology faculties just do not think like this. He also stated he was beginning to believe that with these kinds of instructors, maybe it is best for the departments to just go away. Natural selection…what do you think?
The final suggestion was the formation of a State Electronics Teachers Associations that would meet regularly to exchange ideas. This is a great idea and it has been done in California with the California Council of Electronics Instructors. This successful organization has lobbied legislators for their causes and trained their own on new emerging technologies. What other State Electronics Teachers Associations exist and how have they contributed to enhancing the viability of electronics technology programs in these States?
I look forward to hearing from each of you and in exchanging ideas in order to improve the state electronics technology programs everywhere.

Tom McGlew