CREATE at a glance
The goal of this Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Regional Center is to address the demonstrated high demand for renewable energy technicians in southern and central California as a multi-county consortium. The center offers wind, solar, and energy management. CREATE specializes in curriculum development, faculty developement, 2+2+2 career education pathways, assessment, and dissemination.
The colleges in CREATE’s consortium are demonstration sites for regional technical workshops that develop and test curricula, delivery systems, and other innovative professional development programs. Professional development for technical educators is a focus area.
CREATE will help meet the demonstrated demand for a diverse and gender-balanced workforce of highly skilled renewable energy technicians.
CREATE is a joint effort among high schools, California State universities, 9 community colleges, and more than 50 large high-tech engineering and technology employers.
CREATE works closely with industry to develop programs that teach students the skills they need to succeed.
CREATE History
Abstract
The goal of this ATE Regional Center is to address the demonstrated high demand for renewable energy technicians in southern and central California as a multi-county consortium. This project allows the Center to complete objectives in five areas: 1) development and refinement of modular in-class, on-line, and hybrid renewable energy curricula integrated into degree pathways; 2) implementation of a technical teacher professional development program in renewable energy that will allow current and future teachers for community colleges and high schools to acquire the technical knowledge and pedagogical skills to teach renewable energy in their classrooms; 3) development and implementation of a 2+2+2 pathway through partnership with high schools and universities to allow students interested in renewable energy careers to have a defined career ladder with multiple exit points integrated with industry certifications and college certificate and degree attainment; 4) continuous assessment and evaluation with embedded targeted research on curricular and professional development strategies to ensure that student, faculty, and industry goals are attained; and, 5) dissemination of both the products and the partnership process to maximize the impact both regionally and nationally.
It all started in 1996
CREATE has been meeting since 1996 as groups of faculty from a consortia of colleges that continue to grow. The consortia gets together to share curriculum, faculty development, best practices, equipment, outreach practices and to try to get technological education in emerging fields into their curricula so their students can get jobs in their communities. What CREATE found especially in California was that here were a lot of technology fields that had very few full time faculty in those departments and by having colleagues from the other institutions cooperating not competing the consortia would be able to deliver a good education in the technology fields.
In 1996 Dr. Kathy Alfano, a Dean at College of the Canyons, and Orville (Orv) Hendricks, a Dean at Cuesta College, met to discuss how to accomplish the tasks of funding the consortia. Dr. Alfano offered to write a grant to the State Chancellor’s Office. Dr. Alfano and Orv Hendricks then called a meeting with faculty to see if they could all work together. Once the faculty members realized that there was no other agenda but to help them do their jobs as best they could, they came together and it has been a great asset for faculty across California.
nce 1999, more than 25,000 students have completed at least 1 for-credit course developed by CREATE.
NSF Grant 1002653
Initial Amendment Date: August 16, 2010,
Latest Amendment Date: August 16, 2010
Award Number: 1002653
Award Instrument: Continuing grant
Program Manager: Duncan E. McBride
DUE Division of Undergraduate Education
EHR Directorate for Education & Human Resources
Start Date: August 15, 2010
Expires: July 31, 2012 (Estimated)
Awarded Amount to Date: $1710180
Investigator(s): Kathleen Alfano kathleen.alfano@canyons.edu (Principal Investigator) Christopher Akelian (Co-Principal Investigator) Floyd Moos (Co-Principal Investigator) Robert Alldredge (Co-Principal Investigator) Valerie Karnes (Co-Principal Investigator)
Sponsor: College of the Canyons
26455 Rockwell Canyon Road
Santa Clarita, CA 91355 661/362-3644
NSF Program(s): ADVANCED TECH EDUCATION PROG
Field Application(s):
Program Reference Code(s): SMET, 9178, 1032
Program Element Code(s): 7412
History Timeline
CREATE was first funded by a $120,000.00 Title II Grant from the State Chancellor’s Office for 1996 – 1997. Next CREATE was funded by a small National Science Foundation (NSF) project grant for three years. CREATE then became noticed as an exemplary program because most consortia fall apart by the second or third year. Most consortia do not continue if they are not part of the same District as the incentives to continue to work together diminish or those involved are competing against one another. In addition, there is a great deal of work involved when members of the consortia must fulfill their college’s rules and regulations and those set by the Federal Government and NSF.
CREATE has become a model and was awarded a Center of Excellence in 2002; at that time CREATE was concentrating on the emerging fields of technology – engineering, information technology, robotics, and manufacturing. CREATE completed a full cycle as a Center of Excellence in those areas.
In 2010, CREATE was awarded a new Center of Excellence for Energy coming out of the engineering technology fields but looking at new areas especially energy and energy related curricula. CREATE is the only Regional Energy Center in the United States and must be a model for the rest of the country. CREATE strives to give the best information possible and to answer all questions.