Speakers at Wednesday’s opening plenary of the 2023 Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Principal Investigators’ Conference in Washington, D.C., praised the highly collegial community of two-year college educators who received National Science Foundation (NSF) grants to improve the skilled technical workforce over the past 30 years.
“We like to think ATE is the gold standard for funding opportunities in the federal government,” said James L. Moore III, assistant director for the STEM Education Directorate at the National Science Foundation.
“Since its inception, ATE has been a model of how impactful partnerships can be in America, particularly when it comes to preparing a skilled technical workforce not only for today but for tomorrow,” he said. NSF requires that faculty from associate-degree-granting institutions have leadership roles in ATE grants and that they partner with industry and other education sectors.
“The program has transformed institutions, communities, and it has helped students see themselves in well-paying STEM careers. It continues to play a significant role in developing the workforce,” Moore said, adding that he is looking forward to “even bigger investments in community colleges.”
A special relationship
Since 1994, NSF has invested $1.5 billion — $1,455,091,553, to be exact — in ATE grants.
Five hundred and five community and technical colleges have received most of those funds, though four-year colleges and other organizations that partner with two-year colleges are also eligible for ATE grants. The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), for example, has received ATE grants for its MentorLinks program development initiatives and to convene the ATE Principal Investigators’ Conference.
“Without the partnership with AACC, ATE really would not be where it is today. It is a true partnership, and it has been from the get-go,” said V. Celeste Carter, lead ATE program director at NSF.
AACC President and CEO Walter Bumphus noted the association’s relationship with NSF is special.
“It seems like we have hundreds of partnerships at AACC, but we don’t have a partnership any more significant than with ATE and NSF,” he said.
Bumphus also praised the principal investigators for sharing their promising practices during the annual conference.
“Your commitment to creating STEM technician education programs that are innovative and responsive to industry needs is essential to our nation’s communities and economy….Your many contributions are significant and very much appreciated,” he said.
Bumphus presented awards to Elizabeth “Liz” Teles and Gerhard Salinger in recognition of their 30 years of service to the ATE program. Teles and Salinger were the NSF program directors who created the ATE program following the passage of the Scientific Advanced Technological Act in 1992. They served as co-leaders of the program until their retirements, and have in recent years been co-principal investigators of ATE projects. He also thanked Carter for advocacy for community colleges and reminded the audience that AACC gave Carter its 2023 Truman Leadership Award.
Creating a community
Teles compared the 800 attendees at this year’s conference with the 32 who attended the first ATE PI Conference that AACC convened at NSF’s request for the first 16 grants funded in 1994. This year’s conference participants included community college educators, ATE project and center support personnel, K-12 educators, university educators, industry partners and 50 students and recent alumni. The students shared information about their colleges’ ATE projects during a poster session after the plenary.
“AACC’s always been a strong advocate for the ATE program,“ Teles said, pointing out that AACC began working 40 years ago with two North Carolina congressmen on legislation that eventually became the Scientific Advanced Technology Act. The first ATE grants were awarded in 1994.
“It took AACC’s work and advocacy up on the Hill [Capitol Hill] to get it created, and I want to thank you for that,” Teles said.
In addition to praising AACC’s current team, Teles thanked Lynn Barnett, a longtime AACC vice president who died in 2020, for the “strong role” she played in encouraging NSF to structure the program to promote collegiality and collaboration among ATE principal investigators, as the educators who lead ATE initiatives are called. Teles recalled that Barnett said, “We need a community, not just a lot of projects hanging around. We need a community of people.”
Salinger agreed with that sentiment.
“When Liz and I were developing the ATE program 30 years ago, we agreed we wanted to create a community rather than a series of projects, which was an NSF way of doing things. We didn’t know how to do it, and we don’t know for certain how it came about, but the credit goes to you because the PIs [principal investigators] of the projects and centers, you made it happen.
“The center leaders began to mentor projects and centers. Project leaders worked together to create new programs at the community colleges. You all worked together to create a family. Thank you for making the ATE program successful.”
Long-time PIs share their views
In interviews, two community college educators with long and varied experiences with the ATE program shared their perspectives.
Mike Lesiecki, who became involved in ATE in 1996 as principal investigator of the Maricopa Advanced Technology Education Center at Maricopa Community Colleges (Arizona), said the most striking aspect of ATE’s evolution over 30 years is the “the constant influx of new people. It helps keep the community alive.”
Now an evaluator of several ATE projects, Lesiecki said he enjoys learning from the other PIs, who he pointed out, are increasingly working across disciplines.
Elaine Craft, who received a project grant for faculty development in 1995, said NSF consistently funding the program and having annual requests for proposals is one of the most important aspects of ATE compared with other federal programs.
“There’s been this consistency of opportunity, and their [program directors’] willingness to support PIs and colleges that do good work and keep you funded long enough to make a difference, because educational reform just does not happen overnight,” she said.
Craft’s successful implementation of an exemplary professional development program for math, physics, engineering technology and communications faculty at all 16 South Carolina community colleges was followed by her leadership of the South Carolina Advanced Technological Education Center at Florence-Darlington Technical College and more recently Mentor-Connect. AACC is a partner on Mentor-Connect, which provides community college faculty teams with nine months of mentoring while they prepare ATE grant proposals.
Craft praised the NSF program directors.
“They’ve been very good about providing an encouraging environment for people to continue building on their success and taking their ideas and their programs to the next level. And that opportunity is rare….They really want you to be successful. It just creates a culture that makes you want to work in this program, and you do work. But you feel valued and that what you do is appreciated.”
