Three years ago, Eastman Kodak Company approached MCC to develop a unique apprenticeship program that would put 21 employees back in school and prepare them for better jobs. That collaboration appears to be the only one like it in the country, according to Nancy Schlinger, technical education coordinator at MCC. “This program can serve as a blueprint for replication in any college with any industry,” she says.
Schlinger and David Carlson, curriculum manager at Kodak, will present information on their program at the annual conference of the American Society for Electrical Engineers on Friday, Feb. 6, in Biloxi, Miss. An abstract of their program, “A Successful Collaboration with Industry and Education: Eastman Kodak Company and Monroe Community College,” can be viewed at https://www.pa.utulsa.edu/CIEC/Abstracts/schlinger.html.
In January of 2001, the students entered a new collaborative venture between Kodak and MCC – a program designed for a group of employees to attend classes and receive the necessary educational support while continuing to work. Employees in entry-level type positions could earn their associate of applied sciences degree in manufacturing technology while training as a skilled-trade apprentice to eventually work as technicians in instrumentation or robotics.
While MCC routinely works with area companies to provide educational courses, and Kodak often sends its employees to MCC for credit and non-credit courses, this collaborative is the largest endeavor of its kind. Courses were adapted, schedules were rearranged and a myriad of departments provided support – all to the benefit of Kodak employees without disruption to other MCC students.
Classes have included computer applications for technicians, drafting and design, instrumentation, manufacturing, electronics, optics and basic liberal arts; for the required physical education class, many students took stress management, applicable to employment. Half of the class has studied instrumentation – which includes calibrating machinery for proper operation – and half studied robotics. Kodak has placed the students in apprenticeships until graduation and then will move their workers into machinery maintenance positions as technicians in manufacturing, process, plant and facilities engineering.
The collaboration required many considerations, including adapting course schedules. For example, MCC’s Mathematics Department scheduled a special section of a needed math course at a specific time during the day and scheduled it at a varied length over the summer in order to accommodate the students and Kodak.
“Communication among faculty, staff and Kodak students has been imperative,” says Carlson. “For instance, faculty members developed Web sites for students to get homework and test answers, and Kodak provided Internet access for the students to contact professors.”
Nearly all of the students will receive their diplomas in May; the rest in December, as they needed to take extra prerequisite courses to improve their math and English skills.
The program comprises students of varying backgrounds, ages and family status – and includes one woman, typical of the industry as about 20 percent of engineering technology (which encompasses manufacturing) students are female.
“This opportunity created big changes in my life,” said student Christine Brewer. Along with getting a better job with her employer, she has moved into a sustainable career and has developed confidence from her achievements. And she has a commonality with her father, who works for the company that supplies the parts for the machinery she oversees. “There’s a relationship now between us,” she said. “We have something to talk about.”
Dianne McConkey
Public Affairs
02/02/2004 |