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The Essentials for a Thriving Community of Practice

We recently delivered a conference breakout presentation on the National Convergence Technology Center’s (CTC) successful community of practice (CoP) called the Convergence College Network (CCN).  In addition to discussing case study specifics about this group of 60 schools across 23 states and the IT faculty members that drive it, we also looked at an interesting…

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Seven Recruiting and Retaining Tips from the Diversity Summit

The National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) recently hosted a special two-day “Diversity Summit” workshop for ten select schools from its Convergence College Network (CCN). Each school sent three attendees – an instructor, an advisor, and an administrator. The “Diversity Summit” provided a forum to hear best practices on recruiting and retaining under-served populations from a…

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A New Approach to Helping Foster Diversity

Most community college educators know what it takes to recruit and retain under-served populations (hands-on activities, early outreach, success stories, role models, community events, data tracking, intrusive advising, and the list goes on). The trick is that those strategies must be employed again and again in order to deliver sustained results. But with community college…

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NVC Student Panel Recap

The National Science Foundation requires that all Advanced Technological Education (ATE) centers like the National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) host annual program reviews led by what’s called an “NVC” – National Visiting Committee. These yearly NVC meetings look at the work of the center over the previous 12 months to make sure grant goals are…

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How Business Can Help Your Program

The National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) takes every opportunity to extol the value of building relationships with business and industry to make sure program graduates are “right-skilled” to be readily employable. This message is repeatedly drummed to our 50-school CCN (Convergence College Network) community of practice and it’s underscored at just about every educational conference…

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Informing Students About IT Career Paths

The National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) works hard to support convergence programs (IT and communications) around the country and prepare students for lucrative jobs in the IT space.  But no matter how well-trained faculty members are or how cutting-edge curriculum may be, students won’t get jobs unless they know what jobs are out there.  We…

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Strategies to Track Graduate Success

The National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) recently posed this question at a meeting of its community of practice, the Convergence College Network (CCN): “how do you keep track of your graduates’ success?”  It’s important to measure a program’s effectiveness to understand what works and what doesn’t.  Are your students leaving with the skills they need…

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Boot Camp for Recruiting Strategies

The National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) recently helped promote a unique “boot camp” workshop for IWITTS (the National Institute for Women in Trades, Technology and Science) to deliver in-depth recruiting and retention strategies to select community college teams. Three schools ultimately participated in the workshop: two from Texas, one from Maryland. Each fielded a team…

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Writing IT Resumes

The CTC recently spoke with Deidra Witt, Talent Acquisition Sr. Advisor at Dell, to better understand what recruiters are looking for in entry-level job seekers. We learned that HR and hiring managers work together to develop job descriptions, both new openings and backfilled positions. Recruiters look at the requirements for the job and then a…

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BILT (Part 1): Critical to Student Success

Having a business council working with colleges is not a new concept. However, the Convergence Technology Center’s approach puts business in a co-leadership role rather than just a business approval role. The approach is key to ensuring that the students educated/trained by our partner educational institutions are “workforce ready” to be hired by the businesses.…

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