Events/Conferences
Messaging Strategies for Increasing Student Diversity
Laura Nicholas – a communications consultant for IBM – provided remarks at the National Convergence Technology Center’s (CTC) recent two-day “Diversity Summit” workshop. Specifically, Laura talked to the attendees (ten teams comprised of a faculty member, an administrator, and a counselor) about messaging as it relates to improving their programs’ student diversity. Here are select…
Read MoreSeven 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…
Read MorePHOTOS: Diversity Summit 2017
The National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) recently hosted ten schools from across the country for an intensive two-day workshop environment called the “Diversity Summit.” The educator teams were first presented with the latest best practices by experts in recruiting/retaining under-served student populations, then worked with those experts to develop concrete, focused diversity action plans. The…
Read MoreA 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…
Read MoreEngaging Your Business Experts
At the recent WASTC Winter ICT Educators’ Conference, the National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) hosted a panel discussion on its successful “BILT” (Business and Industry Leadership Team) model that helps energize relationships between community college educators and industry experts. Most community college programs have traditional advisory boards in which business leaders guide programs via annual…
Read MoreNVC 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…
Read MoreHow 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…
Read MoreBoot 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…
Read MoreLearning to Backchannel
The term “backchannel” refers to an informal, secondary communication channel that runs parallel to a formal presentation or lecture. That is, why you’re giving a lecture, your students are making comments and asking questions on a social media-style feed that’s being projected on the wall behind you. To us, it’s a fairly revolutionary concept. The…
Read More9 Things We Learned at Our Fall Conferences
The National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) attended several conferences this fall to make presentations and sit on panels and roundtables; to disseminate information about our grant work at exhibit hall booths, to recruit new member schools to our Convergence College Network (CCN) community of practice, and – when time permits – to attend breakout sessions…
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