AACC Revs STEM Effort Into Higher GearPods

By Mark R. Smith, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Area defense contractors have a pressing need for skilled technical employees. Middle and high school students need career counseling, encouragement and opportunities.
And businesses and government entities in the Corridor need high tech workers - and lots of them. Now.
That's why the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Center at Anne Arundel Community College (AACC) is becoming an ever more important cog in the area's educational wheel as those middle and high school students contemplate their career options.
Rich Cerkovnik, director of the center, said that AACC's budget for its STEM program is relatively small. But he quickly noted that Anne Arundel County has provided approximately $450,000 for the program, plus an additional $550,000 to build the first two STEM labs at the Arundel Mills campus by next year, with more planned.
"For the students, a STEM career can be an abstract or unknown item," he said, "so providing them with internships and interaction allows them to learn what a STEM career is all about."

Points of Entry
Cerkovnik said that AACC's STEM Center has reached a few significant milestones during the past year, such as identifying space at the Arundel Mills campus for networking and information systems security programs, and adding another lab for an AutoCad system while searching for extra space.
In addition, the decades-old Careers Center Building at AACC's flagship Arnold campus has been renovated to accommodate even more STEM students. With the march of incoming BRAC workers already audible, the upgrades allow the college to offer students greater access to technical education in a market where defense contractors have an insatiable need for more employees, as well as varied training offerings.
But while getting youngsters integrated into STEM programs is key, it's only part of the approach.
"We also need entry points along the pathway for career changers," Cerkovnik said, since they are also a big part of the equation when it comes to fortifying the local tech workforce.
And while assisting those career changers is also critical, he stressed that upper elementary school or lower middle school "is really where students learn about skill sets and decide if they are STEM capable or not.
"If they decide that they are not, that's about where they shut down on that part of their perception of themselves," Cerkovnik said. "We want to get to them prior to that point."

Working Together
Jeff Hamstra, a principal with Booz Allen Hamilton in Annapolis Junction who doubles as the president of the Armed Forces Communications Electronics Association's (AFCEA) Central Maryland Chapter, said that the word that comes to his mind when he discusses AACC's efforts to recruit more STEM students is "passionate.
"AACC is all about building the high tech capabilities for the state," said Hamstra, who is involved with the college via AFCEA's Outreach Program. "I can tell you that because I primarily represent Anne Arundel County and our chapter has grown significantly."
He said that AFCEA, which operates on a budget of $150,000, is pursuing an active partnership with the STEM Center and that the two parties have been exploring a Memorandum of Agreement that would create a longer-term bond between them.
"We are exploring ways that we can attain the level of commitment that we want to make," Hamstra said. "The intent is to have a combination of financial and non-financial support between all of the businesses that AFCEA represents."
Those non-financial factors include setting up internships with local businesses and corporations (such as Booz Allen), providing skilled practitioners from industry to assist the STEM program instructors, and having AFCEA members teaching as adjunct faculty and lecturers.
That integrated approach is just what the business community needs, said Claire Louder, executive director of the West Anne Arundel County Chamber of Commerce.
"With all of the high tech jobs coming here, plus the job base that we already have with the numerous defense contractors that are located in the Corridor, that we are prepared to enhance the pool of workers in the STEM fields is critical," she said.
Garnering students early and engaging them in these critical areas "is key to keeping the students in Anne Arundel County," Louder said, "so that we ensure a growing workforce pool for our business community and keep the workers in Maryland, where they contribute to our tax base."

The Comeback Trail
The next step to enhance the effort at AACC is for the college to execute articulation agreements with all of the four-year schools and the other community colleges in Maryland.
"What we've done is agree as to what the first two years of a STEM program should look like," said Cerkovnik, "so the credits will transfer from any two-year school to a four-year school."
That's important, because youngsters are eager to learn how to identify certain jobs and how to prepare for them without losing credits, said Brian Cooper, senior business developer with Praxis Engineering in Hanover and board president of AFCEA's local chapter.
Of course, those middle schoolers have already been influenced by what they've learned in school and what they see around them in general. "If they see NASA shoot off a rocket, for instance, they want to learn about the different jobs required to make that happen," said Cooper.
While American kids are not focusing on learning math and science as they did 20 years ago, Cooper thinks the STEM program at AACC and others like it around the state and the nation will prove valuable in getting technically talented students pointed back in the right direction.
"The U.S. used to always place in the Top 10 of various international math and science competitions, but that's not the case anymore," he said. "Still, we're trying to work our way back to the forefront in those disciplines. This STEM initiative is one step toward doing just that.
"I think the staff at AACC is very proactive. They're engaging all of the right partners in the public and private sectors," said Cooper, "and we're all approaching the issue head on. If we don't, we'll just continue to fall further and further behind."