SCC receives Geospatial Technology Grant

Southeast Community College has received a Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College Career Training Grant of $2,507,462 to develop two new certificate programs.

The TAACCCT grant, administered by the U.S. Department of Labor, is intended to train TAA-eligible, veteran and other unemployed or underemployed adults. The training will be available to the public as well, including incumbent workers and traditional college students. An estimated 235 adults will be trained over the three-year grant cycle.

Dr. Denise Schlake-Ideus, will serve as the interim project manager. Glenn Pasho will assist until a project manager is hired. Schlake-Ideus and Pasho oversee two divisions at SCC as academic deans.

SCC will develop a Geographic Information Systems Technician certificate and a Precision Agriculture certificate for online, hybrid and classroom delivery. The grant will increase the College’s capacity to provide current software and technology used in the increasingly complex, tech-rich agricultural and GIS-based workplaces. Courses will begin in September 2014.

For remediating students, the project will offer self-paced, adaptive software solutions, enabling them to target and improve basic reading, writing and math skills according to their individual needs, improve initial assessment scores in order to skip developmental classes, and accelerate their progress on the pathway to college credentials. The project will collaborate with four-year institutions to increase the articulation of Geospatial and Agriculture courses to afford participants the choice of earning a baccalaureate degree.

Proposed courses for Geographic Information Systems Technician are Introduction to Geospatial Technology, Spatial Analysis and Modeling, Data Acquisition and Management, Cartographic Design and Visualization, Internship or Cooperative Experience, Thinking Mathematically, and Introduction to Human Geography. The certificate totals 31.5 quarter credit hours.

Proposed courses for the Precision Agriculture Certificate are Crop and Food Science, Soils and Plant Nutrition, Ag Technology, Precision Technology, Advanced Precision Technology, Ag Precision Hardware, and Business Math. The certificate totals 36 quarter credit hours.

Persons interested in pursuing the certificates are asked to contact the Admissions Office at Beatrice (402-228-8214), Lincoln (402-437-2600) or Milford (402-761-8243).