Design, Development, And Delivery Of Certificate Programs For Funding Opportunities And Industry Collaboration

Many engineering technology departments have four general areas that are used for evaluation of tenure and promotion. These areas include teaching, research and scholarly activities, service, and other professional activities. Although teaching is the primary mission in most engineering technology programs, external funding as part of the research area is playing a larger role in tenure decisions at many universities. Many faculty members in engineering technology programs come from an industrial background and do not have a specific research area of interest and contacts within the research community. These faculty members must look at other avenues to develop the external funding necessary for tenure. Departments and faculty must think in an entrepreneurial way to consider and value all types of external funding options. One possibility that produces a wide range of ancillary benefits is continuing education programs. This paper describes a model that was developed for continuing education programs in an engineering technology department. It details the problems associated with the implementation of the model for the first series of courses and outlines future plans to implement additional course series.