COLLEGE GETS TECHNOLOGY GRANT.

Byline: Naush Boghossian Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA- The National Science Foundation has awarded the College of the Canyons a $2 million grant to expand the use of technology in the classrooms.

``Especially with state funds so low, this is a huge impact,'' said Kathleen Alfano, director of the National Science Foundation Regional Center. ``Students in our community will be able to have access to state-of-the-art curricula and we would provide equipment to all campuses. Given the state budget this year we wouldn't have had state funds to do this.''

The grant will be used to expand the California Regional Consortium for Engineering Advances in Technological Education, or project CREATE, into a Regional Center for Information and Manufacturing Technology based at College of the Canyons.

The consortium worked on basic curriculum development for technology majors, but the grant will allow them to explore new areas, including network security and wireless technology.

The grant will allow the center to develop hands-on workshops for high school and community college educators in technology and manufacturing so students who enter the industry can show their skills.

Including providing other institutions with advice, guidance, materials and resources, the center will also use the money to train part-time community college faculty; increase the number of bachelor's degree programs in technology; and create a system for developing a greater number of internship and job-training opportunities with regional business partners.

``We met for six years and worked on joint curriculum development with the seven colleges involved but where we failed is that there are not enough teachers out there to teach these courses,'' Alfano said. ``The irony is, especially in our area, jobs are in technology. There are so many machinist and technology jobs and not enough qualified people to send out. We need a pipeline from high school.''

The grant is scheduled to be funded over the next three years beginning July 1.

With fewer than 24 regional centers across the country, the technology center will be the only one currently based in Southern California.

Project CREATE began in 1997 as a partnership between seven community colleges in Southern California, including College of the Canyons, Santa Barbara City College and Moorpark College, to increase enrollment in science and technology courses at community colleges and to develop and offer hands-on technical training to both community college and high school faculty.

The center has educated more than 3,500 students since it began, and developed and implemented 30 new degree programs and 105 new courses.

Five four-year universities including California State University, Northridge, have become involved in the program to create more bachelor's degree programs in science and technology and make them more accessible to students by offering them at community college locations.