Miami-Dade Community College: Creating Employees for the 21st Century

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Miami-Dade Community College: Creating Employees for the 21st Century

8/22/2003

By Jonathan SussmanBy , Giselle Siu

To find skilled workers for the 21st century’s emerging disciplines like computer animation, American industry is looking to Miami-Dade Community College and its newest work of art—the Emerging Technologies Center of the Americas (ETCOTA)—to equip the next generation of talent with the necessary high-tech skills and training.

ETCOTA is a 40,000 square-foot facility linked by fiber optical cable. It offers students the advantage of instruction in 19 fully networked classrooms and a 120-seat auditorium. The building’s architectural design was done by The Corradino Group with Digital Video Systems applying its A/V expertise. In each of these rooms, the center has employed and standardized on Sony’s state-of-the-art audio/video solutions.

Integrated Approach to Learning
Sony’s VPL-FX50 SuperSmart projectors are integral to the advanced classroom technology. Instructors can use the touch-screen panel to initiate the projector to display desired multimedia, including material accessed remotely via the Internet, on local servers, or from the college’s extensive video libraries, on a 100-inch screen. For distance learning, Sony EVI-D100 robotic video cameras are used to capture, as well as record to a VTR.

“ETCOTA is one of the world’s premier technology centers,” says Jonathan Sussman, the center’s director of industry relations. “Institutions and academics from across the country and around the world—including China, Italy, and Spain—have come here to observe our architectural design, sophisticated technology, and curricular standards so that they can emulate our fully integrated approach to learning.”

Created as a partnership to meet the ever-increasing demand for highly skilled information technology workers, ETCOTA was funded in part with a $7.9 million grant from the state of Florida, Sussman explains. Classes began this past June, serving more than 1,000 students in the first semester. The college anticipates training 10,000 students annually, graduating the first class in December.

“Miami-Dade Community College has been providing exceptional training in the IT field, helping to meet our community’s education and economic development goals,” says Miami-Dade president Eduardo Padron. “ETCOTA has expanded our capability to help train the thousands of new workers needed for technology jobs, and we have been working with leaders of electronic commerce to help make South Florida the technology capital of the Americas.”

The scale of this achievement is in keeping with Miami-Dade Community College’s status as the largest college in the United States. The six campuses serve more than 160,000 students who reflect the diverse multi-ethnic, multi-national cultural mix that is South Florida. For all the diversity that defines this cosmopolitan landscape, technology is the common denominator for the future.
Sussman says that Miami-Dade Community College has become an essential part of the business community by implementing new academic programs to meet the needs of industry. Its technology standards allow the freedom to plan and adapt for the future as needed.