Christine Delahanty
$617,138
Mary E Ratcliff
Cathleen H Cogdill
Northern Virginia Community College
Virginia
Directorate for STEM Education (EDU)
Advanced Tech Education Prog
Welding in the United States (US) is a rapidly aging field. Of the 770,000 employed welders in the US, more than 155,000 are approaching retirement age. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted in-person welding instruction significantly, decreasing the availability of the career pathway to prospective students. These workforce shortages lead to a gap between funding levels for major infrastructure projects, such as those funded by the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the availability of skilled workers to build them. In Northern Virginia, data center construction is at an all-time high with nearly 1 gigawatt of construction planned. Data centers have high volume water, HVAC, and power systems that require significant pipe welding, both onsite and offsite. Without a strong career pathway in welding, these critical infrastructure projects will be harder to complete.<br/><br/>Project BUILD intends to support revitalization and growth of the welding program at Northern Virginia Community College through (1) a curriculum redesign and resequencing with input from a business and industry leadership team (BILT), (2) the development of a welding fabrication capstone course, (3) support for co-curricular welding opportunities in collaboration with existing college clubs and programs, and (4) a structured high school outreach and engagement strategy to recruit students for this career pathway. BUILD will improve welding instruction at NOVA by redesigning and resequencing courses to be responsive to industry needs. This improved instruction will help meet regional demand for welders caused by an aging workforce. BUILD will provide welding students with access to co-curricular supports to improve their competitiveness on the job market. This project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the Nation's economy.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.