For the second year, the Lab's Computing Infrastructure Support Department and the Work Force Diversity Office invited local community college teachers to attend a series of presentations and hands-on training sessions in key areas of computing. The goals of the program include supporting the schools, supporting diversity in recruitment through internships for community college students, providing real-world feedback to teachers to help in curriculum development and supporting professional development for IT faculty. The program is co-sponsored by the IT Industry-Education Partnership (ITIEP) and Regional CC Curriculum Collaborative, of which the Lab is a member.

Instructor Craig Nelson (right) instructs local community college teachers on various Microsoft applications at a recent workshop. Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt/TEID.

"It was just incredibly well-received - the whole program went very well," said Charlie Verboom, organizer of the project. "The presentations by Lab employees were excellent and really contributed to the success of the program."

City College of San Francisco, College of Alameda, Laney, Ohlone, Diablo Valley, Chabot, Vista, Merritt and Contra Costa colleges all sent instructors for training. Additionally, representatives from both the Pleasanton and San Francisco Unified School Districts attended.

"It was one of the most productive training events I've attended," said Tom Murphy of Contra Costa College in San Pablo. Murphy said he plans to call on the Lab for support as he begins a two-year grant program to develop a curriculum on high-performance computing.

The first day included presentations by Gene Schultz and Jim Mellander on various aspects of computer security, an overview of the Lab by Michael Banda, a discussion of network scanning by Jay Krous and coverage of Microsoft Active Directory by Craig Nelson. The first day ended with a discussion of CSEE community college initiatives presented by Rollie Otto and a review of the ITSD intern program with Charlie Verboom and Gayle Peuser. The ITSD community college intern program gives students both hands-on experience and class credit. The second day offered two tracks. The one on Microsoft was presented by Craig Nelson, while James Buszard-Welcher, Jim Guggemos, Greg Kurtzer and John Staples (of AFRD) made presentations in the Linux track.

"Lab and other industry representatives on the ITIEP board have a real opportunity to help with curriculum development in a number of areas that directly impact the workforce we recruit from," Verboom said. "Solaris, Linux and high performance computing using Linux clusters are key areas that have not been addressed well by any community college, nor had cybersecurity. This program is an opportunity for the Lab to make a huge difference in what students will be able to learn in a community college environment."

Verboom said one announcement of the program was distributed, resulting in twice as many signups as last year, demonstrating the need for this kind of training. "I can't count how many people came up to me and thanked me for the training and information we provided over the past two days," Verboom said. Among the points mentioned by the teachers were an increased understanding of the Lab's scientific contributions, the depth and quality of the presentations, the networking opportunities, the hands-on instruction and the emphasis on computer security.

Survey comments submitted after the session called for even more instruction next year, with added emphasis on cluster computing, Linux systems, parallel computing and Web servers.