Funds to Support Speaker Series and a Renewable Energy Lab at the College
Two educational programs at County College of Morris (CCM), one in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and the other in the humanities, are receiving a well-deserved boost in funding thanks to recent grant awards totaling more than $235,000.
In the STEM area at the college, CCM is collaborating with the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) to create two identical renewable energy labs, one on each campus. NJIT has received a grant from the National Science Foundation to establish the labs at both campuses. CCM’s portion is $223,892 over three years.
The project, titled, “Renewable Energy Systems Training Laboratory Development and Workforce Training,” will focus on how solar energy is converted into electricity for commercial use. At CCM, the lab primarily will be used by students in the Electronics Engineering Technology Program.
“The labs will have a representative array of equipment that is typically found in a solar powered environment,” explains Project Director Venancio “Venny” Fuentes, chair of the Department of Engineering Technologies and Engineering Science at CCM. “Students will be able to work with all of the elements that are needed to convert solar energy to electrical energy.”
CCM students in the college’s Electronics Engineering Technology Program who have taken the renewable energy course would then be able to transfer to NJIT to continue their concentration in renewable energy. Members of the community and students at other institutions also can train in the new lab at CCM through the college’s Center for Workforce Development.
In the area of the humanities, The Legacy Project, CCM’s lecture and panel discussion initiative, has received a $12,685 grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Legacy Project has offered programs across multiple disciplines to students, faculty, staff and the public since launching in 2013.
Events the Legacy Project is planning for the upcoming 2019-20 academic year focus on the theme of “War, Peace and Healing,” which will consist of on and off campus lectures, book discussions in local libraries, traveling faculty presentations, film screenings and an Oral History Remembrance Week for veterans. All of the project’s programs are free and open to the public.
Previous topics that have been explored by the Legacy Project include genocide, the women of the Beat Generation and a 50-year perspective on civil rights.
The two grants are in addition to the $4 million CCM received in July from the United States Department of Labor to lead the expansion of apprenticeship programs in advanced manufacturing and an additional award of $800,000 to assist with developing apprenticeships in health care.
For more information on the Legacy Project, go to www.ccm.edu/legacy-project/. More information on the Engineering Technologies and Engineering Science programs can be found at https://tinyurl.com/y9qkr3ty/.
