Associate Director, Education National Wind Institute Lubbock, Texas
Presentation Description: WindU is an NSF funded, collaborative effort between Northern Arizona University, Texas Tech University, Penn State University, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst to jointly plan and offer expanded graduate educational opportunities in wind energy. The newly defined model for collaboration defines the elements in the process required to successfully set up a consortium in one year, covering a range of activities from curriculum planning to financial agreements, consortia management and governance, student support systems and course delivery, and including future consortium expansion and sustainability. The consortium is unique in that it will also establish linkages with international educational institutions that are engaged in wind energy education and research, and include them in the consortium for broadening information sharing via technical webinars. The presentation will provide an update on the status of the project after its first year of funding.
Methodology: We would love to interact with other educational institutions and students who are looking for educational opportunities in wind energy. Discussion with industry regarding the Workforce-Gap is also vitally important.
Learning Objectives:
Upon completion of the presentation, participants will be able to understand the broad objectives of the Wind-U consortium between NAU, PSU, TTU and UMass- Amherst.
Upon completion of the presentation, participants will be able to understand the model for rapidly creating an expandable, multi-university, multi-disciplinary consortium in STEM graduate education, and how it is designed to increase the breadth and frequency of course offerings and educational opportunities available to a diverse group of students.
Upon completion of the presentation, participants will be able to participate in the ongoing conversation regarding the wind workforce-gap between Universities and Industry.
