Kim Ehlert, Associate Dean, Information Technology

Waukesha County Technical College (WCTC), Pewaukee, Wisconsin

WCTC is a technical college located in Wisconsin and is part of a 16 college system. The college serves 23,000 students in

over 130 different program areas.

The Information Technology programs offered at WCTC include the following:

IT Network Specialist AAS degree

IT Computer Support Specialist AAS degree

IT Web & Software Developer AAS degree

IT Project Management Technical Certificate

Java Programming Technical Certificate

Virtualization Technologies Technical Certificate

IT Network Professional Technical Certificate

Information Security Technical Certificate

Cisco CCNA Technical Certificate

Mobile Device Application Development Technical Certificate

We currently have over 700 students enrolled in the IT programs and are continually revising and adding new technology

programming to our curriculum. All of the WCTC information technology degrees require a 144 hour internship and we

have many different types of employers who hire our students – such large hospital systems, government agencies, small

businesses, financial institutions and many other organizations.

In the past few years, WCTC’s information technology faculty has focused their efforts on the following:

1.  The Network Specialist degree program has a customizable 4th semester in which students are able to choose

from a menu of technology courses – such as virtualization, CCNA, VoIP/Convergence, Ethical Hacking and many

other emerging technologies.

2.  Through grant funding, an IT Student Center (located in the IT building) was established as a place where IT

students can gather to study, socialize, practice their skills in a “Network Sandbox” and utilize a host of IT

equipment to strengthen their technology toolkit. This has increased retention in our courses and also improved

student engagement both inside and outside the classroom. Our students have spent over 5000 hours in the IT

Student Center during Spring 2013 semester.

3.  Through our IT student Club – BIT Connections, students are able to participate in many different service learning

projects in which WCTC partners with local non-profit agencies. These projects include wired and wireless

network design and installation, web site design, database design, and application development.

4.  WCTC has offered several different technology camps for kids this summer – including a week long technology

exploration camp for high school kids and (2) week long Lego Programming camps for middle-school kids.

5.  We have implemented a Netlabs+ infrastructure which has enabled us to offer several of our courses in hybrid

format and allows our students to practice their high-end technical skills off-campus. We will be upgrading our

Netlabs+ infrastructure to the Professional Edition this summer which will allow us to offer more courses using

this technology.

 

6.  WCTC offers a computer repair course which provides free computer repair services to the community (staff,

students and residents). Students in their third or fourth semester staff the computer repair center and provide all

services, from front desk support to actual repair.

7.  The computer support specialist faculty has implemented a mentoring program in which new computer support

students are paired with industry professionals to establish a formal mentor relationship. This is currently a pilot

program and has been very successful so far.