By Blythe Alspaugh – Staff Reporter, Dayton Business Journal
Jul 21, 2023 11:33am EDT
As the skilled workforce shortage continues to be the top concern for industries everywhere, one institution in the Dayton region is working hard to get students career ready even before they have a diploma in hand. The programs available to give students trade skills has seen tremendous growth over the past decade, with no signs of stopping.
The Dayton Business Journal recently sat down with Tony Trapp, apprenticeship coordinator with the Upper Valley Career Center, to discuss how the apprenticeship program continues to grow, what challenges career colleges are facing, and how the UVCC is meeting those challenges.
What are the biggest challenges in career technical education right now, and how is UVCC meeting those challenges?
An obstacle that I started noticing a few years ago was transportation. During Covid, I noticed I had several students that did not get their driver's licenses because Covid shut down the driver’s education courses and also shut down the license bureaus. If these students don’t have a license, they can’t do their apprenticeship work. Last year, after brainstorming with our superintendent, we went to the AAA driving school and wrote a grant to cover the cost of any UVCC student’s driver’s education course. They still have to find their vehicle, but we’ve helped to remove that barrier.
Right now, a challenge we have is that we are maxing out and having to turn away students. A lot of our programs are overenrolled – with the welding program, we had to expand it and add more booths to accommodate interest and more students. Our welding program, HVAC and electrical programs – they fill up fast. With that obstacle, we’re helping to service our region with students by putting more satellite programs in our partner schools. We have a construction and manufacturing program in Sidney High School, for example, so those students who weren’t able to get in programs at the career center can still get some basic skills.
Is the UVCC currently planning to expand or add more programs?
We have a new program coming on campus for the upcoming academic year called First Responders. We used to have a criminal justice program, but the bad thing about the criminal justice program is that you can’t get into law enforcement until you’re 21 years old. A lot of students would lose interest. Now, with so many different opportunities, we call it the First Responders. It’s going to focus on medical, first aid, first responders and criminal justice – it’s going to be a melting pot of all those skills. Our friends at the Troy Fire Department – they heard about our apprenticeship model and they created an apprenticeship for their fire department.
On the enrichment side, a few years ago, the superintendent and I traveled to Germany with some local chamber of commerce members to learn more about their manufacturing from one of their apprenticeship schools. After we got back home, they asked us if we were interested in a student exchange program. We started it in 2020 and had to cut our trip with students in Germany short, but we’re going to be starting that apprenticeship exchange with our sister school in Hanover, Germany again in October. We will host 12 students in machining, welding and electricians. Those students will live with our students and go to school with them, and in the second week of March, we’ll take our 12 students over to Germany, and they will live with the students they were paired with in the fall and go to school with them.
Founded in 1975, the Upper Valley Career Center has 197 full time and 75 part time employees and a total enrollment of 1,150 students for the 2023-2024 academic year. The school offers 26 programs across many industries, including the automotive sector, manufacturing, medical, robotics & automation, veterinary science, welding, cosmetology, computer information technologies and early childhood education.
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