Faculty, John LaVere and Gary Beasley, of the Central Carolina Community College Laser & Photonics Technology Program held their annual, in-person advisory committee meeting November 30^th at the Harnett County Campus in Lillington, North Carolina.  Though the official meeting was from 3:30 to 6:30 PM, the event, bringing together advisors from across the country, is at an all-day event, and often runs over multiple days, where some advisors may come early the day of, before, or after the actual meeting to network with students, teaching, presenting and interviewing. 

Advisory members are representative of the laser program key stake holders.  This particular meeting included one high school student, who is a prospective future laser student, eight current laser students, five previous laser graduates working in the field, one previous laser graduate, who is now a university research graduate student working on her Ph.D. in Physics, one high school teacher, representing an incoming student “pipeline”, ten industry partners/laser graduate employers, a national research laboratory partner/employer, one retired engineering industry leader/entrepreneur, one local dentist and laser user in the practice, four university photonics/engineering professors to help guide our future technology curriculum on new technologies and workforce development grant partnership opportunities, and ten CCCC administrators/staff, including our CCCC President, Dr. Lisa Chapman, for a total of 43 members.

The focus of advisory meetings is on finding ways to improve the CCCC laser program by enhancing recruiting, preparing and placement of laser students.  Since Covid prevented in-person high school recruiting visits during the 2020-2021 time period, community college enrollment across the country has been negatively impacted.  With the start of in-person high school classes in spring 2022, the CCCC laser program recruiting team visited 14 out of the 18 high schools in our three-county region last spring.  After each recruiting visit, we discussed from observations, when we had, and didn’t have students’ attention. 

To help improve our recruiting effectiveness, it was decided the main focus of this year’s advisory meeting would be recruiting.  After advisory members were given details of current recruiting activities, the members were divided into four separate groups.  The groups brainstormed on ways to enhance recruiting.  Following 15 to 20 minutes of group discussion, a designated spokesperson from each group reported their group’s recruiting enhancement ideas.  The ideas and feedback were outstanding!!!  Prior to the start of spring 2023 recruiting activities, we plan to enhance our efforts based on the feedback.

We cannot begin to thank the members for their hard work, excitement, devotion, and willingness to give so much of their valuable time and resources to help “our graduates achieve their career goals”.  It could not have been put any better than a comment from CCCC Vice President/Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Kristi Short’s on the advisory committee, “a dedicated, engaged group……so eager to support the program’s growth”.

If you would like to learn details about the meeting, or CCCC’s laser program, please contact lead instructor, Gary Beasley at gbeas207@cccc.edu, or 910-814-8828.