Rosen promotes STEM to bolster state’s workforce

By Mick Akers

Saturday, May 13, 2017 | 2 a.m.

Educators and politicians are looking for more ways to ensure an educated workforce for Nevada’s tech-related jobs.

Getting youngsters started early on the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) path is essential, according to U.S. Rep. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., who spoke to a group of students in various science and technology majors at the College of Southern Nevada Henderson campus on Friday.

Making it fun, especially with programs such as robotics clubs, is the best way to engage students as early as elementary school, Rosen said.

“That’s the way you capture a kid’s imagination,” she said. “So maybe they're in grade school and you teach them to build a bridge with Legos, or building blocks or robotics. So early on, you can spark someone’s imagination in a way they did not know and they just take that all away with them.”

Nevada has been doing a good job mixing in STEM classes and clubs to help prepare students for what’s to come, she said. Rosen sees the state and companies such as Tesla and Switch laying more groundwork to get the community involved.

“We have businesses doing great things and each one of them is partnering, not just with charities in our state, but they’re also partnering with education programs, whether they’re internships with unions, the College of Southern Nevada, UNLV, all across the board, it’s great,” she said.

Although major tech companies that have recently made Nevada home brought in most of their workers from outside the state, Rosen said a plan is in place to fill some of those jobs locally, as technology and science programs gain in popularity across Nevada.

“I think it’s great and initially they’ll bring in people to do those jobs, but they’ll have families and kids,” Rosen said. “So I have what I call the people pipeline: If we have all these things in schools, we’re going to be growing up our next employees, business owners, creators and innovators. It’s kind of a piece of the same puzzle.

“Companies will come here and start with people from other places, and then we’re going to grow those people's families and our own to work in those jobs. It’s a partnership,” said Rosen, who serves on the Science, Space and Technology Committee in the House.

CSN has programs that focus on students and STEM, including the CTE College Credit course. Students in high schools, who are in career and technical programs, like Cisco Networking, or electronics programs, can earn up to 21 college credits by successfully completing the program.

“(With) the Cisco Networking program at the high school, students qualify for the Cisco certified network associate certificate, and they come to us and we award them 16 college credits,” said Michael Spangler, dean of the School of Advanced & Applied Technologies at CSN. “IT can be up to 21 credits total. ”That’s a semester's worth of school for free.”

In addition Spangler said a lot of CSN’s staff does community outreach, meets with area schools and hosts events that spread awareness about science and technology such the annual Science and Technology Fest earlier this month.

Spangler said CSN is producing talented individuals in these categories, but not at the rate needed, as many students leave school early to pursue job opportunities.

“It’s critical to have an educated population of students in these realms,” Spangler said. “All of these disciplines have huge shortage of trained personnel. It’s actually kind of a problem for us because the talent pool is so shallow. Many of our people are getting poached out of our program before graduation and offered tremendous salaries. So there's obviously a demand.”