Program Description:
This program consists of a special set of BTC courses in machine shop safety, manual milling, and welding that are designed for UMKC engineering students. These courses give the engineering students hands-on experience in these practical skill areas that they would otherwise not get in the engineering curriculum. The courses are a required part of UMKC’s mechanical engineering program, and were developed together by UMKC and BTC.

For More Information Contact:
Tom Wheeler     thomas.wheeler@mcckc.edu

Program Description:
After experiencing increasing challenges hiring qualified employees, Cerner Corporation approached MCC about creating a pipeline of new IT talent. The Cerner technical team created lists of technical competencies and discussed those with an MCC team composed of workforce specialists and computer science faculty. The team began building a degree program by analyzing the competencies and matching them with student outcomes of existing computer science courses. The team identified several gap areas, and made some changes and additions to the computer science curricula. An existing course, CSIS 143, was converted from MySQL to Oracle, the database platform used by Cerner and many other major corporations. An Oracle DBA course was also needed, so thecomputer science faculty worked with the continuing professional education division to create an Oracle database administrator course which covers the concepts and develops the competencies identified by the Cerner team.

Cerner recruited on several of the MCC campuses by hosting information sessions and conducting preliminary interviews on site. The search was successful, and more than a dozen MCC students are now employed at Cerner through the KCIT program. Cerner plans to hire 40 additional interns in June, 2010.

The first phase of the KCIT program focused on creating a pipeline of system engineers, and the second phase will focus on developing a pipeline of programmers. This will undoubtedly involve additional adjustments to MCC curricula, and new additions.

Program Outcomes:
The Cerner KCIT program has helped MCC refine and update its computer science course offerings, created a pipeline of IT talent for Cerner Corporation, and created new opportuinities for students in the healthcare technology field.

For More Information Contact:
Mark Murtha         mark.murtha@mcckc.edu