The program will be an unmanned aerial systems (UAS, or “drone”) program that will train drone technicians and pilots, and it will focus on agricultural applications of drone technology. It is slated for a fall 2016 launch and will be called “New Opportunities in Aviation.”
Big Bend President Terry Leas said the UAS program will be the first of its kind in Washington state’s community and technical college system.
Big Bend officials said they had obtained the grant through Title V for Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI). According to a release from the college, BBCC is designated as an HSI because of the demographics and income levels among the college’s service district population.
Hispanic Serving Institutions grants aim at helping more local Hispanic students complete college degrees. The benefits of HSI grants are available to all students and residents of Big Bend’s service district.
The grant will reportedly provide approximately $520,000 per year to Big Bend for the New Opportunities in Aviation program.
“The opportunity to use a new UAS education program and our 50-year aviation tradition to serve one of the most diverse and productive agricultural areas in the world is exciting,” Leas said.
Leas said the drone program will be of benefit to other programs at the college and the students in those programs. He said the commercial pilot and aviation maintenance programs will be beneficiaries of the drone program, and students in the college’s STEM disciplines have reasons to be excited as well. Students in Big Bend’s computer science program will also have pathways to the drone program, Leas said.
“It will have a ripple effect,” Leas said. “The UAS program will create connections among many of our existing educational programs.”
The program will take one year to set up, so the first classes are expected to begin in the fall of 2016, according to the release from Big Bend. The first year’s installment of the grant money is earmarked for hiring staff, developing curriculum, renovating more than 5,500 square feet of an existing college hangar for lab space, developing an advising system, and training advisors.
The program’s equipment list includes fixed-wing and helicopter drones, as well as mapping software. According to the release, the college will also purchase flight simulation software so students can practice the essentials of flight in a controlled environment.
The drone program will have three initiatives, said Doug Sly, the college's public information director: mechatronics (mechanical and electronics), UAS operations (pilots), and pathway advising.
Leas said the pathway advising initiative is vital to the UAS program.
“The pathway advising component is crucial because students will be unfamiliar with the requirements for earning an associate degree in mechatronics or UAS operations,” he said.
Each of the three initiatives will have a full-time director, and it is estimated that 10 faculty positions will be trained in the new curricula and course delivery.
Hybrid classes will also be developed for the program, to include online, face-to-face, and lab activities, Sly said.
The drone program has a working advisory committee organized by BBCC grant writer Terry Kinzel, he said.
The HSI grant for the new drone program is not the only HSI grant at work at Big Bend currently. The college’s current STEM grant is an HSI grant, which aims helping more local Hispanic students earn engineering degrees.
©2015 the Columbia Basin Herald, Wash. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
