Less than an hour before Augusta Tech President Dr. Jermaine Whirl was scheduled to announce an academic agreement between the school's cyber program and one of the world's biggest technology companies, the decision was made to delay an announcement until Augusta-area legislators could be present, Whirl said Thursday.
Earlier this year, Newsweek magazine cited Augusta Tech among just three two-year colleges in the United States with superior cybersecurity programs.
The new corporate partner will provide training that in many cases leads to professional accreditation. Students and faculty will be able to use the company's platform of products, including a supercomputer. Companies that operate supercomputers include IBM, HP, Dell, Cray and Fujitsu.
"We're going to be holding on that, to make that announcement at a later time, but I want to say you might want to buckle up," Whirl told the audience in the school's Jack B. Patrick Information Technology Center Auditorium. "It's a big deal to be at the national level with this organization."
Whirl used the word "big" often Thursday to describe the anticipated trajectory of the two-year school, as he shared details of new projects such as introducing the Georgia Film Academy certification program to Tech. The state has become a mecca for movie and television producers, and the Augusta area has played host to dozens of productions in the past several years.
"When I first came to Augusta this was one of the first questions I got was about film, actually the very first question," he said. "Someone asked me, 'When are you going to bring Film Academy to Augusta?' "
The answer: next spring. Augusta University and 16 other colleges in the state offer the program, which trains assistive technicians to operate cameras, lighting, sound, grips and other aspects of film production.
"It's a piece of a larger product that we eventually want to bring to Augusta, which is a high-level sound studio, and as you know film is a hot commodity here in the state of Georgia," Whirl said. " Augusta and this region is really, really primed to grow that industry. We're very, very, very excited about this."
On a larger scale, the school's Innovation and Tech I-20 Corridor Plan will rebrand Tech's campuses with new workforce "identities" focusing on filling high-demand jobs in the Augusta area's workforce.
Augusta Tech officials have been "working on a deal quietly" to secure a long-term lease on property adjacent to Augusta's medical district to establish a separate health sciences campus. It would give the school its first downtown presence since it left its training facilities across from University Hospital in 1987.
Tech has "completely outgrown" its current health-career training space on its main campus, Whirl said. The space Tech is looking to lease would quadruple the capacity of its 23 health science programs
"We have a great space. We've updated it as much as we can," he said. "But we can't graduate more students until we get more space."
Tech's McDuffie County campus near Thomson will place a stronger emphasis on training students in supply chain management — at a time when the sluggish movement of manufactured goods has become a flashpoint problem recently for both business and government. Also, a new training range on that campus will help students earn their commercial driver's licenses and become truckers, as the need grows for more long-haul truck drivers.
Tech's Grovetown campus will become focused on advanced manufacturing. A 75,000-square-foot facility will provide training space simulating manufacturing procedures, and Whirl said it would be the largest advanced manufacturing training facility in the entire Georgia technical college system.
The building also would provide space for economic development officials to help entice business and industry prospects to the Augusta area, by offering spaces to establish temporary production or sales space, and to research and develop products.
Talks also have begun between Tech and leaders with area counties' public school districts to explore the idea of establishing "college and career academies" where high-school students could pursue instruction for tech jobs while earning credits for both high school and tech school.
"If you've been following the college in the past 10 months, you've probably seen we've been a little busy," Whirl said. "A lot of opportunities, a lot of projects coming our way and a lot of cool opportunities for the CSRA."
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