Meeting & Agendas

Dr. Alberto Quinonez started the meeting by welcoming everyone.

Dr. Quinonez stated that one of the challenges in placing additional curriculum in an Associate Degree is that it's limited to 60 credit hours. Dr. Quinonez talked about the overview of the department - the current and past enrollment. From Spring of 2016 to Fall of 2018, he stated that the Electronics Department has been staying around 140 and 145 enrollments, unduplicated. He clarified that about 100 of these students are majoring in Electronics and there may be 30-40 students who are taking courses in Electronics, but not majoring in the Electronics discipline. Mr. Whatley added that the reorganization of the electronics department is very similar to the whole model of the Florida Advanced Technological Education Center (FLATE). The program is very close and very similar to FLATE. Also, he stated that the Continuing Education department has been working on the Certified Production Technician certification program through MMSC. These are for entry-level technicians or entry-level employees coming in. In the Electronics department side, it will be the next level or the next step. The Electronics department is trying to align their workforce with Continuing Education department so it will transfer directly into the Associate degree. It will mirror other courses out there.

Mr. Whatley stated that with all the discussion of manufacturing in Austin, the college wants an Advanced Manufacturing track. He also asked the Advisory committee members what exactly an Advanced Manufacturing degree means to them. It’s different to each one of the members because they all have a different business concentration they work in. What he wants to do is to get something on the books that is going to fit their needs and have the student body employable to them. He added that the goal also is not to create a bunch of classes that we couldn’t fill. He wanted to utilize the existing coursework that we already have on the books. He tried to use a multidisciplinary approach and pulled classes from different areas.

The committee discussed this proposal and agreed that it was a good thing to do.

Dr. Quinonez discussed the Medical Devices Technology Specialization track. They put the courses in order and put most of the introductory courses in the first two semesters, and the intermediate and advanced courses in the last two semesters. He proposed some changes and replacements, looking at Semester II in the original catalog, it has PHYS 1410 Applied Physics. He suggested having the student take the CETT 1425 Digital Fundamentals instead of Applied Physics. He and his Faculty members believed that the Digital Fundamentals will serve better in the upcoming courses. He added that Digital Fundamentals is a course where technicians will learn all the basic digital logic. Also, in the Semester II in the original catalog, he saw that there's a lot of duplication of courses that already exist in ACC. So, he put in the courses that already exist, such as MEDV 1472 Introduction to 3-D Fabrication, which is similar to MCHN 1426 Introduction to Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM). Mr. Jesus Casas shared about the importance of the Digital Fundamental course. He stated that they run exercises in FPGA board, and teach about how certain operations are done. By replacing the Applied Physics with the Digital Fundamentals course, a student will be able to succeed in the Data Acquisition Course. Ms. Rosa Carrasco added that in Digital Fundamental, they teach students to design things such as a stopwatch, and they also do a lot of breadboarding so students will learn to troubleshoot. In semester 3, there’s a course BITC 1340 Quality Assurance for the Biosciences. He suggested changing to PTAC 2314 Principles of Quality. His reason for the course suggestion is because the PTAC-2314 is geared for manufacturing. They developed a course called MEDV 1473 Instrumentation and Data Analysis, but we already teach a course called INTC 2471 Data Acquisition and Measurement. They are almost the same and would like to swap that as well because they don't want to duplicate. There’s a course called MEDV 1477 Undergraduate Research. The course description and intent is vague and suggested to replace it with MCHN 2435 Advanced Computer Aided Manufacturing. The committee members discussed that it should have AC Circuits and DC Circuits before it has Digital Fundamentals. They discussed whether to add AC Circuits and DC Circuits courses and they tried to decide what to take out to make it fit within the 60 credit hours. Dr. Quinonez stated that it’s hard to know what courses to put in and take out. If he adds a course he has to take another course out because they are limited to 60 credit hours. They try to juggle what courses to put each semester to make the students employable, but at the same time, they are following the legal guidelines of 60 credit hours. Mr. Whatley discussed the timeline if the committee can’t decide now. If they are going to offer this new program in January, they will need to have another meeting to get it to finalize because they have to present it to the ACC Advisory board and Advisory board has to send it to the state officials for approval. Motions were made to accept all changes and all changes were approved. Mr. Smith amended the minutes in an email dated 10/26/18 to include remarks made by Mr. Myers about CNC training. Mr. Smith stated “It was good to hear the remarks made today by Sam Meyers from IntegraLife regarding that the CNC training needed by most Medical Device manufacturing companies was sort of a combination between an 'engineer and a technician' - which reflects exactly what the aim of our CAD/CAM curriculum is. Plus, Sam emphasized how important Rapid Prototyping (versus a manufacturing floor environment) is to the medical device industry which again fits our vision of the lab and curriculum at HLC II”. He also added, “I think it is important to ensure that those remarks are included in the minutes of today’s meeting because we may need to come back to them at some future time to reinforce something we are trying to accomplish."""""""" Mr. Whatley agreed in an email dated 10/29/18.

Dr. Quinonez stated that the EDUC 1300 Effective Learning: Strategies for College Success is a course that every new student ACC takes to be successful in college. In Semester III, he also mentioned the RBTC 1401 Programmable Logic Controllers course. In the different manufacturers that he saw around the State, they all have a Programmable Logic Controller course. He added that he forgot to write it down, but RBTC 1301 Programmable Logic Controller is a 3 credit hours course and it’s currently offered. But he proposed to change it to RBTC 1401 Programmable Logic Controller with 4 credit hours to make it work with 60 hours. The advisory committee agree with this change. Regarding the ENGL 2311 Technical and Business Writing class, he mentioned it’s important because the feedback from Manufacturing is that the reports they write are technical in nature. Dr. Quinonez said that the INMT 2488 Internship- Manufacturing Technology/Technician gives the student a real-world experience about what it feels like to work in that field. But the downside is that it's hard to find an internship for every student. The committee talked about ELMT 1371 Industrial Safety & NESC and Ethics and if there is a substitute or replacement for these two courses. They stated that they teach the new employee before they are allowed to touch any equipment on the workroom floor. The safety courses they teach are very specific to the type of machinery they have. They'd rather have their own safety training instead of general safety training. The same thing for Ethics, they'd rather teach the new employee because they used technical language that’s specific to their industry or corporation. They feel like they could take these two courses out. Ethics is a general educational requirement, it can’t be eliminated. Ms. Melanie Flowers suggested to take the Internship course out for these reasons - internship for a student is not always available and it can hold the student back from completing the course. She said to have the Project Management be the replacement. There was a discussion of whether to replace the Internship with Project Management. The committee decided to make Project Management a choice. Advanced Level-1 - Will need to switch the INMT 1419 Manufacturing Processes to Semester II, and MCHN 1426 Introduction to Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) to Semester I. MCHN 1426 is a prerequisite to INMT 1419. Motions were made to accept the new advanced manufacturing degree and certificate. The motions were approved.

Changes to the medical device degree and the proposal for a new advanced manufacturing degree and level-1 certificate were approved by the committee.

Dr. Quinonez mentioned the need to elect a Chair and Vice Chair. He stated that the member can nominate themselves or nominate somebody. Mr. Ed Latson nominated himself as Chair and Mr. Dennis Orgeron was nominated by Ms. Melanie Flowers as Vice Chair. A motion was made and approved. Meeting adjourned at 1:20PM