Schoolcraft
College – Welding Program
Bruce Sweet
Rodney Johnson
Testimonial One
The Concept:
Sweet: We were approached by one of our advisory committee members who is also a contract training customer. They were very interested in us beefing up our welding program as a resource in the area to their customers. Our program at that time was in danger of being completely shut down. We were carrying about 40 to 45 students a school year, which was all we could accommodate, and the equipment was out of date. The equipment was so compressed you were literally stepping over equipment continually just to conduct a class. So the transition was from a very dark, what we used to refer to this as the dark side of campus, but now has really become a showplace. It is evidenced in our enrollment; it is evidenced in that our president likes to bring people here on tour, to show them what we are doing in some of the vocational areas. It has really become a bright spot on campus rather than the dark place where people didn’t like to go. None of this would have been possible without the Perkins money. If anything, I would say this is a showplace of what can be done with a fairly modest investment on the part of the Perkins dollars that can really pay off.
Sweet: Virtually two-thirds, if not more, of the manufacturing area are involved in aspect of metal fabrication. There are no real programs that deal with actual fabrication, which is about bending metal, stretching metal, heating metal, those elements. Usually those programs tend to address machining and joining. So one of the things we are doing in our welding program is incorporating the English Wheel, and some hand fabrication skills. Entrepreneurism is a big component of the program, has always been a component of the program, but at Schoolcraft we are really trying to emphasize in all of our tech programs. We really want to make sure that every student that acquire technical skills also acquire a basic understanding what is required to start and launch a business.
Voice Over: The center of attraction at the Schoolcraft welding program is a beautiful collection of steel flowers that serves as a unique recruitment tool the combine art with modern welding.
Sweet: The flower thing actually started by accident. It was something that Rodney was interested in and someone else asked if he could do it was how it started. Rodney was fascinated by it and everyone who saw these flowers just went nuts. If you walk around at all you can see partially built motorcycles. In any day you come in here, you will see weather vanes, coffee tables. It’s amazing the creativity people can bring to welding. That was an inadvertent, wonderful little marketing strategy as much as anything to get people on campus to be interested in the program. That got people to come down to look at it. Our counseling staff come down. I would say we probably have had 20 people from the college staff go through the program, and they become real advocates. It’s funny how the art tied in and became this recruiting strategy.
Johnson: It was phenomenal the growth, I mean, we went from 30 to 40 students, to right now I have 124 students enrolled in my classes. This semester, the winter semester, I have 22 lady students in the class. And I hope to have more because the ladies seem to excel quite a bit quicker than guys do.
Johnson: Because of the nature of welding or joining technology, we can’t sit still and be stagnant with what we are doing now. We have to constantly be reviewing new data coming in everyday about different methods of welding, different alloys used in welding, the plastics used in welding, the adhesives used in joining and welding. The industry and the future of welding and joining here at Schoolcraft College is unlimited.
Testimonial: There’s so much in the field and there is so much more that’s happening everyday in it. It’s a great field to get into.
Sweet: The last thing I would say is that it really is a twenty-first century skill. It’s not going to go the way of the horse and buggy. They’re going to be welding in space; they’re going to be welding underwater; welding is not going to go away anytime soon.
For more information,
please contact
Bruce Sweet at
734-462-4400