Arellano and Barriga were visiting colleges in the Chicagoland area in an attempt to help their institution.
Moraine Valley Community College hosted visitors from the Universidad Tecnológica de Chile INACAP as well as a representative from CompTIA, the world’s leading technology association, to discuss how to develop information technology students into professionals.
Claudia Arellano, INACAP director of Computer Science and Telecommunications; Hugo Barriga, director of IT Academies; and Leonard Wadewitz, CompTIA director of Latin America and the Caribbean, spoke with Moraine Valley faculty and administrators to understand how the college educates students studying various technological fields especially with a two-year degree. INACAP is a learning partner with CompTIA.
Arellano and Barriga were visiting colleges in the Chicagoland area in an attempt to help their institution, which has campuses in all 15 regions throughout Chile, in its transition to a research university.
“We want to see what we’re doing the same and different. We have a huge change in our university to become full research and what that means. Whatever we do, we deploy all over the country,” Arellano said.
Meeting with the visitors was Dr. Pamela Haney, vice president of Academic Affairs; Dr. Ryen Nagle, dean of Science, Business and Computer Technology; Dr. John Sands, professor/department chair of Information Technology and director and principal investigator for the Center for Systems Security and Information Assurance (CSSIA) NSF Regional Center; Ricky Moore, associate professor of Information Technology; Michelle August, professor/department chair of Information Management Systems; and Chuck Bales, professor/coordinator of Mechanical Design Drafting Technology/CAD.
“Moraine Valley’s Information Technology programs are well regarded by industry partners like CompTIA, and it was an honor to share our program best practices with our Chilean technology education colleagues,” Nagle said.
They discussed the technological programs and degrees, stackable certificates, CSSIA, partnerships with local industries, women in technology, dual credit with district high schools and how Moraine Valley students with technology-based degrees and certificates often have jobs waiting for them post-graduation, among other topics.
“Instead of a formal gathering, it turned out to be a casual ‘tell us all you can about what you think helps make your program successful’ kind of conversation. I think we gave them exactly what they were looking for and then some. It was very exciting to take best practices that we have learned over the years and share them with educators on an international level,” Moore said. “Overall, I think the meeting was very productive. We were happy to help CompTIA with the project as well as make a contribution on a global scale.”
