Arizona-Texas consortium for alternative and renewable energy technologies

The focus of the Arizona-Texas Consortium for Alternative and Renewable Energy Technologies is to meet the workforce needs of our national energy, transportation, and electronic industries. The project intends to establish an educational consortium through collaboration between high schools and community colleges in Arizona and Texas along with Arizona State University at the Polytechnic campus. This will be accomplished by leveraging existing teaching and research expertise and facilities in the field of alternative and renewable energy. The strategy of the project is to meet the workforce needs by increasing the number of graduates, including underprivileged groups, with Associate of Applied Science degrees (AAS), certificate programs, and Bachelor of Science (BS) degrees by preparing them using world-class facilities. Furthermore, the project embarks on creating opportunities for industry internships for AAS and BS seeking students, providing training to improve the skills of the existing workforce, offering professional development educational activities to teachers in grades 9-16 (to include community college faculty), and also serving as a nationwide and statewide public awareness vehicle.