Educator urges community to get behind STEM programs

ALBANY — Dennis Courtney is an animated man who likes to wave his arms when he speaks and is easily stirred to passion. To see him work a room to and to hear his booming voice, one would think he would make an excellent teacher.

And that assumption would be correct.

Courtney, the SASET (Software Architecture Sizing Estimating Tool) Engineering Instructor at Albany Technical College, spoke to the Dougherty County Kiwanis Club on Monday — stressing the importance of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) programs in the Dougherty County School System.

As part of Albany Tech’s SASET program and partnership with the DCSS, Brennon Farmer and Brandon Johnson, both students at Westover High School, and Jonathan Banks and Dexter Hooks, both at Monroe High School, began their journey with the SASET Summer Robotics Enrichment Academy (SREA) in 2013. They were dually enrolled in SREA and ultimately, completed six hours of college credit.

“We have discovered that hands-on projects increase learning exponentially,” Courtney told the club. “The number of STEM graduates we are seeing now is unacceptable and we have to change this. the numbers show that 45 percent of graduates are not ready in math and 30 percent of students are not ready in science.

“By 2020, 51 percent of available jobs will be in the field of computing technology, and many of those jobs will go unfilled because of a lack of graduates.”

Courtney says that’s why many hi-tech jobs are now being filled by foreign students using the government’s H1B visa program which allows American employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations.

“H1B visa workers currently make up 50 percent of our country’s engineering workforce,” Courtney said. “We are not producing enough STEM graduates to fill the gap. We need to reinvigorate and bring back innovative thinking. We are really missing out on the math component.”

That’s one reason Albany Tech holds a summer robotics program for youngsters from the multi-county southwest Georgia area.

“With math and science we are trying to catch the kids in the seventh and eighth grades,” Courtney said. “This is where we can get their attention. Maybe one day they will go to work for NASA and I predict we’ll have a man on Mars by 2035. In March of next year we will be putting on a huge robotics event here in Albany, and I encourage all of you to attend and be amazed.”

Courtney, added “it is up to us as a community to get involved for these kids. It’s our responsibility to get behind them and we invite you to join our crusade.”