Continuing education courses to venture south of the border

Jack Raplee
ASME NEWS

The Continuing Education Institute is developing a pilot program for instructors outside the United States to create ASME-owned engineering courses for use in their own regions. Thus far, 43 instructors from countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have been identified.

Instructors from Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Trinidad and Venezuela have been identified by subregional volunteers of ASME's Section XIII and will develop training programs with the goal of rolling out by April 2002. To date, 25 proposals have been received; of those, 12 have been selected. Ten contracts have been signed with instructors so far. All approved instructors are practicing engineers, engineering educators or both.

The objective is to ensure the presence of course instructors with ASME approval in specific regions, who can develop and teach courses that are specifically oriented to the local engineering community. Courses will be taught in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

As ASME-owned courses, they will meet Society guidelines established by CEI staff, who will also provide "train-the-trainer" workshops with practice sessions. They will also provide new revenue streams as instructors will pay a per-student fee for course materials, notes and course reapproval. It is left up to the instructor to set fees and tuition, and to market and promote the course.

According to Shaun Fletcher, manager of the program, this is a pilot initiative that will be evaluated before other countries are considered. He said that there are a significant number of members in Latin America and the Caribbean.

For additional information about the program, contact Shaun Fletcher at (212) 591-7161, or fletchers@asme.org.

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