Kim Ehlert, Associate Dean, Information Technology

Waukesha County Technical College (WCTC), Pewaukee, Wisconsin

WCTC is a technical college located in Wisconsin and is part of a 16 college system. The college serves 23,000 students in
over 130 different program areas.
The Information Technology programs offered at WCTC include the following:
IT Network Specialist AAS degree
IT Computer Support Specialist AAS degree
IT Web & Software Developer AAS degree
IT Project Management Technical Certificate
Java Programming Technical Certificate
Virtualization Technologies Technical Certificate
IT Network Professional Technical Certificate
Information Security Technical Certificate
Cisco CCNA Technical Certificate
Mobile Device Application Development Technical Certificate

We currently have over 700 students enrolled in the IT programs and are continually revising and adding new technology
programming to our curriculum. All of the WCTC information technology degrees require a 144 hour internship and we
have many different types of employers who hire our students such large hospital systems, government agencies, small
businesses, financial institutions and many other organizations.
In the past few years, WCTCs information technology faculty has focused their efforts on the following:
1. The Network Specialist degree program has a customizable 4
th
semester in which students are able to choose
from a menu of technology courses such as virtualization, CCNA, VoIP/Convergence, Ethical Hacking and many
other emerging technologies.

2. Through grant funding, an IT Student Center (located in the IT building) was established as a place where IT
students can gather to study, socialize, practice their skills in a Network Sandbox and utilize a host of IT
equipment to strengthen their technology toolkit. This has increased retention in our courses and also improved
student engagement both inside and outside the classroom. Our students have spent over 5000 hours in the IT
Student Center during Spring 2013 semester.

3. Through our IT student Club BIT Connections, students are able to participate in many different service learning
projects in which WCTC partners with local non-profit agencies. These projects include wired and wireless
network design and installation, web site design, database design, and application development.

4. WCTC has offered several different technology camps for kids this summer including a week long technology
exploration camp for high school kids and (2) week long Lego Programming camps for middle-school kids.

5. We have implemented a Netlabs+ infrastructure which has enabled us to offer several of our courses in hybrid
format and allows our students to practice their high-end technical skills off-campus. We will be upgrading our
Netlabs+ infrastructure to the Professional Edition this summer which will allow us to offer more courses using
this technology.
6. WCTC offers a computer repair course which provides free computer repair services to the community (staff,
students and residents). Students in their third or fourth semester staff the computer repair center and provide all
services, from front desk support to actual repair.

7. The computer support specialist faculty has implemented a mentoring program in which new computer support
students are paired with industry professionals to establish a formal mentor relationship. This is currently a pilot
program and has been very successful so far.