Nearly 400 middle and high school students and more than a dozen companies from the STEM and Advanced Manufacturing Technology sector participated in the Waterbury Regional Chamber’s STEM and Advanced Manufacturing and Technology Exposition held Friday, November 18 at Naugatuck Valley Community College. Students from several of the region’s schools such as Wolcott Tech, Crosby High, and Michael F. Wallace Middle School arrived by the busload throughout the morning and continued to cycle through the exposition in one-hour-and-fifteen-minute increments. 17 schools participated in total. The exposition, which ran from 7-3 p.m. in NVCC’s Technology Hall, provided a chance for students to directly engage with local manufacturers and learn about job and career opportunities from area leaders in manufacturing. A tradeshow including nearly two dozen Northeastern manufacturing companies, many of which are based in Connecticut, provided live demos. Emmy award-winning radio host Larry Rifkin from WATR did a live broadcast airing on his daily news program Talk of the Town. Among those interviewed by Rifkin was NVCC President Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Ph.D.
On January 31, 2012, the State of Connecticut selected NVCC as one of three Connecticut community colleges to receive bonding dollars for a state-of-the-art manufacturing center on campus to meet the state’s manufacturing workforce needs. NVCC’s Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center provides students with hands-on access to state-of-the-art manufacturing technology in preparation for employment. Built on the region’s manufacturing roots and enhanced with modern advancements in technology and innovation, the Center is located in the spacious and modern Technology Hall and features manufacturing and technical education. Part of NVCC’s STEM division, the Advanced Manufacturing Program enables students to become highly-skilled, hands-on, manufacturing technologists for the 21st century through learning a full range of practical industrial skills that occur throughout a product’s assembly or production process.
