Baseline Magazine - January/February 2010

HELP WANTED

College Creates ‘Green’
Data Center Program BY TOM PENSABENE

BASELINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010

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administrators reinforced one point we firmly believe: IT has become an enabling profession.

Consulting services were provided by MSI Systems Integrators, a partner on our DOL grant. The company helped us realize the importance of “going green” to decrease BTUs, By doing that—and working with companies that lead industry transformations with technology—we’ve been able to rethink and redesign our IT curriculum to arm students with the tools they’ll need to succeed in their careers. 3

THIS QUARTER, METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE (MCC) in Omaha, Neb., will become the first two-year academic institution in the United States to offer an undergraduate degree in the design and management of energy-efficient data centers. The program will serve the approximately 1,000 students enrolled in our IT courses, as well as businesses that need to train current workers and students from around the world who are pursuing a virtual education.

This two-year program was developed in response to a dramatic increase in demand for specialists who can help companies reduce the costs associated with running an energy-intensive data center. Until now, there hasn’t been a comprehensive, real-world learning environment in which students can get a cohesive skill set that includes sustainability, business analytics and IT training that specifically targets the data center.

Our two-decades-long partnership with IBM helped us reach what we believe is a benchmark in education. As we take the leap into this new world of skills-based education, we aim to be a model for other institutions that want to prepare students for the sweeping technological changes now under way around the world.

Several entrepreneurial faculty members who strive to stay current and meet emerging industry needs have been preparing students for the technology of the future. For example, since the dot-com bubble burst, these individuals have made it a priority for our students to learn all aspects of the Web: scripting and design, the operations of the backend databases and the programming that connects them, networking, security and, most importantly, the business of business.

It all started in April 2008, when MCC was awarded a community-based job training grant from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to increase the quality of the IT workforce and to make I T education more work-relevant. We were then approached by several local chambers of commerce and the Nebraska Department of Economic Development to develop a degree in data center management.

In response, MCC President Randy Schmailzl challenged us to have a data center management degree in place within six months. Because the Omaha area is home to data centers for Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Microsoft, First Data and ConAgra, among others, we were able to tour these local data centers and ask a lot of questions. Our interviews with these data center

Tom Pensabene, dean of information technology and e-learning at Metropolitan Community College, is completing a dissertation in instructional design for online learning. He has worked at every level of public and private education.