UNION — Union County residents interested in pursuing careers in manufacturing or health care can take a step toward realizing those ambitions by registering to attend the spring 2013 semester at the Union County Advanced Technology Center.
Located at 1401 Furman L. Fendley Highway (U.S. 176), the center is currently closed for Christmas break but will reopen at 8 a.m. Thursday for open registration for the spring semester which will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The center is administered by Spartanburg Community College in cooperation with USC Union and some faculty and staff from SCC’s main campus will be on hand Thursday to assist the local faculty and staff in registering students for classes and assist them in paying tuition and fees and purchasing textbooks.
Since February 2011, persons wanting to attend the center have been able to register there rather than travel to SCC’s central campus in Spartanburg.
The spring semester at the center will feature expanded course offerings with students able to earn full certificates in welding, mechatronics, production associate technology and emergency medical technician training. The center is also continuing to offer entry level courses through its health and human services division in the areas of nursing, respiratory technician, radiology, medical lab, and surgical technician. It will also continue to offer manufacturing-oriented entry level classes in industrial safety, print reading, and industrial computer techniques.
Beginning with the collaboration between Spartanburg Community College and USC Union that brought about the creation of the center, partnerships with other institutions has played an important role in the variety of courses the center offers and spring 2013 will be no different.
The center has partnered with Union County First Steps to offer Introduction to Early Childhood Education as part of the S.C. Child Care and Education Credentialing System.
Course offerings will also be expanded through the center’s partnership with the Union County School District’s Career and Technology Center. The Advanced Technology Center will offer arc welding, machine tool theory and practice, and long-term care as dual credit for Union County High School students. The arc welding and long-term care courses will be taught at the Career and Technology Center while machine tool theory and practice will be taught at the Advanced Technology Center.
The Career and Technology Center will also be the site of the Introduction to Mechatronics class the Advanced Technology Center plans to begin offering in the fall.
Mechatronics is an interdisciplinary field involving control systems, computers and mechanical systems that integrate product design and automated manufacturing processes.
The mechatronics certification program offered by the Advanced Technology Center will give students who successfully complete it the skills they need to perform routine maintenance, diagnostics, repairs, and installations in a manufacturing environment.
Successful completion of the courses taught at the Advanced Technology Center has led to some of the graduates undergoing apprenticeships at the Gestamp Automocion South Carolina LLC manufacturing facility. One of the goals of the Advanced Technology Center is to turn out workers capable of performing, and therefore successfully competing for, the high-tech jobs created by companies like Gestamp, Timken, ESAB, Haemonetics and, soon Gonvauto Steel Services.
For more information about the Union County Advanced Technology Center and the courses it offers, call 466-1060.
Editor Charles Warner can be reached at 864-427-1234, ext. 14, or by email at cwarner@heartlandpublications.com.
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