RALEIGH – Wake Tech is gearing up to provide training in robotics and other automated equipment for Amazon and will offer the program at its Beltline Education Center in Raleigh.
The community college disclosed details about its program Friday morning. Amazon announced the partnership on Thursday as part of its efforts to enhance career opportunities for employees at its growing warehouse operations, including a new one in Garner.
“We’re thrilled to receive this designation by Amazon,” said Dr. Scott Ralls, president of Wake Tech. “Wake Tech is a national leader in technology education and training, and with our recent focus on apprenticeship, this new opportunity strategically aligns with our mission to provide opportunities that enable economic mobility.”
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Updated December 22, 2020 8:22 a.m. EST
By Cullen Browder, WRAL anchor/reporter
Raleigh, N.C. When the economy falters, community college enrollment normally rises as people seek to retrain for better employment opportunities.
After recession hit in 2008, for example, Wake Technical Community College President Scott Ralls said the impact was immediate and long-lasting. For about a three-year period, our enrollment grew by about 28 percent, Ralls said.
While the pandemic hasn’t caused the economy to collapse, many people are still struggling. In true 2020 fashion, the normal response to uncertain times is out the window.
Nationally, community college enrollment is down 9.5 percent this year. Wake Tech fared better, with only a 1.3 percent decline this fall, although that doesn t account for the drop in classes students are taking.
The N.C. Community College System elected Thomas Stith III to lead it through the coronavirus pandemic and steep enrollment losses.
Stith will become president of a system of 58 community colleges that enroll about 700,000 students a year. He now serves as district director of the U.S. Small Business Administration, a federal agency that secured more than $16 billion in coronavirus relief for N.C. small businesses. Stith also was chief of staff to former Gov. Pat McCrory from 2013 to 2017.
He succeeds interim president William Carver and former President Peter Hans, who left in August to become president of the University of North Carolina System.