By Jenelyn Russo
South Orange County Community College District’s Advanced Technology Education Park at the former Marine Corps Air Station site in Tustin is evolving into a dynamic hub. Expanding programs from Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges focus on early college pathways, career-readiness programs and STEM education.
Irvine Valley College was the first SOCCCD campus to establish a presence at the location with the opening of the Integrated Design, Engineering and Automation Building in 2018.
As the education park’s inaugural facility, the building serves as a hub for career advancement in fields like electronic technology, engineering drafting and design model making.
The 32,000-square-foot space features five classrooms and six specialized labs for instruction in areas such as alternative energy and digital manufacturing. The lab spaces are equipped to support bringing ideas to life through prototyping, 3D printing and experimentation.
“We see it as much more than (technology, design and engineering),” said IVC President John Hernandez. “We see it as an opportunity to start offering educational and career opportunities that branch outside of those main disciplines in order to reach our community.”
The facility is home to a fully equipped physics and engineering lab that supports IVC’s Engineering Learning Community, an initiative designed to build a strong student cohort through bundled calculus and physics courses offered onsite.
This program aligns with IVC’s unique partnership with the UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering, which offers high school seniors a streamlined transfer pathway.
Now in its eighth cohort, the program allows students to complete major preparation courses at IVC and earn junior status upon transferring to UCI.
“While at IVC, the students are already engaging with UCI,” Hernandez said. “We have found that those students have high transfer success and stay with the program. It’s a great partnership.”
In addition to credit and transfer pathways, IVC offers noncredit programs for adult learners. Of the more than 900 IVC students served at Advanced Technology Education Park across 43 class sections, nearly 370 are enrolled in 10 sections of beginning, intermediate and advanced American English as a Second Language classes, all at no cost to students.
IVC also offers an emeritus program for older adults and lifelong learners.
Beginning this summer, the program will launch courses in dance, movement, and health and wellness at the education park, utilizing a newly renovated classroom specifically designed for these activities.
“Our service area is Irvine and Tustin, so offering these classes at IDEA, we’re really making it more accessible for adult learners in the Tustin area to take these classes,” Hernandez said.
Future plans for IVC at the education park include developing health care pathways, such as dental hygienist and home health aide programs.
IVC is working closely with community partners to ensure these programs align with workforce needs and provide students with hands-on training and direct pathways to employment.
“It creates a health care pathway for adult learners, in particular, in what we think are accessible, high-growth career pathways with sustainable living wages, especially for adult and low-income learners,” Hernandez said.
Saddleback College will also have a presence at the education park beginning this summer with the opening of a new 50,000-square-foot facility that will house its automotive technology and culinary arts programs.
The building will welcome students for a full slate of fall classes as Saddleback relocates both programs from the Mission Viejo campus to offer comprehensive training at the Tustin site.
The more than 30,000-square-foot automotive technology building will have the capacity to serve nearly 1,000 students with its 14 lift bays, seven high-tech classroom labs and specialized training spaces for engine-part cleaning, transmission repair and automated driving-system calibration.
The classroom labs are equipped with monitors and technology to support teaching and allow for remote learning, and an outdoor yard will store equipment and instructional vehicles.
The Automotive Technology program offers 13 degree, certificate and noncredit pathways, including alternative fuel vehicle specialist and commercial learner’s permit training.
With its proximity to the Tustin Auto Center, Saddleback is looking to build out its apprenticeship programming that will support hands-on training for in-demand careers.
“It’s one thing to have a degree, but it’s another thing to have a degree and experience when it comes to employment,” said Saddleback College Dean of Economic and Workforce Advancement and School of Business and Industry John Jaramillo. “Our goal is that every student has the opportunity to participate in a work-based learning activity.”
The 20,000-square-foot culinary arts facility will feature four commercial kitchens, including an instructional kitchen, a bakery and pastry kitchen and a production kitchen that supports a teaching restaurant.
An outdoor courtyard with fruit trees and student-maintained raised-bed gardens will offer farm-to-table opportunities. The building will also be home to a student-run coffee shop offering house-made pastries for everyone on the campus to enjoy.
With the ability to serve upwards of 800 students, the Culinary Arts program offers nine degree, certificate and noncredit pathways that range from food science and catering to hospitality management and baking. And like the Automotive Technology program, Saddleback has developed partnerships for apprenticeship programs with local hotels and restaurants, such as The Ranch in Laguna Beach.
“Programming at this site can’t be your traditional programming alone,” said Saddleback College Vice President for Instruction Tram Vo-Kumamoto. “We’re hoping that apprenticeship or work-based learning, along with our instructional programming, is what’s going to be the signature for us there.”
Advanced Technology Education Park will also be home to a future boarding high school developed by Victory AI Academy, LLC, that will align with Saddleback and IVC to offer dual enrollment and early college pathways.
Additionally, SOCCCD is leasing site parcels to private partners, such as industrial computing company Advantech and early childhood development center The Goddard School, to strengthen community partnerships and expand student learning opportunities.
These new initiatives and developments will broaden access, enhance hands-on learning and open education and career pathways for students across the SOCCCD region.
“Many individuals are limited in their career choices by their social network and by their family networks, but what we’re hoping to do with work-based learning is to create portals for anyone into an area that they may never have thought of before,” Jaramillo said. “It can be life-changing.”
Contact the South Orange County Community College District to learn more and/or arrange a campus tour at (949) 582-4850 or www.socccd.edu.
This article was created in partnership with Skyline Studio, the in-house creative agency for the Orange County Register. The editorial department had no role in this post’s preparation.
