The Midwest Center for Information Technology has established a strong regional consortium of ten community colleges in Nebraska, Iowa and North and South Dakota to educate and motivate a broad cadre of faculty. Promising practices in IT education, student recruitment, retention and articulation, workforce development, and college collaboration have been developed. Many of the original goals of increasing women and minority participation in IT, increasing the number of faculty who hold industry-validated certifications, and decreasing the number of unfilled IT positions in businesses have been approached. The Center now builds on, further leverages and disseminates the best practices developed and increases the collaboration among the colleges and with regional businesses. The information technology skills needed for the region's highest demand careers are identified, and curricula are adapted to provide student programs that include the IT skills needed in those businesses. The best practices are laterally diffused in the consortium to leverage resources and standardize the quality of IT education to better meet the needs of employers and higher education and to attract more students, especially women and minorities. The continued collaboration also increases the possibility for the colleges to adapt and share curricula in emerging frontiers in IT such as bio- and health-informatics, and security.
