Rapid advances in biotechnology require development of a technologically advanced, middle-skills workforce. The Bio-Link Next Generation Center for Biotechnology and Life Science's mission is (1) increasing the number and diversity of well-educated technicians in the workforce; (2) meeting the ever-growing needs of a continually evolving and diversifying industry for appropriately educated technicians; and (3) institutionalizing community college educational practices that make high-quality education and training in the concepts, tools, skills, processes, regulatory structure, and ethics of biotechnology available to all students.Bio-Link has influenced science education in general through materials and techniques developed within its network. With its partners, it has encouraged and enabled industry to hire community college graduates and has opened doors for underrepresented populations. Bio-Link is continuing and expanding its broad dissemination of cutting-edge resources to improve teaching practice, educational access, and career exploration and opportunities.
Although Bio-Link is situated in the San Francisco Bay Area, its activities embrace biotechnology education throughout the Nation. Members of Bio-Link's leadership team are located in several states (California, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin), and over 100 community colleges from 36 states and territories self-identify as Bio-Link programs. As the network has broadened to cover the diversity of the industry and growth of educational programs, it has also deepened. Bio-Link's broad mission --to prepare technicians and meet industry needs-- remains the same. Goals for this phase of Bio-Link include the following:
1: Utilize Bio-Link's network of information sharing to foster communities of practice that enhance the preparation of skilled technicians. 2: Deepen and diversify industry outreach and engagement to ensure that training programs nationwide respond to industry needs. 3: Increase access to and use of educational and training resources to improve student skill attainment.
Bio-Link's focus is on biotechnology, an increasingly important interdisciplinary industry that warrants significant attention as areas such as biopharmaceuticals, bioenergy, regenerative medicine, biomanufacturing, and other biological fields evolve with great speed. Moreover, the industry provides technicians with opportunities to advance rapidly into high-wage positions. Bio-Link possesses the critical expertise and capacity to continue and expand its work. Bio-Link's particular aim to develop more communities of practice advances the sharing of information and resources by engaging members of its network in sustained partnerships around focused areas of work that result in leveraging and scaling best practices, developing new approaches to challenges faced in educating technicians, and better meeting the needs of industry.
