Robotics and urban agriculture programming hits road during fall quarter

Picture a Nebraska postcard scene. Sun-drenched farmland spans a vast horizon lined with rows of soybeans. A farmer patiently runs a tractor with a sprayer, rolling through acres upon acres for hours. The sprayer indiscriminately applies herbicide over everything growing in the field to kill off spots of weeds attempting to crowd out the crop.

Now picture the same field with unoccupied, autonomous equipment passing through it. Cameras are mounted along the sprayer line. Guided by artificial intelligence, the tractor travels the field with its equipment scanning and identifying in milliseconds whether what shows up in the viewfinder is a soybean or a weed. When a weed is recognized, a targeted blast of herbicide covers the exact location of unwanted growth.

Rather than spend the hot, humid day in the cabin of the tractor, the farmer weeds through and pulls data on a tablet, monitoring a small fleet of robotic workers, making programming adjustments where necessary to increase productivity and cut operating costs.

Artificial intelligence. Robotics. Automation. Technologies once presented as futuristic ideas in sci-fi books and movies now affect the experience of everyday life. They’ll only become more commonplace in the years ahead — especially in an employment landscape shaped by an aging and shrinking workforce.

Look no further than the robots chopping avocados at select Chipolte restaurants, the drones that are delivering Amazon packages in College Station, Texas, or the autonomous Waymo cabs that caught the attention of MCC project manager Randy Veach.

Veach manages Metropolitan Community College’s participation in the $1 billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC) federal grant program. Funding was awarded to 21 recipients throughout the nation, regional coalitions of partnering organizations intended to “enable each region's economic transformation and competitiveness” for the future of work.

In 2022, Invest Nebraska Corporation, an organization focused on supporting the growth of the state economy, was awarded $25 million to establish the Heartland Robotics Cluster. HRC was created to position Nebraska to be one of the leading research and workforce development centers in the country for robotics and automation in the agriculture and advanced manufacturing industries. As a partnering organization, MCC, along with Northeast Community College, will expand robotics instruction in the state through education, community outreach, competition and workforce training.

During its beginning stage of participation, MCC developed a workforce training curriculum in robotics and automation. Through a progression of noncredit programming, by the close of the 2027-28 academic year, the College expects to achieve the following outcomes:

• 540 K-12 students participate in school robotics competitions
• 64 students receive a two-year degree at MCC in Robotics/Prototype Design
• 50 new robotics/automation jobs created in the North and South Omaha communities
• 18 urban farming and agricultural technology community outreach events
• 152 people participate in learning and educational outreach events

Going on tour

Veach joined MCC Community and Workforce Education last year to help engage the community and support the College’s new offering of noncredit robotics camps, courses and immersive learning experiences for kids, teens and adults. All programs are designed to demystify robotics — and build awareness of the sustainable employment opportunities that come with their emergence in the workplace.

MCC offered College for Kids and Teens robotics camps for free at MCC at Yates Illuminates and the Fort Omaha Campus over the summer. Programming continues to ramp up this fall, with Veach taking robotics and urban agriculture on a road show to each MCC campus in a decked-out trailer with a fully equipped workshop for hands-on robotics demonstrations. Local schools can even request to have the trailer visit their school for an on-site field trip. The road show will also make appearances at community events.

Veach will be joined by two high-tech sidekicks during the tour, Gizmo and Diablo. Gizmo is a robotic dog that can complete dozens of commands with obedience that would humble most pet owners. It looks like a robot but moves with animal-like precision.

Diablo is a wheeled-leg robot that functions like a miniature all-terrain vehicle with customizable applications for completing tasks such as materials transport, surveillance and inspection in industrial settings.

Controlling the movements of both robots with a programmable remote that looks like a video game controller, Veach demonstrates their capabilities with the goal of showing anyone who interacts with Gizmo or Diablo that robotics is approachable.

The style of learning also helps to dispel misconceptions about the required technical ability to understand automation. Through “structured play,” Veach said students are introduced to the foundations of automation — engineering and programming.

“It’s all about refining the teaching to make it easier for them and get them excited about what they’re learning,” Veach said.

Two tuition free College for Kids LEGO® Robotics courses offered this fall will teach students ages 8 to 12 how to program, engineer and build robots to complete obstacle courses and accomplish small tasks. Another course, offered to both College for Kids and College for Teens participants, will teach the fundamentals of programming languages.

Two seven-week Community Education classes for adults promote urban agriculture and indoor gardening practices. Participants will learn to operate and program FarmBots — robots that automate planting, watering and weeding tasks for home gardening. They will also learn how sensors provide data on soil health.

In a course hosted at the state-of-the-art MCC Prototype Design Lab, attendees will explore sustainable agriculture, plant nutrition and water conservation techniques that can be used year-round in a hydroponic indoor garden tower, which they provide using 3D printers.

While Veach was passing through a camp this summer at the Center for Advanced and Emerging Technology on the Fort Omaha Campus, a participant from Girls, Inc. stopped “Mr. Randy” to show him how she was able to get her robot to move around an obstacle along its path after a couple of attempts that didn’t quite work.

A smile spread across her face as she and Veach watched the robot steer itself away from the roadblock. The resilient approach that produced the successful result lit Veach up, too.

“LEGOs are fun, but they also teach you the basic concepts of engineering. You help them see that it does take some extra effort, but you can make a robot do what you want it to do,” Veach said. “That’s when you see that light come on and hear them say, ‘Wow, robotics is so cool.’ Sometimes when camp is over, they don’t even want to go home.”

Veach said people tend to think the technology involved is extremely complicated, but the proximity sensors elementary school students use in their LEGO kits are the same accident prevention technology auto manufacturers place in today’s cars.

With the baseline knowledge they’ve learned from the camps, Veach uses Gizmo and Diablo to show them what the next level of training looks like.

Growing Nebraska student participation in robotics competition

Robotics offers a blend of engineering, programming and innovation crucial for tomorrow’s workforce. As industries increasingly automate, skills in robotics empower students with sought-after abilities, opening doors to careers in manufacturing, health care, automation and beyond.

In partnership with HRC, MCC is the sponsoring organization for all FIRST® Tech Challenge (FTC) robotics competitions in Nebraska. The goal is to increase student participation in the state, especially among people living in urban areas. Participation in robotics competitions has historically been cost-prohibitive for underserved populations. Federal grant funding removes that barrier. MCC gives the program statewide structure, functioning like an organizing body for the STEM learning initiative.

FTC competitions blend sports with science and technology in team competitions. Using critical thinking and technical skills, students build and program industrial-size robots to complete challenges. Students design their own robot using 3D-printed parts, computer-aided drafting and milling equipment.

Veach said FTC robots get students “thinking outside the box.” The exposure they gain and proficiency they develop using programming languages such as Python are also valuable. Programming is a technical skill employers are paying sustainable wages to bring in-house instead of outsourcing. These careers are attainable with up to two years of education and training and include stackable certifications for advancement.

Veach recounted an FTC team in Norfolk that designed a new robot from scratch to take to FTC Worlds 2024, the organization’s pinnacle event.

“The concept was all in their heads and they designed exactly what they wanted using [computer-aided drafting] in a month. I guarantee every one of those kids is going to be working in an engineering firm in the next four years,” Veach said.

Veach said the exposure they gain working with the robots through FTC competitions before they finish high school puts students ahead of their peers enrolling in architecture and engineering programs. They’ll have extensive knowledge working with computer-aided drafting to design their robots while most first learn about it from a textbook in their first year of college.

The opportunity for Nebraskans to embrace robotics is huge, Veach said. The state’s two largest industries, agriculture and manufacturing, are in the most need of workers. There aren’t enough people seeking work in these industries to fill job openings.

According to the latest available census data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average age of agricultural producers is 58.1 and the number of producers who are 65 or older grew by 12% between 2017 and 2022.

Veach along with Tony Jeffery, Community and Workforce Education manager of Community Outreach and Development, are meeting with employers throughout Nebraska that are implementing automation into their operations. In doing so, they gain insight on the skills organizations need from people entering these fields, which then inform programming and curriculum as the robotics and urban agriculture offerings evolve at MCC.

Part of the plan is for Nebraska students involved in robotics programs to have opportunities to visit state organizations integrating automation into their operations, giving them a view of the employment landscape that awaits, and picturing themselves in it with the technical skills to thrive.

“Society’s moving forward. You have to move forward with it because it’s not going to sit still,” Veach said. “MCC is a great place to get in there and get the skills that get you in the door. You can learn these skills in anywhere from nine months to two years, and employers are looking to hire people with them immediately.”

Moon Shot: MCC DIMA degree
lands Pape at NASA

 

Children often aspire to become astronauts, but the childhood dream Claire Pape is living is truly the stuff of dreams. 

“Working at NASA was my childhood dream — I already had that in the back of my mind, but it never really seemed practical. I told my mom I was going to work at NASA one day. She was like, ‘Okay, but how in the heck do you work for NASA?’” said Pape, who completed an associate degree in 3D Animation and Games at Metropolitan Community College in 2023. 

For Pape, working at NASA involved being bold enough to apply. A failure of effort was not an option, and her persistence paid off. Through a government contract with her aerospace engineering employer, Analytical Mechanics Associates, Pape reports to work from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. 

One year into her first job out of college, Pape is involved in work that aims to put the first humans on the moon in more than 50 years as part of NASA’s Artemis missions. The goal of the Artemis missions is to promote sustainable exploration of the moon that is intended to pave the way for astronauts to eventually walk on Mars. 

Pape, 24, works with NASA engineers who have earned some of the most coveted degrees from elite universities. She recently created a 3D model of a robotic system that will travel nearly 250,000 miles beyond Earth’s atmosphere and reflect the sun’s rays into the darkest depths of the mysterious region near the lunar South Pole, using mirror panels to provide solar power to devices doing scientific study in the darkness. The cratered area has never been physically explored, but studies suggest the landscape provides hints to how water may be moving across the moon’s surface. 

“I have my dream job. I feel very blessed to be right out of school and have the exact job I have always wanted. I don’t want to work anywhere else. Like, this is it for me,” Pape said. 

Pape said she took every opportunity to check in on her hiring status so people with the ability to extend her an offer couldn’t leave it up to interpretation if she wanted the job. 

“I was emailing them for updates, showing them that I was passionate about it and would do whatever they wanted me to do to get it,” Pape said. 

MCC instructors in the Design Interactivity and Media Arts (DIMA) program getting to know their students also played a pivotal role in helping Pape reach her moon-shot goal for employment, she said.

The science-minded artist

Pape has a unique blend of talent that relies on alternating between each hemisphere of her brain. On the way to finishing high school at Omaha Skutt Catholic in 2018, she was accepted to art schools where she intended to explore her creative interests in photography. She also won a national championship in the academic decathlon her senior year of high school, finishing with a growing interest in physics. 

Deciding to “do something more practical” and based in the health sciences, Pape enrolled at MCC after high school to pursue a career in nursing. She then transferred to a four-year college in Nebraska to begin working on a bachelor’s degree in physics — until her artistic side tugged her back to MCC and into the DIMA program to explore 3D Animation and Games. 

Providing 3D visual models for aerospace engineering projects has turned out to be a great way to satisfy both her creative and scientific ambitions.

A day at the office for Pape can entail spending some of her working hours hearing about ideas that exist in the minds of some of the world’s greatest scientific and mathematical thinkers. 

“I think having a physics background helps me understand what the engineers are talking about,” Pape said. “My team does a lot of engineering visualization. [One of the NASA engineers] will come to us and say, ‘I have an idea for something.’ If we’re lucky, we’ll get a napkin sketch of what they have in their brains, and they’ll be like, ‘Can you put this in a 3D model for me?’” 

Tapping into the part of her brain that is fascinated by physics while simultaneously accessing the area of her mind where her inner artist maintains residency, Pape takes it all in and then works with her team to put out a design that represents the concept. 

“Usually people are either in one side of their brain or the other. I guess both of mine are kind of going at the same time,” Pape said.

MCC: A personality fit

Despite having a sharp academic disposition — Pape won a national championship in academic decathlon in high school “without really studying” — she has never been a top student. 

Pape, a self-described “average student,” said MCC DIMA instructor Ian Snyder’s approach to teaching was exactly what she needed. When she had been a physics major, however, Pape said class sizes and lecture halls were too big at the university. 

“MCC was a better fit for my personality. I really liked that the teachers could take time for individual students, and I feel like I had a lot more success here because of it,” Pape said. 

Pape also took advantage of the expertise at her disposal. Snyder, who has more than 15 years of industry background in gameplay programming and development, said he wants his instruction to feel more like mentorship rather than class to the student. 

“[Snyder is] by far the best teacher I’ve ever had at any school. With all the classes I was taking, he was able to tailor them to help me succeed in what I wanted to do,” Pape said.

As DIMA students begin the program, Snyder said the approach is to expose them to the wide-ranging DIMA competencies — drawing; 2D and 3D design; typography; motion graphics design; game design; 3D modeling and animation; web design; and more. During the student’s second year, when they begin more specialized classes, an area of concentration typically emerges, Snyder said. Through getting to know his student, Snyder observed that Pape’s modeling and lighting skills in 3D digital design were superb. 

“This is what’s exciting to me as a teacher — when you see a student’s strengths really stand out and you start to see what they’re really leaning into,” Snyder said. “For Claire, she was working on a lot of environments, and one of the first environments she made playing with rendering and lighting was just mind blowing.” 

Once an area of specialization surfaces, Snyder has the flexibility to modify courses and assignments to align with the student’s employment goals. When students take Snyder up on his offer for mentorship, he focuses their time on helping them develop an employment-worthy portfolio. Snyder knows from years of working in large game studios — where he discovered his passion for teaching — that the job seeker’s portfolio is the best opportunity for their work to stand out in a pool of hundreds of applicants. 

“If your portfolio looks like work that the employer is currently doing or you know they need done, that’s how you get the job. We really focus on that. That gives the employer the confidence that if they hire this job candidate, they will be able to jump right in, and in the first week or two on the job, they will be able to start producing results,” Snyder said.

A year under her belt

Pape is feeling settled in her career and her new Virginia home, though it’s all still a bit surreal. A year ago, she was working as a detailer at a car dealership, cleaning up upholstery stains, spilled change and unfriendly odors. At her current job, members of U.S. Congress and other dignitaries routinely tour her office. 

While there was no part of her that was going to turn down the offer, she wasn’t sure what kind of culture she would find at her new job, and at 24, how well she would mesh with others in the office. 

“I struggled with the transition, especially because I was right out of school and all these people have their bachelor’s, master’s and [doctorates], and here I come in with my associate degree. But they thought I was a good fit for the job,” Pape said. 

Pape said there’s mutual appreciation between the 3D generalists on her team and the NASA engineers they work with, who realize the importance of getting the public excited about their ideas, a key part of the work Pape’s team does. 

“I’ve learned so much just from talking to people in the headquarters building. If I have a question, everybody’s been willing to help. The engineers who are building these things love our department and are always talking about the things we do. They’ll come in and say, ‘You guys are amazing. You’re doing things that we could never do,’” Pape said. 

The luster of her life in Langley hasn’t quite worn off. After accepting the job, she needed to prioritize getting herself out there first, leaving a prized possession behind — her 1993 Mitsubishi 3000GT. The street racer gives a view into her physics mind with the “weight reduction,” “suspension” and “aerodynamic” work she has done. 

The car is complete with two 20-pound nitrous oxide tanks “just for show.” Pape came back to Omaha in May to pick it up and drive it back to Virginia, where she gives herself an exciting affirmation. 

“Almost every day, my inner child is still like, ‘We’re going to NASA,’” Pape said.

Visit mccneb.edu/DIMA for more information about the DIMA program.

Yarborough family finds dependable
homeschool educational partners, opportunities at MCC

In a typical academic year, Metropolitan Community College serves more than 150 homeschooled students. Less typical is the concentration of Yarboroughs who have been in this group for the past four years.

As the 2024-25 academic year begins, Blake Yarborough, 17, is on track to be the third student in his family to earn an associate degree from MCC before reaching his 18th birthday. His sister Claire, 18, earned her associate before getting her driver’s license. As is sometimes the case for the younger children, the road through adolescence can be easier because of the trail blazed by older sister Caroline, 19.

The trio jumpstarted their college education at MCC during high school, and at a discount through CollegeNOW! one of the College’s four dual enrollment programs. CollegeNOW! provides the opportunity for Nebraska high school students to enroll and earn college credits in classes taught by MCC faculty. CollegeNOW! courses are offered at MCC campuses and are also available online.

Since the 2022-23 academic year, all MCC dual enrollment programs are available to Nebraska high school students tuition free through the 2024-25 academic year, including homeschooled students like the Yarboroughs.

Caroline completed her liberal arts academic transfer degree (LATAA) in 2021-22 at half-price tuition. Claire’s tuition for her LATAA degree was half-price for her first 54 credits; her last 40.5 credits were tuition free. So long as Blake finishes his LATAA degree before the conclusion of the 2024-25 term — and he is ahead of pace with 48 college credits earned and 13.5 in progress at press time — the entirety of his college classes at MCC will come at no cost for tuition.

“For pretty much everything in life, we’ve always joked that [Caroline and Claire] have been the guinea pigs. It’s always been like that for me, and that has definitely been true at MCC,” Blake Yarborough said. 

Their mother, Whitney Yarborough, said the family started homeschooling when they lived in South Carolina before moving to Nebraska in 2011. 

“The public education here is much higher quality than it was in South Carolina, but homeschooling was working well for us, so we decided to stick with it. We took it year by year and kid by kid,” Whitney Yarborough said.

By connecting with Jack Donnelly, director of the Homeschool Learning Community in Omaha, Whitney Yarborough said she discovered MCC is a resource to local homeschool families.

“He was a great resource because he was a homeschool parent, a veteran public school teacher and MCC instructor,” Yarborough said. “He encouraged us to begin with the end in mind and explained that there was no rubric we had to fit high school in as a homeschool family. That gave me the freedom to think about their education outside of the box.”

Whitney said some homeschool families choose courses offered by educational institutions that would be harder to facilitate or be cost-prohibitive in a home environment, such as a science lab. She was looking for something more structured and found a good partner to work with at MCC in Trish Johnson — then a success navigator, now an academic advisor.

Whitney said Johnson had familiarity working with homeschool families on their educational plans and is a known resource in the community.

“[Johnson has] kind of been the go-to person for homeschool families,” Whitney said. “I said if we’re going to do this, I don’t want it to be haphazard. I want it to be more organized. When I reached out to Trish, I said, ‘If we do this, can we get a degree at the end of this?’ That’s when she told me about the liberal arts transfer degree.” 

Johnson said she enjoys working with homeschool families. Her priority in working with any high-school-aged student signing up for college classes is to get a baseline of academic skills to determine appropriate placement.

“MCC has a lot of classes that are a good place to start. I always explain that we don’t want to throw them into a college-level psychology class or a history class if the reading or writing level isn’t there yet, and then guide them to start with those core classes first,” Johnson said.

Caroline and Claire each finished their LATAA degrees with above 3.0 grade point averages. After finishing high school, Caroline went to Disney University, a training program for employees of the Parks and Experiences division of the Walt Disney Company. She has also been accepted to Liberty University.

“Caroline was interested in working at Disney, so she took a couple of animation classes. There were a few electives she could specialize in at MCC that I don’t think would have been available at the high school level,” Whitney said.

With her associate degree complete, Claire is in the middle of a gap year between high school and college, focusing on her passion for dance. She aspires to dance in professional ballet or point, hoping to be accepted to Oklahoma School of Dance after she sends in her audition video. If those plans don’t work out, she has been accepted at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Kansas University and the University of Oklahoma.

“I would not have been able to consider [a professional dance career] if I had gone to a normal high school because I wouldn’t have had time, but I was able to fit dancing in with MCC classes while also getting college done,” Claire said.

Blake is still figuring out where his interests lie but recognizes his growth as a student through learning to manage his time taking college courses at MCC. He admits it was an adjustment from his homeschool learning environment, but he would recommend any high school student weigh the long-term benefits of starting college early.

“I had to come to terms with the fact that these are college classes, but I also knew that I would save thousands of dollars down the road. It will benefit you so much in the long run for the short amount of time you are taking college classes,” Blake said.

Whitney said sending all of her children to MCC was a “no-brainer” for her family, especially for general education credits. She said that decision was validated when they learned the instructor for Caroline’s atmospheric science class was also a professor at a highly rated private university. The difference in cost per credit hour for the same instructor teaching at a private university is more than $1,000.

“It’s one thing to pay the exorbitant cost for specialized classes in her major, but to have to pay that price for gen eds — I think you should get them done [at MCC],” Whitney said.

Johnson said she appreciates the preparedness of homeschool families when they come to MCC and enjoys being involved in their academic planning.

“They’re great students. They come in organized and prepared for their appointment. My joke with their parents is, ‘You’re hired as an advisor’ because they come in and they’ve planned out the next few quarters,” Johnson said. “They also get a taste of what MCC has to offer, and a lot of times, students will end up in one of our programs.”

MCC Community Education also offers ongoing noncredit homeschool courses that are available this summer. They are designed for parents considering homeschooling or for those with students currently participating.

To register or for more information, visit mccneb.edu/CE and view Home and Family course offerings. Visit mccneb.edu/SecondaryPartnerships for more information on the College’s dual enrollment programs.

RAISING QUALITY AND ACCESS

TO EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION IN NEBRASKA

Fears of a pending recession that had worried American economists during the past few years have mostly eased in recent months. Many industries and businesses negatively impacted during the pandemic have bounced back.

And then there’s the childcare industry.

In Nebraska, 230 licensed childcare providers closed their doors during the pandemic. Many have not reopened. Of Nebraska’s 93 counties, 12 do not have a single licensed childcare provider operating within their boundaries.

“During the pandemic, we learned that consistent childcare equals a consistent workforce,” said Robert Patterson, chief executive officer for Kids Can Community Center, a licensed nonprofit provider of early childhood care based in South Omaha. 

Metropolitan Community College and its early childhood education partners like Kids Can are engaged in a practical solution to elevate the profession and improve access to licensure in the field. With the creation of a bilingual, online Childhood Development Associate program made possible through the Holland Foundation and a Nebraska Department of Education ReVision grant, MCC aims to make credentialing more accessible.

According to Jane Franklin, MCC dean of social sciences, the focused pathway removes barriers to completion by putting the program online, offering a bilingual track and having an MCC staff member solely dedicated to student success. More than 90 students have enrolled in the online program since it launched. After earning a noncredit Child Development Associate credential, students have the option to further their education in the field by working on an accredited Early Childhood Educator associate degree at MCC. 

Franklin credits early childhood education instructor Deanna Peterson with envisioning an online program aligned with the lifestyles of many of the people currently employed in the field but not credentialed. The College’s program embeds the 120 educational training hours required to earn the credential into the program. Previously, students had to schedule those hours independently, applying their skills at their workplace. 

The program also links students to work-study programs for paid internships/apprenticeships in early childhood, preschool and childcare centers. 

“Deanna Peterson saw early childhood educators having to drive all over the city to take all these classes and complete their training hours. She saw a lot of value in developing an online program,” Franklin said. “Having a bilingual offering added to our preschool program is a huge success story. We already have graduates, and it’s a big help to the workforce.

"Franklin said credentialing elevates the perception of the field and positively impacts the quality of services provided to young children during their most impressionable period of development. Early learning builds the foundation for skills needed in school, work and life, with 90% of brain development occurring before a child reaches age 5.

Franklin said Diana Molina, a bilingual early childhood development pathway coordinator who guides candidates to completion, has been crucial to student success. Molina was also instrumental in the development of the Spanish language version of the Preschool CDA program, collaborating with instructional designers and improving the existing program by implementing a more interactive learning framework, Franklin said. 

Removing barriers and forging new pathways for access, enrollment and completion 

Molina, who earned her associate in early childhood education at MCC, has worked in the childcare field for more than 10 years. Franklin said Molina’s proactive approach to her work and knowledge of the challenges facing workers in the field has been invaluable to MCC and students enrolled in the online program.

Molina meets with students where it works for them. She started offering in-person workshops every week, providing an opportunity for students to have one-on-one time and get their questions answered. Students also have access to MCC career coaches who work in early childhood education centers. 

“It’s self-paced, but I’ve found that providing some regularly occurring meetings for the candidates helps them move through the program. I think having the relationship with the coach who works at the center is also super important. It makes the candidate feel like they aren’t doing this alone,” Molina said.

Franklin said removing barriers for people already working in the field to participate in the College’s program can be a source of self-discovery, bring the potential for higher pay, as well as options for further education in related fields also in need of workers. 

“So many people in early childhood education don’t know how smart they are, how articulate and skilled they are. Then they take the CDA exam and suddenly realize, ‘Oh, I can do all the college work. And I want to take the next step and earn my associate degree,’” Franklin said.

 MCC offers two credentials in its Early Childhood Education program covering two age groups — Infant/Toddler (19.5 credits) or Preschool (16.5 credits) Childhood Development Associate.

Students can begin the College’s program through a dual credit High School Career Academy and then earn their chosen CDA at MCC. 

From there, they may either go into the workforce with a credential that is recognized throughout the United States, or with around 20% of their total credits needed for an Early Childhood Educator associate degree already attained through their CDA certification, continue on with their education at MCC. Students may transfer to a university to earn their bachelor’s degree, which could lead to a job in education. 

It’s a big help to the workforce to add highly skilled and trained people in this field,” Franklin said.

A calling to teach

Arlene Garcia, 19, enrolled in the MCC Certified Nursing Assistant High School Academy while attending Bellevue West. While enrolled in the academy, through an internship opportunity with Educare of Omaha, Inc., a provider of early education to children ages 0 to 5, she realized she wanted to work more directly and hands-on with children than she would be able to in nursing.

“I’ve always loved volunteering at my church, helping out with my siblings and building relationships with the kids at Educare. One day, I realized I was already becoming a teacher,” Garcia said. “So much of teaching is wanting to be there, and when kids see that you love your job, it makes a big difference in their learning.” 

Garcia, who is bilingual and is now working on her bachelor’s degree at University of Nebraska Omaha to become an ESL instructor, said the online component of the MCC program made earning her Infant/Toddler CDA much more manageable. 

“I probably would have gotten burned out if I couldn’t do it online because I was still going to high school, had to work after school and the transportation would have been difficult. I think I would have gotten overwhelmed from the schoolwork I needed to keep up with. Being able to do it at home when I knew I could make time for it was really helpful,” Garcia said. 

Being a teaching aide for Educare, which serves a large Hispanic population, helped her see the difference she was making with bilingual families. 

“I realized that when you integrate both languages into a classroom, that makes such a big impact for the kids who are learning English but are also still able to keep their culture and language,” Garcia said. “The kids light up when I speak to them in Spanish, and when their parents see that I am able to understand and help their kids, I think it makes them feel like it’s a safer place for their child to be and makes them feel more welcome.”

Raising quality, boosting workforce 

In addition to creating better access to early childhood education careers through an online, bilingual offering, the more people working in the field who earn their certification raises the quality of care across the entire provider ecosystem and increases the availability of skilled workers. 

Patterson said families having access to quality services is critical. Children who receive quality early childhood education are more likely to show improved reading and math skills, graduate high school, attend college, have a job and earn high wages. He also noted that the state’s entire workforce hinges on the reliability of childcare. For every one childcare center that closes, dozens of families and their respective employers are impacted. 

Kids Can participates in Nebraska’s Step Up to Quality program, which provides a statewide rating system for families to identify early childhood providers that demonstrate a commitment to quality care. Kids Can is one of a handful of providers to attain the highest rating (Step 5) in an outlined path to quality improvement. 

T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® NEBRASKA provides scholarships to help early care and education professionals complete coursework. The organization covers 90% of tuition for required college credit classes and also provides financial incentives for students who reach checkpoints along the way to licensure. Patterson said Kids Can elects to fund its employees’ participation in the MCC Early Childhood Education program because he sees the value. 

“The level of education a provider’s childhood development associates has is a big identifier of quality in the Step Up to Quality program. With the horrible effect the pandemic had on the industry, there’s a lot of work ahead of us, so this is my priority. It’s my dream that each of our staff members has a CDA certification,” Patterson said.

The MCC Early Childhood Education Program has transfer agreements in place with Creighton, Midland University, Peru State College, University of Nebraska at Kearney and University of Nebraska Omaha. Visit mccneb.edu/Early-Childhood-Education for more information.

MCC students launch high-altitude balloon into ‘near space’ during annular eclipse as part of NASA-funded STEM learning and research project.

Visitors to Roswell, New Mexico, are typically more focused on what comes down from outer space. Recently, a group of Nebraska students traveled to the nation’s hub for alien-inspired tourism to send a weather balloon more than 81,100 feet up. Through a grant facilitated by Metropolitan Community College and funded by NASA, 10 students from MCC, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Nebraska Omaha launched a high-altitude balloon while standing in the “cosmic bull’s eye” of the Oct. 14 annular eclipse. 

As participants in the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project, the teams will study the data collected from the payloads the balloons carried along the path of the eclipse and apply key learnings from the experiment at a follow-up launch during a total eclipse in April 2024. NEBP is primarily funded through the NASA Science Activation program. The goal of the program is to connect diverse learners of all ages to authentic science experiences that create learner pathways to STEM careers.

Nebraska students were among participants from more than 80 high schools, community colleges, tribal schools, historically Black colleges and four-year universities represented. MCC physics instructor Kendra Sibbernsen, Ph.D., led the project and was one of four faculty mentors, which included Derrick Nero, Ed.D., assistant professor of Engineering Education at UNO; Karen Stelling, a professor in the College of Engineering at UNL; and her husband Michael Sibbernsen, director of education at the Branched Oak Observatory. 

The Sibbernsens have participated in 85 educational high-altitude balloon launches since 2011. Kendra said she wanted to pursue the project at MCC because of the unique opportunity it would provide for students to participate in a national research project. 

“It’s not every day that students can be part of a successful NASA mission. It’s a wonderful opportunity for Nebraska students to contribute to such a large project and be able to share their experiences and data with teams from across the nation,” Sibbernsen said. 

Sibbernsen said it was also a good opportunity for Nebraska educational institutions to collaborate on an interdisciplinary project. Participating schools chose one of two tracks of study — atmospheric science or engineering. 

The Nebraska team was focused on the engineering aspects of the project, launching one balloon during each eclipse and floating their payloads, which include live streaming cameras to capture content. The balloon climbed to a peak altitude of 81,132 feet and traveled 138 miles from the launch site before being retrieved on public land using tracking equipment. 

Students used 3D printers to produce some of the components for the flight. The equipment had to be able to operate at altitude and withstand impact from falling to the ground tethered to a parachute. From the ground, students sent signals to a satellite that could communicate with their balloon at altitude and relay commands to an on-board receiver for in-flight operations. Commands included one to open and close an air vent in the neck of the balloon to manipulate its altitude and another to trigger an electronic process to release the payloads from the balloon. 

“High-altitude balloons are stepping stones into aerospace engineering, and doing experiments with them is much more affordable than testing rockets. And when we do projects like these with students during an eclipse, we can get some amazing pictures and build on their excitement,” Sibbernsen said. 

Sibbernsen said every balloon launch is different, each one building on the one before it. She said the Roswell launch was successful because all of its camera, tracking and venting systems were functional while in the air and they were able to live-stream video, but the cut-down process failed at high altitude after succeeding during a tethered practice launch at 80 feet. Using the venting system to lower the balloon nearly doubled the mileage from the anticipated landing distance. 

“It’s true experimental science, and we’ll add this one to our collective history,” Sibbernsen said. “I told the team how proud I was of what they had accomplished up to this point. There was a year of buildup and a lot of adrenaline for a short period of time to study the annular eclipse. We can take a little break now, then we’ll start talking about what we can do better and start preparing for the total eclipse.” 

Visit mccneb.org/AnnularEclipse for more information, photos and videos of Nebraska students participating in the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project. Looking for more STEM learning opportunities at MCC? Visit mccneb.edu/NorthExpress to check out our Science on a Sphere programming.

COMMUNITY BEACON

Yates Illuminates anchored by strong educational partnership with MCC

The Gifford Park Neighborhood Association’s (GPNA) community-building efforts can be traced back nearly 40 years, when the group started a neighborhood watch program to improve safety. Grassroots initiatives continue today in the midtown Omaha enclave spanning Cuming to Dodge streets, from the interstate to 37th St. 

For instance, the 33rd Street market, featuring goods from local producers, will begin on Friday evenings in June and run through September. Activities and events like community garden potlucks, Porchfest, a host of youth sports camps and much more are always happening in Gifford Park, all made possible by the volunteer spirit of its residents. 

Now even more is possible in Gifford Park than ever before thanks to the recent completion of a renovation and restoration project to one of Omaha’s oldest educational sites — the former home of Henry Yates Public School on 32nd and Davenport streets, a building with a history of providing services, support and resources for new Americans. 

Constructed in 1888 as a castle-like residence the Yates family called “Hillside,” half of the stone edifice property was sold to the Omaha school district for $1 in 1915 to transition to a school. Today, the John McDonald-designed building — the same architect of the Joslyn Castle about six blocks to the west — is the new home to Yates Illuminates.

Yates Illuminates is an umbrella organization to a group of small, culturally focused nonprofits. Each entity has its own mission, but to rent the shared offices at Yates Illuminates, tenants must also buy into the overarching mission of the collective — serving the community by offering social, cultural and educational resources to create an inclusive environment that uplifts every person’s potential.

Marie Hélène André, Yates Illuminates’ executive director, said she functions like an adhesive between organizations. André is a world citizen. She was born in Rwanda and also lived in Belgium and Brazil before moving to Omaha in 2013, when she and husband Adrian Petrescu, Ph.D., found a home in Gifford Park. A speaker of five languages, André is a former Metropolitan Community College ESL instructor and corporate trainer. 

Gifford Park is also home to the College’s latest express center, MCC at Yates Illuminates. Situated in one of the state’s most diverse census tracts (more than 55% of area residents identify as non-white, according to 2020 U.S. Census data), it is a hub for MCC Adult Education programs and a wide variety of Community and Workforce Education camps and workshops, serving children to seniors.

The building has been renovated and upgraded, with its large double-hung windows and hardwood floors restored. Its interior features an auditorium, boardroom and a commercial kitchen, all shared by tenants and available by reservation for activities. In front of its brick exterior facing Davenport Street is the MCC Freight Farm. The high-tech, indoor garden is the centerpiece of a vibrant courtyard with several benches for gathering. Surrounding lush, inviting landscaping funnels passersby into the courtyard’s common areas and walkways. A playground sits on the north side of the building.

As the rededicated space neared its April grand opening, leaders of the project said the College’s commitment to be the on-site, educational anchor tenant has been a key component to its viability. Having an educational purpose was written into the building’s deed more than a century ago.

Many organizations with a unifying educational mission

Yates Illuminates’ service-learning model is similar to the University of Nebraska Omaha’s Weitz Center for Community Engagement but on a smaller scale.

Katie Weitz, Ph.D., president of Weitz Family Foundation, was engaged with the project after attending a community meeting about the future of the former school and OPS-run community center. OPS designated the structure surplus in October 2019. That’s when GPNA started rallying around the idea to build on the location’s legacy as a site for community education and a welcoming place for new Americans.

In the beginning stages of GPNA community organizing efforts, a real estate firm commissioned by OPS put the building on the market, drawing a $630,000 bid from a developer to turn it into an assisted living community. It was the second such GPNA campaign to #SaveYates in four years, the first stemming from the building being considered to be torn down and replaced by a new elementary school on the current site. Public input shifted the location for Gifford Park Elementary School to instead be built at 32nd and Burt streets. André served as a leading organizer of both successful campaigns.

André said the Weitz Family Foundation’s decision to support the vision for Yates Illuminates during the 2020 campaign, and the OPS Board of Education’s decision to sell the property at a discount, enabled the building to remain a center for education. 

“About 60 people showed up,” Weitz said, referring to the 2020 meeting. “It was just so interesting to have young families and older people, small businesses and policymakers, in one space talking and dreaming about what Yates could be if it was community-owned. That was one of the through lines that was really appealing to the [Weitz Family] Foundation.

After the school board’s 6-1 vote to sell the property to GPNA for $100,000 with Weitz Family Foundation’s additional backing of $900,000 to renovate the property, they #SavedYates.

“Gifford Park is truly a model of what a neighborhood association can be. It’s a tremendously civically engaged group of folks that care about economic development, families in need, extracurriculars and keeping it clean,” Weitz said. “The project had some scary times, but we had faith that the Omaha Public School Board was going to honor the location’s history and see the value of the education.”

The MCC ‘turning point’

Weitz and André both said MCC committing to the project gave it momentum and tangibility through periods when seeing the finish line was difficult. Most of the concept and planning phases occurred during the pandemic, with supply chain interruptions, inflated construction costs and the timing for having public gatherings again uncertain.

“Metropolitan Community College being an anchor tenant was one of the most important turning points for Yates. It first and foremost demonstrated the commitment to education,” Weitz said. “MCC brings the whole spectrum of education, from practical workforce development to becoming educated citizens of the world.”

The MCC Freight Farm is a source of some of the College’s most innovative programming. Within the confines of a converted shipping container, and with the help of solar power, hydroponics and specialized LED lights, it offers community education on horticulture, entrepreneurship and sustainability. It introduces an alternative food production method suitable to urban settings and food deserts, with the capacity to produce multiple tons of produce year-round. 

A pilot food security program for students funded by the MCC Foundation launched at Yates. The intercampus, collaborative initiative highlights how MCC uses the sum of its parts, the breadth of its expertise and creativity to offer resources to students colleges aren’t necessarily expected to provide.

Salad greens grown in the Freight Farm (through noncredit classes) are put together at the Institute for the Culinary Arts by the culinary, hospitality and horticulture department (credit programs) on the Fort Omaha Campus. MCC Facilities Department staff deliver the finished product to each of the College’s main campuses, where students who need them can pick up a free salad every Tuesday. The program continues to evolve.

In addition to the Freight Farm, the College rents three classrooms on the second floor of the building for additional programming. 

“There’s a wide variety of learning experiences and unique ways we deliver our programming at Yates,” said Gary Girard, vice president for MCC Community and Workforce Education. “There’s a robust adult education and ESL program here, as well as senior programming.” 

During winter break, while many working parents have a far shorter break than their children, MCC collaborated with after-school provider Collective for Youth to offer a three-day robotics camp at Yates attended by around 15 elementary school children at no cost. Students built their own robot and learned coding to program it to play music, move, light up, sense walls and more.

“With all our youth programming, our intent is to have a [science, technology, engineering and math] focus,” Girard said. 

Daphne Cook, MCC director of Community Education, said MCC youth programs at Yates are designed to create connection to the entire lifecycle of things that are often taken for granted. A visit to a Metropolitan Utilities District water treatment plant provided an experiential learning opportunity.

“You turn on the water, but where does it come from, and how does it get cleaned? Having those experiences is impactful because it connects you to your community. Our students get excited when they learn about the interconnectedness of things. These aren’t the kinds of experiences [people from my generation] had when they were kids,” Cook said.

See what’s germinating at Yates Illuminates

Inside Yates Illuminates, a couple paces after passing through the entrance, a sign with “welcome” written in dozens of languages forms the shape of a heart to greet visitors. 

During the 2023-24 year, MCC Adult Education, which includes the College’s no cost noncredit GED and ESL programs, served more than 1,400 community members through 30 instructional courses, 16 Transitional Learning Community classes and information sessions at Yates.

MCC Community Education has hosted 87 courses at Yates to date, serving an enrollment approaching 500. An additional 58 students have participated in MCC College for Kids and College for Teens programs at the new location. This summer, MCC at Yates Illuminates will offer courses that cover a wide range of interests and age groups, including 3D Pen Art for Seniors, alternative energy and food production, Black American culture, digital photography, entrepreneurship, fashion design boot camps for kids and teens, marketing, meditation, Native American beading and many more learning experiences.

While MCC has an anchoring role at Yates Illuminates, the College’s offering is a fraction of the full array of cultural experiences, services, education and community engagement that takes place between Yates’ “green walls.”

Decorative but 100% alive-and-real moss grows on the walls within Yates’ interior corridors. Seemingly everything at Yates — from the Freight Farm to drywall and dreams — germinates.

People who have lived in the Omaha area their whole lives can find community and multicultural experiences they have never had right at home. Through evolving, community-responsive and nimble programming, people from any community can get to know this one better.

Bluebird Cultural Initiative hosts native dance performances and other free programs. André joined a class to make her own moccasins. An amateur radio program helped students contact people manning airwaves in Toronto and England.

Omaha Chamber Music Society and OPS partnered to offer a free music camp to 35 refugee children. For two weeks, they learned to play African drums every afternoon and presented a concert at the conclusion.

“Each child got the opportunity to learn how to drum and then to perform, and each left with a free musical instrument,” André said. 

André said Yates Illuminates tries to offer free programs whenever possible. Great Plains Theater Commons’ performances are free, as are violin classes and a science club for kids.

The people who come to Yates Illuminates get to know one another. The aim is for the kids who attend programs to develop a bond with one another and their neighborhood, André said.

“You keep them away from the street. You get them involved in the neighborhood. They get to know each other and grow together, and they want the neighborhood to stay nice. And when they see one another on the street, they see their friend,” André said.

André said with the building now full of nonprofit tenants and the renovation complete, she is excited for the broader community to experience the programming and provide input on what else they would like to see offered.

“Everybody is welcome. They should come see us, ask us questions and give us suggestions. If they have ideas, we can always have a conversation and see what we can do,” André said.

André said looking back, it is incredible how far the project has come since the first community meeting, when Yates Illuminates was only a dream.

“I am lucky to have people who believe in this project,” André said. “I think MCC wants to be in the community, and this is a special project in a special neighborhood.”

Visit mccneb.edu/CE for more information on MCC Community and Workforce Education courses offered at MCC at Yates Illuminates. Check out yatesilluminates.org to learn more about Yates Illuminates.

 

​STEMCC: National undergraduate research project participation leads to discovery of novel virus

Sean Mathews said his interest in science began in early childhood. He recalls competing with friends in elementary school over who knew the most animal facts. When the Ralston High School senior heard about an opportunity to participate in a microbiology research project at Metropolitan Community College last year, it didn’t take much convincing for him to sign up.

In addition to earning college credits in high school tuition free, the project offered Mathews the possibility of scientific discovery, an opportunity the science-minded student didn’t want to pass up.

“[In science,] everyone thinks about discovering animals, but they say there’s nothing left to be discovered anymore. I think microbiology is where all the hidden treasures are,” Mathews presciently said in November 2023, during the first quarter of the three-quarter research project sponsored by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

That turned out to be a good hypothesis. Mathews, 17, is among the first cohort of nine MCC students participating in the Science Education Alliance — Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) project.

Phages are viruses that infect bacteria. Found almost anywhere in the environment, they are among the most abundant biological agents on earth, however, their existence in science has been known for less than 100 years.

In the first stage of the SEA-PHAGES project, students took soil samples to find bacteriophages on the Fort Omaha Campus and around the Omaha metro area. One of Mathews’ samples from Hickory Hill Park in Papillion revealed a new virus when it was isolated in a petri dish and studied under a microscope.

In his lab notes, he jotted, “WE HAVE A VIRUS!!!”

That gave him the honor to name his discovery — something he actually thought about when he signed up for the study just in case it happened.

Science has a lot of laws, one being that a new virus can’t be named after another one. That nixed Mathews’ clever first choice to call his discovery “senioritis.” But there are no such rules against naming them after characters from Stephen King novels, so Mathews named the virus “CapTrips,” shorthand for the humanity-destroying virus named Captain in “The Stand.” The creatively named phage is now an entry in the HHMI bacteriophage database used by schools participating in the SEA-PHAGES project.

Studying phages is important because they have been shown to offer the same benefits as antibiotics, with the key differentiator being that they can be used to kill pathogenic bacteria without harming beneficial bacteria, said Bhaswati Manish, Ph.D., the MCC biology instructor who coordinated the College’s involvement in the project.

“Phages are like heat-seeking missiles that are able to target specific bacteria. It makes them a promising alternative to antibiotics, which can have a number of side effects and can lead to the development of antibiotic resistance,” Manish said. “Studying phages helps to understand the biology, structure, function and evolution of bacteria, as well as at the molecular level. This knowledge can be used to develop new strategies for preventing and treating bacterial infections and new biotechnology tools.”

MCC, a STEM learning destination

The purpose of the SEA-PHAGES project is to teach students the techniques and processes used in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) research. Manish said the hands-on research is part of her department’s focus to bring innovative STEM learning opportunities to students. Participants who complete the program will receive up to nine credits.

Mike Flesch, MCC dean of math and natural sciences, said the HHMI partnership represents an important undergraduate research opportunity for community college students. MCC is the only community college in Nebraska to offer the SEA-PHAGES program. Fewer than 30 community colleges are participating nationally. More than 200 four-year schools and colleges throughout the country offer the program.

“Promoting STEM education is one of our goals at MCC because we need to be able to offer our students experiences that would be similar to what they may receive at a four-year institution,” Flesch said. “They’re learning research techniques that a lot of biotech companies are looking for in candidates for immediate employment, and they are also gaining valuable experience and credits for transfer degrees.”

There are two parts to the research — phage discovery and phage genomics. During phage discovery completed in the fall of 2023, phages were identified in soil samples, characterized and isolated from their natural environment, then purified and amplified in the laboratory. During the genomic phase of the research in the spring of 2024, students mapped and annotated the sequenced DNA of the phage and submitted them to the HHMI phage database. They were then submitted to GenBank under the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Discoveries made in the program will be submitted as scientific reports to peer-reviewed science and biomedical journals for publication. Students will be involved in preparing the manuscripts and editing work as part of their course participation and research training. Two MCC students will participate in the HHMI SEA-Symposium, where they will gain the academic résumé-building opportunity to present their findings.

Mathews is already receiving good recognition for his work. At the Metropolitan Science and Engineering Fair in March, Mathews presented a poster on his phage research at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium. His poster won an award that was presented at Lauritzen Gardens later that month. Mathews was also selected as one of the six top candidates in the Senior Division and participated at the Nebraska Junior Academy of Sciences (NJAS) meeting held at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in April.

Six additional students from the SEA-PHAGES program made a joint presentation on two research posters at the NJAS event. Ye Ye Aye and Josephine McLean each received the Outstanding Research in Biology Award from University of Nebraska MedicalCenter for the work they presented at the annual Nebraska Academy of Sciences meeting.

“In addition to the scientific processes they are learning, the phases of the research also help our students work in teams and develop their verbal and written communication skills when they present and explain their work,” Flesch said. “Through participation, they expand their knowledge, learn hands-on lab techniques, learn about basic research protocols and expand their horizons on potential careers.”

Flesch said special learning opportunities like these are key to growing the College’s academic programs and preparing people in its four-county service area for their future, which could be immediate employment or working toward transfer to one of the College’s four-year university partners.

“Dr. Manish has been instrumental, along with her colleagues, in bringing this opportunity to our students,” Flesch said.

In addition to the biology department’s HHMI research project, physics instructor Kendra Sibbernsen helped secure a STEM research opportunity sponsored by NASA that took college students from MCC, UNO and UNL to Roswell, New Mexico, to study an annular eclipse using high-altitude balloons to collect data. The same group traveled to Carbondale, Illinois, in April to do follow-up research on the total solar eclipse while situated in its path of totality.

“You’ve got to have dreamers with the spirit and drive to put these kinds of projects into operation — people who are looking at opportunities to bring undergraduate research opportunities to our students,” Flesch said.

Manish and fellow MCC biology instructor, Carla Delucchi, Ph.D., have been leading laboratory-driven learning during the SEA-PHAGES project on the Fort Omaha Campus. The first cohort ranges from current high school students like Mathews to adult learners who are returning to college, with a mix of male and female students from different demographic groups.

Manish said it can be nerve-wracking to bring a new project into the College’s academic offerings, but it is rewarding to create access to this kind of undergraduate research for postsecondary students. Participating in undergraduate research at four-year institutions can be cost-prohibitive. Manish said providing the offering at MCC for $68 per credit hour — along with scholarships the MCC Foundation has made available for this project — can help reach talented students in underrepresented groups.

“HHMI wants this research to be accessible to a diverse group of students and we all agreed that community colleges can be a great way to accomplish that,” Manish said.

Manish’s research background is in neuroscience and cancer biology topics. She has more than 20 years of experience working in laboratories. She said students participating in the SEA-PHAGES project at MCC can create competitive advantages for themselves, whether their goal is to continue their studies at a four-year university, graduate school or enter the workforce.

Graduate schools are looking for students with bacteriophage research experience. Having this research background can also make students more competitive for jobs in academia or with biotech companies involved in developing new treatments for bacterial infections and other biotechnological applications, Manish said.

Flesch said the project is an example of what he believes MCC does best — meet students where they are now.

“We have students coming in with different needs. Some people need to be able to get a good job in the next 90 days to support their families. And some people are 18 years old and have their whole life in front of them. You need to be able to onboard and get people into the system wherever they are, and that’s what we do really well at MCC. This program fits so well into the development of a STEM workforce and is one of those great opportunities we’re incorporating into our curriculum,” Flesch said.

Amelia LaDue, a 35-year-old student participating in the study, took a different route to the same laboratory table as Mathews. She was three courses away from completing her nursing degree at a four-year college when her interests shifted to virology and microbiology. Attending MCC to begin a new career path made the most sense financially, she said. The way education is delivered at MCC has also clicked.

“I’m a mother and a wife. I can’t afford to spend thousands of dollars on student loans right now. Being able to have this opportunity at a community college has been a godsend to me,” LaDue said. “The instructors are amazing. I’ve learned more in this classroom setting than all of the others combined. They really let you get your hands dirty and let you make mistakes and help you through them. It's a very hands-on approach to learning that you don't see a lot."

From the slide of a microscope to a big-picture view

Overall, phages are helping create a better understanding of the trillions of microbial cells living in each person and their role in health and disease. Manish said the applications of the research have the potential to address several critical issues in the fields of health care, climate change, food and agriculture and STEM education. Phage therapy is being used to treat a variety of bacterial infections, including cystic fibrosis, wound infections and urinary tract infections. They are being used to develop new vaccines that protect against bacterial diseases. Phages can aid in engineering bacteria for use in the production of biofuels and pharmaceuticals. New studies are showing promising results for phages to treat diseases found in plants. Manish said it has been exciting to see the students see the bigger picture as they progress through each phase of the research.

“They are understanding that they are serving a bigger purpose than the experience they are developing for their own careers. These phages could be the reason that we are one day able to cure someone from cystic fibrosis,” Manish said. LaDue said participating in SEA-PHAGES has been an “amazing opportunity” that is affirming her choice to change career paths.

“This is the kind of research I want to go into. This is something that could ultimately save lives and help people thrive in ways that they wouldn’t have been able to before,” LaDue said.

Students interested in undergraduate research opportunities in the SEA-PHAGES program may contact Bhaswati Manish (BManish@mccneb.edu). For more information on the College’s participation in the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project, email Kendra Sibbernsen (KJSibbernsen@mccneb.edu).

 

MCC celebrates commencement with enrollment

and completion on the rise

Laquita Staton stood on the concourse of the second level of Baxter Arena, overlooking the procession of Metropolitan Community College graduates as they filed in while “Pomp and Circumstance” played. With a dozen roses tucked in her arm and a congratulatory card in hand, she gushed about her finance-minded sister, Ashley. 

“When I called her yesterday, she said she couldn’t talk long because she was doing her homework,” Laquita said of her little sister. “I’m really proud of her because she has worked so hard to be able to walk across this stage today. She’s the second in my family to graduate with a college degree. These roses are for her.”

Ashley Staton was among the 834 MCC students who walked across the stage over the course of two commencement ceremonies on Friday. By the time the 2023-24 academic year officially wraps up at the close of the summer quarter, more than 2,100 (estimated) will complete MCC academic programs. 

The positive energy of an MCC commencement is unique. There is no “wrong time” to celebrate. MCC President Randy Schmailzl encourages guests to celebrate their grads as their names are called. The boisterous applause throughout is fittingly emphatic. The 2023-24 academic year, in addition to being the College’s 50th anniversary, closes out a time at MCC that saw an 8% rise in enrollment and around 400 additional students finish their degree or certificate programs than last year. 

Also noteworthy was participation in dual enrollment programs by Nebraska high school students, who can take classes at MCC tuition free through the 2024-25 academic year. Official numbers won’t be available until the close of the summer quarter, but more than 8,000 Nebraska high school students took in excess of 110,000 credit hours at MCC in 2023-24. That translates to a minimum savings of nearly $7.5 million in college tuition. 

Every student who walked the stage (or chose not to) had a special reason(s) that brought them to MCC. A common theme among many who articulated their experience at the College said they received support from faculty and staff that made a positive difference. Whether their time at MCC began during high school — 140 Millard Public Schools Early College students alone completed their MCC academic program during their high school graduation year — right after or later in life, students felt like they had people who invested in them at MCC after they made the choice to invest in themselves.

James Henley, 42, had a 20-year gap between the first class he took at MCC as a young man and the last class he took in middle age to finish his associate degree in carpentry. He earned credits for the experience he gained in the workforce between his stints at MCC, but he needed something extra to finish his associate degree.

“I enjoyed the classroom setting. The teachers were very good, helpful and informative. It helped my confidence knowing that I had people who were in my corner,” Henley said. 

Henley said he is considering getting his bachelor’s degree in construction management and has always thought about relocating from Omaha. With an associate degree in hand now, he said can look into moving more seriously.

“Now there’s a paper trail that I can always take with me,” Henley said. “It means a lot to me. It just shows you there’s never an end. You can always keep going.”

Ruth Guardiola, 33, is a mother of three. She enrolled at a college immediately after finishing high school and had a “terrible experience.” The school she attended no longer exists, but the debt she went into from attending it certainly hung around. 

Guardiola had two things to prove when she decided to start taking Automotive Collision Technology courses in 2021 — to herself and her kids that she could do the work, and that there’s a place for women in body shops. 

“I wanted to learn how to fix cars and have always had an interest in that, but we were told at a very young age that’s not where women belong,” Guardiola said. 

Guardiola admitted her 14-year-old daughter was mad that she was at her mom’s graduation instead of the Cinco de Mayo parade on Friday evening. Her mom hoped, in time, her daughter would realize that the time to celebrate Cinco de Mayo is predictable; the right time to go back to school doesn’t fit as neatly on a calendar.

“I hope she can look back to today and understand that mom did a lot of work to get here,” Guardiola said.

Alejandro Salome-Garcia of Fremont may be a source of encouragement that Guardiola’s daughter will eventually see the bigger picture. The youngest of three children, Salome-Garcia is a first-generation college student and is finishing his associate degree in criminal justice at MCC. He plans to attend Bellevue University to complete his bachelor’s next. He wants to work with juveniles on probation. 

“I did this for my mom. She’s a single mom and raised all three of us. I saw all her hard work and dedication. I love her and I’m glad that she’s mom. She encouraged me to go to school, and I’m proud of myself for doing it,” Salome-Garcia said. 

Jacob Knapp, 23, grew up in Grand Island and said he had a hard time in high school, challenged by a reading disability. Finishing his time at MCC on the honor roll was a big accomplishment. Knapp credits the smaller class sizes he found at MCC and Ryan Stamm, a Disability Support Services counselor, with making it a good experience for him. He plans to go to the University of Nebraska Omaha to earn a bachelor’s degree in social work next. 

“My biggest class at MCC had no more than 30 people in it. At other schools, all the gen ed classes have hundreds of people in them,” Knapp said. “All of my instructors were amazing. They gave me extra time on tests. And Ryan Stamm is just a great guy. I really like working with him.”

In addition to the College’s associate degree/certificate programs, three special guests from a community partnership program also walked the stage at MCC commencement. Two years ago, a group of young adult students in Autism Action Partnership’s Prosper Academy, an in-residence, independent living skills program, started taking classes from the academy’s curriculum at the MCC South Omaha Campus. The goal of taking the classes from their program at MCC was to provide them with an authentic college experience and help them learn the independent living skills of managing your own schedule, arranging their own transportation and maintaining employment while taking classes. 

Lizzy Lanspa, an AAP activities coordinator, was feeling the emotions before the program even started. All three who walked the stage (and an additional two who did not attend commencement) will move into their own residence at the conclusion of the program. It’s a result she wouldn’t have predicted two years ago.  

“I’m already getting teary-eyed,” Lanspa said after leaving her students to join MCC completers in the lineup before the procession into the arena. “They came into the program as adults, but to see them really thriving has been radically life-changing for me. They’ve changed my perception on what I think an adult is and what I think independent living is. It’s just been amazing to watch them grow, learn new things and be proud of themselves for what they’ve done. MCC has been an amazing partner.”

Laquita Staton wished she had a bouquet of roses for all the graduates because of her appreciation for their individual journeys to the stage last week. 

“I’m proud of everybody who walked even though I obviously don’t know the majority of these people. Anytime somebody is graduating — elementary school, junior high, high school or college — I think that’s a big thing because a lot of people drop out or can lose momentum. I’m grateful to see so many people succeeding and living out their dreams,” Staton said.    

Higher Learning

MCC students launch high-altitude balloon into ‘near space’ during annular eclipse as part of
NASA-funded STEM learning and research project.

Visitors to Roswell, New Mexico, are typically more focused on what comes down from outer space. Recently, a group of Nebraska students traveled to the nation’s hub for alien-inspired tourism to send a weather balloon more than 81,100 feet up. Through a grant facilitated by Metropolitan Community College and funded by NASA, 10 students from MCC, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Nebraska Omaha launched a high-altitude balloon while standing in the “cosmic bull’s eye” of the Oct. 14 annular eclipse. 

As participants in the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project, the teams will study the data collected from the payloads the balloons carried along the path of the eclipse and apply key learnings from the experiment at a follow-up launch during a total eclipse in April 2024. NEBP is primarily funded through the NASA Science Activation program. The goal of the program is to connect diverse learners of all ages to authentic science experiences that create learner pathways to STEM careers.

Nebraska students were among participants from more than 80 high schools, community colleges, tribal schools, historically Black colleges and four-year universities represented. MCC physics instructor Kendra Sibbernsen, Ph.D., led the project and was one of four faculty mentors, which included Derrick Nero, Ed.D., assistant professor of Engineering Education at UNO; Karen Stelling, a professor in the College of Engineering at UNL; and her husband Michael Sibbernsen, director of education at the Branched Oak Observatory. 

The Sibbernsens have participated in 85 educational high-altitude balloon launches since 2011. Kendra said she wanted to pursue the project at MCC because of the unique opportunity it would provide for students to participate in a national research project. 

“It’s not every day that students can be part of a successful NASA mission. It’s a wonderful opportunity for Nebraska students to contribute to such a large project and be able to share their experiences and data with teams from across the nation,” Sibbernsen said. 

Sibbernsen said it was also a good opportunity for Nebraska educational institutions to collaborate on an interdisciplinary project. Participating schools chose one of two tracks of study — atmospheric science or engineering. 

The Nebraska team was focused on the engineering aspects of the project, launching one balloon during each eclipse and floating their payloads, which include live streaming cameras to capture content. The balloon climbed to a peak altitude of 81,132 feet and traveled 138 miles from the launch site before being retrieved on public land using tracking equipment. 

Students used 3D printers to produce some of the components for the flight. The equipment had to be able to operate at altitude and withstand impact from falling to the ground tethered to a parachute. From the ground, students sent signals to a satellite that could communicate with their balloon at altitude and relay commands to an on-board receiver for in-flight operations. Commands included one to open and close an air vent in the neck of the balloon to manipulate its altitude and another to trigger an electronic process to release the payloads from the balloon. 

“High-altitude balloons are stepping stones into aerospace engineering, and doing experiments with them is much more affordable than testing rockets. And when we do projects like these with students during an eclipse, we can get some amazing pictures and build on their excitement,” Sibbernsen said. 

Sibbernsen said every balloon launch is different, each one building on the one before it. She said the Roswell launch was successful because all of its camera, tracking and venting systems were functional while in the air and they were able to live-stream video, but the cut-down process failed at high altitude after succeeding during a tethered practice launch at 80 feet. Using the venting system to lower the balloon nearly doubled the mileage from the anticipated landing distance. 

“It’s true experimental science, and we’ll add this one to our collective history,” Sibbernsen said. “I told the team how proud I was of what they had accomplished up to this point. There was a year of buildup and a lot of adrenaline for a short period of time to study the annular eclipse. We can take a little break now, then we’ll start talking about what we can do better and start preparing for the total eclipse.” 

Visit mccneb.org/AnnularEclipse for more information, photos and videos of Nebraska students participating in the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project. Looking for more STEM learning opportunities at MCC? Visit mccneb.edu/NorthExpress to check out our Science on a Sphere programming.

 

MCC Culinary and Hospitality program puts Julia Child-inspired education on display

Photo courtesy of the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and Culinary Arts

There are nearly 250 million photos of culinary masterpieces you can find by searching “#foodie” on Instagram. The inventive chefs, influencers and at-home cooks who make and plate them would have never found the massive following they have on social media if Julia Child hadn’t first gone on WGBH-TV, a public access station in Boston, to promote the legendary cookbook she co-authored, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in 1961.

A new generation of culinary students at MCC may not be familiar with Child as they registered for classes, but through a special learning opportunity over the next several months, they will have direct exposure to her work and an understanding of how it shaped American food culture. MCC is a supporting partner of a traveling exhibit at The Durham Museum titled, “Julia Child: A Recipe for Life,” which opened in October and runs through Feb. 11, 2024. The exhibit is produced and managed by Flying Fish, developed in collaboration with the Napa Valley Museum under rights granted by The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts and The Schlesinger Library,Radcliffe Institute and Harvard University, and is generously supported by Oceania Cruises.

The exhibition explores America’s culinary revolution through a series of immersive experiences. It features an interactive replica of Child’s kitchen from the set of “The French Chef,” where patrons can operate a vintage video camera, mix “ingredients” and have sensory experiences that bring the sounds and smells of Child’s kitchen to the exhibition gallery. It also highlights people from Omaha’s history who have impacted others through their love of food.

When Child’s distinctive voice first entered living rooms across the country, households weren’t putting a premium on dinner — advertisers were pushing frozen TV dinners during commercials and oddly concocted, molded Jell-O salads were having a moment. She bucked that trend by teaching the benefits of what MCC Culinary Arts instructor James Davis calls “the long game” in cooking.

Child’s philosophy on cooking prioritized enjoyment over convenience, an attitude that didn’t go unnoticed. Phone calls from interested viewers wanting more cooking demonstrations came pouring in after her first broadcast, and Child continued to deliver. With food as her forum, she captivated, inspired and entertained audiences for the rest of her life as America’s culinary queen and its first rock star chef.

“It is evidence of why Julia is a sage and why as educators we see so much value in teaching from her legacy,” said Davis, who teaches students how to create a fine dining experience. “Showing students that the best results don’t necessarily happen right away is so important. It takes time and work.”

Todd Schulkin, executive director for the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and Culinary Arts, said Child discovered great food during her life in Paris with her husband Paul following World War II, learning her craft at the renowned Le Cordon Bleu culinary school. A takeaway from her education was that the French revered good cooking but offered little explanation behind its foundations.

Child saw an opportunity to help fill the gap in knowledge with an American audience.

“I think one of her big epiphanies was if I know the why behind these techniques and it helped me, I think it will be helpful to the average person in their kitchen, and more importantly, it will make cooking more accessible and more enjoyable,” Schulkin said. “Her approach to recipe writing was to be a little angel on the shoulder of the person tackling it.”

During the fall quarter, MCC Culinary and Hospitality students prepared Child-inspired fine dining menus at Sage Student Bistro and catered a special event at The Durham. MCC Community Education will also have programming connections to Child’s legacy. In winter quarter, the Open Kitchen Studio at the Institute for the Culinary Arts will take on the feel of Child’s legendary TV program, “The French Chef” for pairing studios modeled from past broadcasts.

MCC Culinary Arts baking instructor Cathy Curtis said the programming connections to the exhibit provide a uniquely valuable teaching opportunity for faculty.

“Before Julia’s TV life, there really wasn’t an easy place to find and understand the key tenets of cookery that we teach our students today, like the smoke point of butter versus oil,” Curtis said. “She broadened our palettes in a way that was approachable. She had this commonality about her that I think was appealing to people and made them feel safe to experiment and play, which I think is the best way to learn about food — just get in the kitchen and cook.”

Schulkin said Child was more of a natural teacher than an intuitive cook.

“Cooking wasn’t something that came easy to her. I think if Julia were still here today and you walked up to her and asked her, she would say she was a cooking teacher, whether through her TV show or her cookbooks. She never used modern parlance — she never identified as a chef. She felt like chefs were people who worked in restaurants or professional kitchens, which she never did in her life,” Schulkin said. “She was a very effective communicator, which is key to being a good teacher. Good teachers have something inherent in their personality, that when they learn something, they get others excited about it, too. They want to share it with other people. Julia fully embodied that.”

Besides being inspirational to culinary students, Child also provides an example to the lifelong learner. She is arguably one of the most prominent nontraditional students in history.

Child was 36 when she began attending Le Cordon Bleu. Her education was provided as a benefit of her volunteer service as a research assistant for the Office of Strategic Services — the predecessor of the CIA.

Curtis said Child’s story of personal growth and breaking through in a male-dominated industry made her a historically important figure, but her authenticity is what propelled her ascent to American icon status. Her early television shows were filmed in one take. Mistakes couldn’t be edited out, so disaster recovery efforts and error-driven modifications were part of her lessons.

“She blazed the trail for so many women chefs. Her perseverance is inspirational to me, and I think it will be for our students, too,” Curtis said. “She was so genuine in everything she did and that is something we want to highlight. She was comfortable in her own flaws. Starting over and having to find new ways to the path she wanted to go down is a testament to her grit, and she moved through those moments with such humor and grace.”

The American Sage project at Sage Student Bistro honored her legacy with select dates for fine dining menus developed from Child-inspired recipes or other American chefs who were strongly influenced by her work. Each one-night-only menu included nine courses — five from the kitchen and four from the bake shop.

On Nov. 2, Sage Student Bistro closed so culinary students could attend and cater a special event at The Durham Museum’s “The Joy of Julia” speaker series. The event featured nationally acclaimed pastry chef Gale Gand, a James Beard Award winner and two-time guest on “The French Chef.” She shared stories of baking with Child and her lasting impact on the culinary world.

“Just the fact that some of our students are going to get to be in the same room with Gale Gand — she’s amazing. This is an incredibly unique experience for our students,” Curtis said leading up to the event.

Schulkin said if Child were able to attend the speaker series event, he imagined her focus would be on the MCC culinary students attending.

“Julia would be pleased to know that this kind of exhibit helps inspire and educate people about what’s possible in their life, but I don’t think she would have been terribly interested in an exhibit about herself. She would be right there asking every student what they’re learning, what they want to be and probably telling them to call her if they needed help. And of course, asking questions about what’s on the menu at Sage, and what people in Omaha and at the College like to eat,”Schulkin said.

Davis said the preparation that goes into creating the featured menus at the bistro and timing a nine-course fine dining experience for 50 to 60 guests gives students a realistic representation of the execution needed to deliver on all aspects of a special event. Participation is limited to second-year culinary students due to the level of preparation and collaboration required.

Davis and Curtis said they tried to strike a balance with their teaching approach between letting the students experiment and providing direction as they prepared their featured menus.

“We asked them not to create a replica recipe but to look at a dish from Julia and find ways to elevate or alter it while still staying true to the meal,” Davis said. “When they were previewing their menus, sometimes they missed the mark, but I think they learned a tremendous amount from those moments, especially from experiencing the pressure of what it means to roll out a new menu.”

Sage Student Bistro featured menus showcased classic French cuisine with modern twists, including a play on one of Child’s best-known recipes, coq au vin, with a take from chef Paul Prudhomme: blackened coq au Riesling. Boeuf Bourguignon was taken up a notch on the Sage table d’hôte menu as beef tenderloin Bourguignon with Yukon puree, root vegetables, mushrooms and chives. Another Child-inspired classic dish, cassoulet, made an appearance on the menu with lamb.

Fall and winter desserts that took inspiration from Child included delicacies like crème brûlée, stone fruit tarte tatin, apple charlotte, chocolate mousse trio and poached pear with fromage blanc.

“It feels like a very big day to our student chefs, and it should. They worked really hard on their menus and it’s intimidating when it is your first time running the show,” Davis said. “They had to partner and work together for the diners to experience what they intended, and it’s marvelous when you see it all come together.”

Schulkin said Child valued culinary programs at community colleges. The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts is a supporter of Santa Barbara City College’s culinary program, which has the Julia Child Scholarship Fund. In addition to managing everything she donated to the Foundation and preserving her legacy through events and the annual Julia Child Award, its purpose is to award grants to other nonprofits in the culinary space, including scholarships for culinary careers, culinary history research and educational food media and literacy programs.

Schulkin said Child would be impressed with the value MCC is delivering for culinary education. Similar to her goal with French cuisine, providing a nationally recognized program at $68 per credit hour makes the training more approachable.

“Julia’s mandate was that the more people who do this, the better. At $68 a credit hour, [MCC is] giving people many more options to choose the path in the culinary world that fits them best without having to worry as much about how they are going to pay off their loans. That flexibility is tremendously valuable to creating diversity in the profession,” Schulkin said.

“Whether they end up in a professional kitchen, start their own catering business or want to feed their family, relatives, kids, aunts, uncles and grandmas better, that’s all for the betterment of human existence.”

Learn more about programming connections at mccneb.edu/Bistro or visit mccneb.edu/CE to sign up for Continuing Education Culinary classes. Go to durhammuseum.org/Current-Exhibits to learn more about the “Julie Child: A Recipe for Life” exhibit.

Hermsen finds ‘second home’at MCC Prototype Design Lab, making glasses more affordable and inclusive

When the arm on his glasses broke mid-project in the mountains of Colorado in 2004, James Hermsen went into MacGuyver mode. Like the beloved nuts-and-bolts TV hero, Hermsen surveyed the objects around him and started grabbing what was usable. A power drill, bit and a spool of neon yellow line from a weed whacker would have to do the trick.

Drilling holes where the arms of his broken glasses connected to the frames around the lenses, he fed the repurposed line through and fastened it. He tried them on and adjusted them until they fit properly. Hermsen finished out the workday not knowing he had just stepped into the next chapter of his life.

Hermsen, 58, is now a local entrepreneur and inventor who specializes in designing and producing adaptive eyewear products. He’s been a mainstay at the Metropolitan Community College Prototype Design Lab since it opened to the public in 2017, where he modifies and tests his designs for three specialty eyewear products.

One benefits people with rare craniofacial anomalies, and the others make glasses more affordable and serve health care professionals. The Omaha Westside graduate credits the training and access provided at the Prototype Design Lab with leading to design breakthroughs and significant production time and cost savings. This access was made possible through the Fort Omaha Campus capital expansion.

Being a jack of all trades has allowed Hermsen to live “free range” — mixing business and personal interests, like cycling, entrepreneurship and world travel, while earning a comfortable living.

Before finding his purpose and his “second home” at the lab, Hermsen was never really interested in working in a specific career, but he was always motivated to live a particular kind of life. In addition to construction, his work history includes working as a fine dining server, mortgage broker, bicycle retail/repair, transportation and sales.

His varied experience helped him develop the office skills to manage a company, the sales skills to market his products, the technical skills to develop them and the people skills to succeed.

Like the weed whacker line, seemingly unrelated parts have a way of finding their way into his designs. Components from guitar strings adorned the arms of the bright, red-framed glasses he wore as he worked on a small production run in the Prototype Design Lab in March. Parts of a bicycle spoke are fitted into the design of his ergonomic loupe strap product. The loupe strap is secured to surgical glasses, keeping dental hygienists, dentists and doctors’ magnifying focal lenses steady while they look down at their patients in the chair or on the operating table.

“The commercial side of construction is where you have to think things through and do a lot of problem-solving. That’s where I learned the most skills for this,” Hermsen said of his inclination for invention. “[My prototype designs use] an amalgamation of different parts and pieces. By having a diverse background, I was able to apply it to creating these [different eyewear products].”

Tinkering. Adjusting. Testing. Trying again (and again, many times more). Sometimes failing. Sometimes succeeding. Always learning. This is what prototyping is all about. The Center for Advanced and Emerging Technology (Building 24) on the Fort Omaha Campus is a special place that provides creators like Hermsen access to the expensive tools, equipment and training to turn concepts into completed projects.

Anyone with a membership can bring their ideas and designs to the 9,600-square-foot facility that houses a wide variety of fabrication equipment, including a fully stocked wood and metal shop.

After taking a required safety class, members have full access to available technology, including 3D printers and scanners; laser, vinyl and plasma cutters; CNC routers; milling, painting and finishing machines; and soldering and welding equipment. MCC staff assists with all aspects of projects, including design, file and equipment operation, as well as using the software that supports it.

Monthly membership rates are $25, plus the cost of materials. MCC students have free access. The College also offers a two-year Associate of Applied Science in Prototype Design.

A POWERFUL PARTNERSHIP

Hermsen has been developing adaptive eyewear since 2006, when he secured a patent for sunglasses he created for people with an active lifestyle. He launched the startup, Spokiz (pronounced spoke eyes), to sell them. The design was inspired by the modification made to his own glasses two years prior.

Hermsen loved the simplicity of the solution and knew it had potential beyond the kayaking world, where his sunglasses first gained traction. In the years that followed, which included moving back to Omaha, he identified more uses for his patent to reach a broader audience — while still growing the Spokiz brand, selling the sunglasses to outdoor gear shops and sponsoring kayak races abroad.

Once he began developing eyewear for kids, relationships with the local optical community followed, including the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Children’s Hospital & Medical Center. In 2012, he also became acquainted with Melissa Tumblin, founder of the Ear Community. The small, Colorado-based nonprofit serves children with a rare condition called microtia, in which they are born either without an ear or with an underdeveloped one, making finding a pair of glasses that fit properly nearly impossible.

A few years before the Prototype Design Lab opened, Hermsen began working on a design that would serve microtia patients. Donny Suh (pronounced saw), the renowned pediatric ophthalmologist he would meet three years later, had created a separate design for microtia glasses in 2000, driven by his passion for innovation to help his patients.

“One of the things that really bothered me during the early course of my career was that whenever I saw kids with ear malformation, they would always walk around with glasses that did not fit properly. It broke my heart,” Suh said.

Suh said his original microtia glasses prototype design, made of nonrigid elastic material that could be stretched to secure over the top of the head, was difficult to use. Hersmen’s design, modeled from his Spokiz glasses, used a stronger but lightweight, adjustable monofilament strap that went behind the head. The right prototype for microtia patients was a blend of both models.

Hermsen presented Suh with the merged prototype shortly after their first meeting at Children’s Hospital & Medical Center. The adjustable material from Hermsen’s design would replace the elastic material used in the overhead strap concept from Suh’s design. Keeping the behind-the-head strap from Hermsen’s original prototype gave the added flexibility and security needed. Suh immediately recognized that the new design would work for his patients.

A strong partnership emerged that paired Suh’s medical knowledge with Hermsen’s creativity and their shared passion for invention. They began making adaptive eyewear products under the limited-liability company, Suh Hermsen Strap. They have collaborated on two additional products since they began working together in 2015. Their ergonomic loupe strap for surgical glasses is a commercial product. Their OMNI glasses are an open-source, 3D printable glasses design, which makes them more accessible and affordable.

Suh, now chief of Pediatric Ophthalmology for the University of California, Irvine, said poor vision is too significant of a problem to go untreated in children, but some don’t receive the care they need because of the financial constraints their families face.

“Vision contributes to 75 percent of a child’s development. It helps them learn in school, play sports and improve their social interactions. I saw many patients who were falling behind. Early intervention is extremely critical and has the greatest return on investment to society,” Suh said.

Hermsen said working with Suh stretched his imagination for his designs beyond what would have been possible on his own. Suh said in addition to seeing Hermsen’s ability to innovate, he could tell he was the right kind of person to work with.

“Don’t get me wrong, James is an entrepreneur, but I could tell he had a good heart. Working with people with similar values was extremely important to me,” Suh said. “We were able to help children with microtia with these specialty glasses, and then the microtia community contacted us for help.”

‘HE ALWAYS HAS A TABLE’

Tumblin, the founder of the Ear Community, which creates awareness and connects families affected by microtia to resources and services, said when her daughter Ally was born with the condition, it was a mystery to her.

“When my daughter was born without an ear, I honestly didn’t know that was something that happened,” Tumblin said. “We’re a super small, underserved community. Most people haven’t heard of what our families are dealing with.”

Hermsen has been coming to Ear Community ’s annual picnics, providing free glasses to children with microtia for nearly a decade.

“He’s been able to help kids see and even accommodated some of the kids in our community to fit hearing devices into his designs, and he’s never asked for any money,” Tumblin said. “He’s always been a part of our events. I tell him, ‘You always have a table. Come and do what you do because it’s needed.’”

Tumblin said children who are affected by microtia have needs that go beyond the developmental. It’s also about fitting in. Both the microtia glasses and OMNI glasses feature colorful frames. The OMNI glasses have an adjustable nose bridge, which makes them work for individuals with any pupil distance. The round lenses, while fashionable, are also functional. They can be rotated to correct for astigmatism.

Both designs send the message, “Look at me!” to a world that sometimes looks away or stares too long.

“Children in our community often don’t have another child like them in the classroom. They’ve never seen someone like themselves. Many doctors don’t have a patient like our daughter in their practice,” Tumblin said. “James has helped so many families in our community and put smiles on so many of our kids’ faces. He’s so creative.”

What strikes Tumblin about Hermsen is that unlike her and Suh, he doesn’t have a personal connection to microtia.

“He doesn’t have a child or sibling who is affected by this. He just fell in love with our community,” Tumblin said.

WHERE CREATIVITY AND TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE MEET

Hermsen and Suh’s ability to invent predated the Prototype Design Lab, as did their desire to use their knowledge to benefit others. The Prototype Design Lab simply provided a place with the access, tools and available support to put their ideas to the test and make them possible to scale.

Before Hermsen had access to the Prototype Design Lab, the parts had to be hand soldered together. A mold to manufacture the frames in the U.S. would cost around $20,000. It was also impractical for a small company to manufacture a niche product in mass quantities. The design iterations needed to be tested before printing thousands at a time.

“We’ve redesigned the OMNI glasses countless times, and that can be where the Prototype Design Lab makes a huge difference. You can make a design change and print the prototype all in the same day,” Hermsen said. “You can also do production runs here at lower quantities and still do enough to have value. This is state of the art and all I really need.”

The training available is also a valuable piece. All members of the Prototype Design Lab take a class to learn how to use the equipment safely. They also have access to staff to assist with projects, from concept to completion.

“This wouldn’t have been possible without MCC. We reached out to many organizations, and MCC was the one that came through and supported us, not only with emerging technology, but also with the tech support and training — James got all of that at MCC, and we are so very grateful,” Suh said.

Ken Heinze, MCC Prototype Design Lab coordinator, said playing even a small part on “a project that might be helping someone is enormously gratifying.”

Heinze said all ideas are welcome at the Prototype Design Lab, from designing a set for a podcast to a giant merry-go-round for a game show.

“This is a place where everybody is welcome, where we can find a way to help move a project forward, no matter what it is. If you have an idea, we’d love to talk to you because we have a machine here that’s going to completely change your outlook on your project,” Heinze said.

Chances are your project can also change someone’s outlook on life.

A NEW OUTLOOK

In August, Hermsen had just returned from his first mission trip with Suh to Ensenada, Mexico, joining a group of volunteers with Rotary Club International’s Newport Beach and Ensenada chapters, as well as medical students from University of California, Irvine. With donated lenses, hundreds of children and adult patients were fitted with OMNI glasses for free.

“The beauty about the OMNI glasses is not only that they’re versatile, adjustable and cost-effective, but we are able to make them in about 10 minutes, so on a mission trip like that, you’re really seeing the finished work in the time that you’re there,” Suh said. “They are inspiring young medical students in public health. They saw how ideas and innovation can make a significant impact in the lives of people.”

Since beginning making glasses for children with microtia, Hermsen has received countless texts, emails and video messages thanking him. Being in the field, participating in the fitting process and seeing children and families expressing joy and gratitude after receiving the OMNI glasses strengthened his commitment to the work.

“It’s become my purpose, my focus and how I like to spend my time. I don’t do a lot of the things I used to because I’d rather be doing something more beneficial. If I were just doing it for the money, I wouldn’t get to see a lot of these children and experience the direct connection with the family,” Hermsen said.

As Hermsen and Suh’s adaptive eyewear products continue to reach the people who need them, new opportunities are unfolding. A project serving people in Cambodia is in the works, and efforts to grow the usage of their adaptive eyewear products with local health and human services nonprofit organizations are also happening.

“My goal is to take this experience, bring it home and plug it into underserved communities in Omaha. I’m getting closer to being able to launch this in my backyard,” Hermsen said.