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These days, the St. Edward’s University Professional Education Center is known best for being near the target of a suicidal airplane pilot.
But the center, located in the Federal Building at the Echelon Business Complex off North Mo-Pac Expressway and U.S.-183, is an important, if usually quiet, extension of the university’s work.
During the day, it hosts classes for corporate clients. At night, degree-seeking students attend classes. Many graduate students take all their coursework at the center.
On the morning of Feb. 18, a plane crashed into Echelon Building I, doing major damage, but not hitting the building that houses the PEC.
According to federal officials, Joseph Andrew Stack III intentionally targeted the U.S. Internal Revenue Service office when he crashed his single-engine plane into the Echelon Complex. The PEC was evacuated. No St. Edward’s students, faculty or staff were injured. Classes resumed on Feb. 22.
The PEC has 62 corporate students, 18 St. Edward’s students, 11 administrators, six contract instructors, and one St. Edward’s instructor.
The mission of the PEC is to “bridge the training gap between the knowledge learned through traditional academic education and the dynamic technology and management skills required by today’s fast companies.”
Many of the programs at the PEC will be soon be offered at the Angers campus and other areas abroad.
The coursework at the PEC includes technology education programs for training and technical consulting. Additionally, the PEC offers Project Management and Business Analyst certification programs and seminars in areas such Financial Services, Green Building and Human Resources.
In 2006, the PEC expanded its space and technology to support the growing number of students taking classes in both the New College and Graduate programs.
Some of the recent additions, which are still in the final stages of testing, are the global digital classrooms that allow instructors at the PEC to teach anywhere, in real time and in High Definition. Instructors have been able to teach a class at the PEC and have it broadcast to students in Angers with the same quality of image and sound as if they were in the same room.
These capabilities will soon be extended to the main campus of St. Edward’s. This could mean that if a student nearing graduation is offered a job elsewhere in the world, they will be able to finish their studies at St. Edward’s through the use of the global classrooms.
The PEC recognizes that these technologies are typical for today’s emerging students. Linda Edwards, Director of Professional Education, said that some students graduate after doing very well in school, but without a “long enough or strong enough job record to be immediately employed.”
Through the PEC, students will also be able to better prepare for post-graduation life with the ability to do what would be similar to a fifth year of education.
mbrowne@stedwards.edu
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