Pima Community College is restructuring its technology program due to low enrollment in the past few years.
The school is dropping three of its certificate programs - including two optics tracks - and combining its associate of applied science degrees into one degree with three concentrations, said Lazaro Hong, the technology department chairman at Pima.
The changes, approved last week by the Pima Community College Board of Governors, will take effect in the fall. Any students in the affected programs will be able to finish or change to another degree or certificate track.
The certificate programs being discontinued are computer technology, electro-optical assembly, and testing and optical manufacturing, Hong said.
Pima had a total of 13 graduates from all three of these certificate programs in the last five years, according to information the college provided to the PCC Board of Governors.
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Hong said the electronic assembly technology certificate will continue, because of potential job opportunities at Raytheon Missile Systems.
Pima also will drop its automated systems technology associate of applied science degree.
Hong said the school decided to drop the program after one of the main employers of graduates, Intel Corp. in Chandler, decided to upgrade to more automated systems, leaving no job opportunities for technicians.
"It's hard to have students in a program where the jobs are nonexistent," he said.
The other three associate of applied science degrees, including electronic systems technology, information technology specialist and optical systems technology, will combine into one degree in which students will choose a concentration.
Hong said Pima offers few options for advertising within different departments, leaving him with low enrollment rates.
"Nothing is going to help my program if I can't get people into the classes," he said.
Robert Breault, president of Breault Research Organization and a member of the board of directors for the Arizona Optics Industry Association, said the optics industry in Arizona has remained level through the recession.
"It looks like there is growth," he said. "But businesses are still playing the cautious card."
Breault also said the Pima degrees and certificates offered for jobs in the optics industry are important, and companies still need technicians.
"We do need the people who do the assembly," he said. "You have to have certified people. In order to have certified people, we send them to Pima Community College."
Hong said Pima is not the only community college with this problem, and that others have closed their electronics and optics programs.
He also said that students enrolled in these programs have a good chance of getting a job once they graduate, because there are about 5,000 unfilled optics jobs around the country.
"You might have to go somewhere else other than Tucson," he said. "But there are jobs, even right now as hard as the economy is."
Contact NASA Space Grant Intern Rikki Mitchell at rmitchell@azstarnet.com