Randy Bryant, former faculty chair of the noncredit committee, has taken on a new role recently as the dean of career technical education at De Anza College.

The position is funded by Strong Workforce funds from the state.

The position was selected by a standard De Anza hiring committee that consisted of a “cross-section of members,” said Marisa Spatafore, associate vice president of communications and external relations.

“We’re very pleased that Randy, with his outstanding qualifications as a longtime De Anza College faculty member in a leading career training program, was selected for the position,” said Spatafore.

Prior to becoming the new dean of career technical education, he helped implement career development college nonprepratory noncredit college programs such as ESL and short-term vocational programs that led to future transfer programs or job placements. He hopes to continue to guide students toward success in the career technical education programs.

“We’ll do whatever we can do to get our students interested, complete the course, and enter the workforce,” said Bryant. “That’s all we’re trying to do.”

The noncredit program is relatively new at De Anza. The first ones were offered in Fall 2018.

“Right now, we can take a student, run them through the non-credit program, and in one year, give them a non-credit certificate and a job for free, which is pretty phenomenal,” said Bryant.

De Anza has one of the first non-credit programs on the West Coast, and Bryant hopes to be able to expand its offerings in the future.

“Environmental Studies and Building Management are putting together non-credit certificates,” said Bryant. “There’s a lot of excitement in that area. Enrollment has increased considerably each quarter in non-credit sections,” said Bryant.

Bryant has over 19 years of experience as a career technical education faculty members, and has previously served as chair of the program, vice president of the Academic Senate, and dean of business and computer science applied technologies for a year, experience he expects to use in his new role.

“I hope we’ll be able to increase CTE, increase enrollment and build a more robust noncredit offering,” said Bryant.