CFIRE recently teamed up with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Engineering Professional Development to offer scholarships for three rail-related short courses.
- Railroad Track Construction Project Management (March 12-14, 2012)
- Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Safety Course (March 15-16, 2012)
- Introduction to Railroad Engineering and Operations (May 7-9, 2012)
These courses were held in Madison, Wisconsin on the UW-Madison campus and include classroom instruction, group discussion, and a set of well-developed course materials. CFIRE provided full tuition for ten attendees for the course of their choice. Each attendee submitted a scholarship application with information about their current position and how they would use the information that they learned in the short course to better do their jobs and serve the public good.
We spoke with a number of attendees after they completed their selected short course, all of whom were enthusiastic about the educational experiences provided by these three short courses. Many of them have already applied the information they have learned in the course of their day-to-day work. This is especially true of the lessons learned in the Introduction to Railroad Engineering and Operations, which serves as a useful point of entry for public sector employees into the issues involved with working with private sector railroad companies.
It was also clear that without a scholarship from CFIRE, none of these transportation professionals would have been able to attend this course due to budget constraints currently present in many public sector agencies.
CFIRE rail short course scholarships are one aspect of CFIRE’s ongoing effort to support workforce development in the transportation industry.
