Ohio’s Washington State Community College (WSCC) received $361,851 for the development of a new advanced manufacturing training unit. The grant comes from the state’s latest round of Regionally Aligned Priorities in Delivering Skills (RAPIDS) program funding.
WSCC, Belmont College, Eastern Gateway Community College and Zane State College worked together to develop the grant proposal for a scalable, mobile process training unit (PTU) designed for interdisciplinary program training and Internet of Things systems integration. The PTU will be housed on the WSCC campus and will provide hands-on training and troubleshooting experiences in electronics, instrumentation, information technologies and more.
The unit will be shared across the region at partner colleges and facilities to provide onsite incumbent worker training.
California
The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) received a $100,000 donation from the Ballmer Group to help students with financial and food needs. Students from the nine LACCD colleges can apply to receive aid.
Massachusetts
Holyoke Community College’s (HCC’s) veterinary technician program will benefit from a $240,743 state grant. The college will use the funds to expand the program’s outdoor instructional kennel, which will improve instruction. Updates will include a new security system, more lighting and an overhang to protect the dogs housed there.
HCC is adding a one-year veterinary assistant certificate program for the fall 2020 semester to go along with its two-year associate degree vet tech program.
North Carolina
Carteret Community College and the North Carolina Coastal Federation have received a $2.7 million grant to build a living shoreline. Carteret’s share of the grant is $812,555. The funding comes from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration/National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Emergency Coastal Resilience Fund.
The plan is to install three large living shorelines that will protect community infrastructure and restore and protect the vital salt marsh and oyster habitat in Bogue Sound and the White Oak River.
Catawba Valley Community College’s transition to online instruction during the coronavirus pandemic was made a bit smoother by an anonymous gift of $100,000. The gift helped CVCC provide its students, faculty and staff with new technology, including 50 Wi-Fi hotspots, 40 MacBooks, 25 iPads and 50 Chromebooks.
Lenoir Community College can renovate the Lloyd Health Science Building thanks to a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce. The grant will be matched with more than $5 million in state funding and $115,439 in local investment.
The updated building will have classroom and lab space to prepare more people for careers in the health sciences field.
“Health services have never been more critical to our state,” Governor Roy Cooper said in a release. “These funds will help Lenoir Community College continue to prepare our workforce for North Carolina’s needs.”
Pennsylvania
HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College, can support more students in their academic pursuits during the coronavirus pandemic with a $145,000 award from donors to the HACC Foundation. The funding will allow the college to loan out desktop computers, webcams and Wi-Fi hotspots to students so they can successfully participate in remote instruction.
Jason Beaudin, HACC’s director of academic technologies,
requested funding from the HACC Foundation for this need.
“Statistically, HACC students experience the challenges of poverty at a higher
rate than the national average. Many HACC students are faced with difficult
economic decisions on a routine basis. For some, the impact of these decisions
can place insurmountable hurdles between a student and academic progress,” Beaudin
said.
Once HACC returns to routine operations, the hot spots and webcams will be integrated into HACC’s technology loan program. The desktop computers will be integrated into the college’s PC loan program, which allows students who qualify to keep the loaned device for free upon successful graduation from HACC.
Washington
Clover Park Technical College (CPTC) can provide more student scholarships thanks to a $15,000 gift from Lincoln Park Masonic Lodge #80. With the gift, the CPTC Foundation established the Lincoln Park Masonic Lodge #80 Scholarship Endowment.
“We wanted to help people interested in learning a trade who might not otherwise have the money to make that happen,” said the lodge’s Matt Rutledge. “The Clover Park Technical College scholarship program seemed like a great way to give back, especially because the funds will be awarded indefinitely.”
