Wallace State Community College (Alabama) recently received four grants totaling nearly $400,000 from the Alabama Community College System (ACCS).
A $459,000 ACCS grant will fund career technical dual-enrollment scholarships, which will help area high school students earn college credit from Wallace State in 20 different career fields, ranging from industrial maintenance and machine tool technology, to computer information systems and medical assisting technology.
The welding program at Wallace State-Oneonta received a $68,000 ACCS grant to expand its facility. The planned expansion will double the number of students trained each semester.
Wallace State also received a $50,000 Ready to Work grant from the system. The program provides career pathway for individuals with limited education and employment experience. Through the grant, the college can provide free training to its participants.
Students who complete the program and earn 70% or higher on their assessments will earn the Alabama Certified Worker (ACW) Certificate, the National Career Readiness Certificate and a scholarship for a three-hour class at the college.
A fourth ACCS grant of $24,500 will provide science, technology, engineering, math and the arts (STEAM) learning opportunities to area K-12 students. The funds also will support Wallace State’s North Alabama BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology) Robotics program, an annual competition for middle and high school students.
Illinois
Carl Sandburg College will increase support for Latinx students thanks to a $10,000 grant through a newly formed partnership with the Latino Policy Forum. The college will split the grant between 20 students, each receiving $500.
Maryland
Prince George’s Community College’s (PGCC’s) African-American Studies Institute (AASI) received a $1,000 grant from the Maryland Humanities Council to support its virtual community series, Black Culture Matters. The four-part series launched in August.
“My vision for Black Culture Matters and for AASI was to provide meaningful educational experiences concerning people of African descent while upholding the imperatives of Africana studies as both an academic discipline and a force for social transformation,” said Iyelli Ichile, director of AASI and history professor at PGCC. “I could not be prouder of the important work presented and discussed during our Black Culture Matters series. In partnership with Maryland Humanities Council, the series exceeded our goals of registering more than 4,000 worldwide online participants, including Australia.”
Texas
Eight Texas community colleges will share a total of $960,000 from the Texas Success Center to scale up pathways practices:
- Kilgore College
- Lee College
- Northeast Texas Community College
- Paris Junior College
- San Jacinto College
- Texarkana College
- Trinity Valley Community College
- Tyler Junior College
The center, which is a division of the Texas Association of Community Colleges, received the grant from the T.L.L. Temple Foundation.
Tyler Junior College will use its $105,000 TSC grant to help more students succeed in math courses. The college will create two math labs, which will offer additional technology, such as computers and graphing calculators, and personalized attention from math faculty and peer tutors.
San Jacinto College, which will receive $210,511, will target corequisite gateway math and English courses with its grant. The college plans to increase success and retention rates by, among other things, assigning an academic advisor to three math and three English sections per campus, training faculty in the “Advise” early alert system, training faculty and tutors in academic coaching, providing equity-focused professional development, and training faculty and retention specialists in data literacy.
Northeast Texas Community College also is celebrating another funding win. The college received $25,000 from Brookshire Grocery Co. (BGC) to establish an endowed scholarship. BGC awarded more than $1 million to Texas colleges and universities for the “Focus on the Future” scholarship that will provide tuition assistance to students.
“We are proud to be able to help those aspiring towards their dreams,” said BGC Chairman and CEO Brad Brookshire.
