- Bill would open agriculture grants to community colleges
- In Chicago, expanded help for food-insecure students
- Michigan Association, online provider partner on teacher prep
- GenAI impacts some jobs more than others
Bill would open agriculture grants to community colleges
A bipartisan House bill reintroduced last week would fund community college workforce training, education and research programs in agriculture.
Community college agricultural programs are excluded from many federal funding opportunities, which Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-California), a member of the House Agriculture Committee, and Rep. Trent Kelly (R-Mississippi) aim to change through reintroducing the Community College Agriculture Advancement Act.
The bill would amend the National Agricultural Research, Extension and Teaching Policy Act of 1977 to allow community colleges to access grant money for agriculture programs and establish a competitive U.S. Department of Agriculture grant program for public two-year colleges, according to a release.
Colleges could use the grants for activities such as:
- Disseminating information related to agriculture, renewable resources and other relevant communities.
- Encouraging collaboration involving community colleges, land grant universities and other higher education institutions.
- Buying equipment and other infrastructure.
- Advancing professional growth and development of faculty.
- Developing apprenticeships and other work-based learning opportunities.
In Chicago, expanded help for food-insecure students
City Colleges of Chicago on Tuesday announced a collaboration to expand services to food-insecure students through enhanced food pantries, snacks to go and even frozen meals to go for students and their families.
Through a partnership with Greater Chicago Food Depository, the Food Security for Life initiative aims to ensure every student at City Colleges has sufficient food while they focus on their education.
“By ensuring access to nutritious food, City Colleges is making an essential investment in student retention, academic achievement and long-term community health,” said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
The initiative also aims to improve connection to public benefits — including SNAP, WIC and Medicaid — and provide paid student apprenticeships at Greater Chicago Food Depository.
The program will be offered at no cost to City Colleges students, thanks to generous donors, including lead contributor Knight Impact Partners. whose support will help to roll out the partnership over the next five years.
Michigan association, online provider partner on teacher prep
The Michigan Community College Association (MCCA) is teaming with the online University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC) to expand access to affordable teacher preparation pathways.
Through the agreement, eligible Michigan community college students, employees and their families qualify for guaranteed admission, application fee waivers and a 25% discount on out-of-state tuition when enrolling in UMGC’s online bachelor’s degree programs.
The partnership, which aims to help address Michigan’s shortage of qualified teachers, aligns with the state’s alternative route to teacher certification and builds on MCCA’s efforts to strengthen Michigan’s educator pipeline through innovative, affordable and accessible pathways, according to a release.
“This partnership with the University of Maryland Global Campus lets students earn their bachelor’s degree while maximizing credit transfer and prior learning, building the next generation of educators,” said Brandy Johnson, president of MCCA, which represents Michigan’s 28 public community colleges and three tribal colleges.
GenAI impacts some jobs more than others
Roles requiring more physical presence and human interaction, such as nursing, are likely to be less impacted by generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), seeing primarily changes in administrative tasks but not necessarily the core parts of these jobs, according to a new analysis by Indeed Hiring Lab.
More than a quarter (26%) of jobs posted on Indeed over the past year could be “highly” transformed by GenAI, with more than half (54%) being “moderately” affected, according to the report. It noted that the speed of transformation depends on how quickly businesses adopt GenAI and how well workers adapt and reskill.
Almost half (46%) of skills in a typical U.S. job posting are poised for “hybrid transformation” by GenAI, meaning human oversight remains critical when applying these skills, but GenAI can already perform a significant portion of routine work, the analysis says.
Some occupations, like software development, are more highly exposed to changes due to GenAI. Other jobs that are more hands-on, like nursing, are less exposed. But even nursing is “shifting at the edges,” and GenAI can affect some non-core nursing skills, such as medical coding, information retrieval and analysis, the report says.
