ACC awarded over $4.9M from USDOL Training Grants Program
Arapahoe Community College (ACC) has been awarded $4,989,434 in the third round of the Strengthening Community Colleges Training Grants Program (SCC3), as announced by the U.S. Department of Labor.
The SCC Training Grants Program is a commitment to investing in education programs that connect people to quality jobs while creating a more inclusive and equitable workforce. The third round (Feb. 2023) of the SCC Training Grants Program saw the Department of Labor award $50 million to a grand total of 15 community colleges across 14 states to expand access to education and training.
Administered by the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration, the third round of the SCC Training Grants Program focuses on increasing educational and economic opportunities for people in underrepresented communities.
ACC received the award from the Department of Labor as a consortium grantee and will partner with the Community College of Denver (CCD), Pueblo Community College (PCC), the Colorado Community College System (CCCS; governing entity for all partners), and the Education Design Lab (the Lab) on a project entitled “Year to Career Through Micro-Pathways" (Year to Career) to design and align education/training to respond to regional & state labor market needs through accelerated learning pathways.
Year to Career will create six micro-pathways. Three will be focused within the healthcare industry and another three will be focused within the information technology industry to provide scalable, stackable credentialing in the career pathways of Health Information Technology, Behavioral Healthcare, Emergency Healthcare, Allied Health, IT Support, Cybersecurity, Cloud Computing, and Data Analytics.
"ACC is thrilled to partner with CCD, PCC, and the Lab to co-create innovative micro-pathways into healthcare and IT," said Dr. Eric Dunker, ACC Vice President for Workforce and Economic Development. “Year to Career will address our region's largest talent shortages and provide more economic mobility for our students.”
Year to Career will catalyze collaboration and innovation between education and industry by creating skills-focused, market-driven, affordable learning opportunities to support learners and employers within the talent-pipeline and by initiating and sustaining system change within the participating colleges and the CCCS. The project will advance equity, grow accelerated career pathways, create results-driven designs for curriculum and systems, and work for sustainable systems change.
For additional information about the SCC3 Training Grants Program at ACC, please contact eric [dot] dunker [at] arapahoe [dot] edu (Dr. Eric Dunker).