BHCC Earns U.S. Department of Labor Grant to Build Workforce
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Bunker Hill Community College is among seven Northeast community colleges and two national organizations that will share a $23.5 million federal grant aimed at enhancing their communities’ resilience by developing a workforce with skills in critical areas.
Announced last month, the grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College Career and Training (TAACCCT) program to the Northeast Resiliency Consortium (NRC), which is composed of BHCC and six other community colleges in the Northeast, as well as Achieving the Dream and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Utilizing the grant, BHCC and other consortium members will develop training programs that address employment needs in health care, information technology and environmental technologies. The goal is to enhance community resilience by developing a workforce with skills in critical area that can respond to contemporary environmental, social and economic challenges.
“This funding will help us prepare unemployed persons, veterans, and other workers to obtain the skills and credentials needed for immediate and long-term employment in high-demand fields,” said Pam. Y. Eddinger, President of Bunker Hill Community College. “The consortium will unite partner colleges in building stronger, safer and more prosperous communities.”
The commitment to build resiliency means not only fostering communities with the capacity to adapt rapidly and effectively to immediate disruptions but also to the longer-term threats facing the workforce in a period of expanding global competition and evolving technologies. For the community colleges in the consortium, the funds will build capacity to create a set of employer-identified skills and competencies, create industry-recognized certificates and expand programs of study needed in the current and future labor market.
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About Bunker Hill Community College
With more than 50 years of academic excellence, Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC) is Massachusetts' largest community college, annually welcoming a diverse community of around 16,000 students. With campuses in Charlestown and Chelsea, BHCC extends its reach across several locations in Greater Boston. The College offers associate degrees and certificates, early college and dual enrollment, community education, corporate training, and industry-specific training programs. BHCC is celebrated for its diversity, boasting a student body where 65% identify as people of color and more than half are women. The College also embraces a global perspective, with over 600 international students representing 90 countries and conversing in more than 65 languages. Our commitment to diversity is further reflected in BHCC's designation as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) and an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI).