Press Release

September 26, 2011
CARDIN, MIKULSKI ANNOUNCE FEDERAL GRANT TO HELP DISPLACED WORKERS GET BACK TO WORK
Anne Arundel Community College awarded nearly $20 million federal grant to help train workers for new careers in STEM, Anne Arundel to lead national consortium of community colleges partnering with industry to provide more job opportunities for displaced workers

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Barbara A. Mikulski and Ben Cardin (both D-Md.) announced today that Anne Arundel Community College was awarded $19,730,281 in grant funds from the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Department of Education’s joint Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) program. Anne Arundel Community College will help train displaced workers for new careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and will partner with employers to provide job opportunities to program graduates.

 “This program will help Marylanders who lost their jobs through no fault of their own to acquire new skills and develop additional skills they need to succeed in today’s economy,” said Senator Cardin.  “Jobs in science, technology, engineering and math are the key to moving America forward in the 21st Century, and I applaud Anne Arundel Community College for its outstanding STEM program that will ensure greater job opportunities for those who have lost jobs.”  

“I’m so proud of Anne Arundel Community College leading the way to a stronger economy,” Senator Mikulski said. “This grant will help people need jobs with training to get jobs. It’s an investment in workers by preparing them for STEM jobs – those that are in demand today, and will stay in demand tomorrow. It gets the skills, training and education to help people launch new careers.”

 The grant, which Anne Arundel leads as a part of a national consortium of ten community colleges in nine states, will help the group develop portable, certificate-level programs in

STEM fields, focusing on cyber technology, composite materials technology, electric vehicle technology, environmental technology and engineering. The curricula, designed to train unemployed and underemployed workers, and workers who have lost their jobs as a result of increased imports or shifts in production out of the United States, will be available at no charge to all community colleges nationwide.

 The TAACCCT program today provided $500 million in grants to 32 organizations to support partnerships between community colleges and employers to develop programs that provide pathways to good jobs. Every community college grantee has at least one employer partner – a sponsor that has jobs available and needs workers trained to fill them. Grant awards include building instructional programs, strengthening technology-enabled learning and allowing students and workers to access free learning materials online. 

Through TAACCCT grants, schools nationwide will be able to expand their capacity to put more people into high-quality jobs and start new careers in fields ranging from advanced manufacturing and transportation to health care and STEM. The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act included a total of $2 billion for this four-year initiative.

###

X