Sinclair Community College, along with two associate colleges, has been awarded a $12 million grant from the Department of Labor to create a monumental change in the way information technology (IT) is taught to its students.
Sinclair, Austin Community College (Texas), and Broward College (Florida) are the three colleges who will receive funds to reshape the face of IT classes at the community college level.
Adam Murka, director of public information at Sinclair, said this is the largest grant in Sinclair’s history. It will target displaced workers and focus on getting them trained in the high demand field of IT.
Sinclair President Dr. Steven Lee Johnson said the record grant marked a historic day for the college.
“What a great day for Sinclair and the Dayton region,” Johnson said. “I am very proud of our team and our partners and I am tremendously excited about the potential of this grant.”
Sinclair is the lead college and majority recipient of the grant. As the lead college, they will receive $4.2 million to coordinate and evaluate the project. Then, Sinclair will use $2.4 million for its own development, distribute $3.2 million to Austin, and the remaining $2.1 million will go to Broward.
Murka said the development of the curriculum will be based around Western Governors University’s competency-based learning model where students can work at their own pace.
“The grant will offer students the ability to earn stackable credits—which will allow students to target specific skills that employers are looking for,” Murka said. “With those certain skills, they have a pretty clear path to become employed.”
Murka said the overall project’s goal is to increase completion and employment rates by 20 percent.
He said new IT classes will be offered online as well as the curriculum that is currently in place.
Competency-based learning allows students to work at their own pace, earning as many credits as they can, rather than a fixed amount of credits per semester.
The project has a one-year window to develop the curriculum in 2013, another one-year window to test the new materials in pilot classes in 2014, and will be fully implemented in 2015.
Murka said the $2.4 million Sinclair will receive is to be spent on developing and introducing competency-based learning to Sinclair’s IT Department.
Murka also noted that Sinclair has been one of the most successful colleges in the country over the past 20 years, securing over $160 million in grant money to develop the college, and to stay ahead of the learning curve.
“I think people should be excited that Sinclair is constantly working to be innovative leaders in delivering education and leadership to people who need it,” Murka said. “I think this is a project that is going to have a real impact for a long time.”