BHCC Earns U.S. Department of Labor Grant to Build Workforce

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Nov 19, 2013, 03:57 ET

BOSTON, Nov. 19, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- 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.

Media Contact:
Karen M. Norton, Executive Director of Integrated Marketing and Communications
Bunker Hill Community College, Boston, MA 02129
Phone: 617-228-2177; Email: [email protected]

Bunker Hill Community College is the largest community college in Massachusetts. The College enrolls more than 14,000 students on two campuses and at three satellite locations. BHCC is one of the most diverse institutions of higher education in Massachusetts. Sixty-seven percent of the students are people of color and more than half of BHCC's students are women. The College also enrolls more than 800 international students who come from approximately 100 countries and speak more than 75 languages.

SOURCE Bunker Hill Community College