November 9, 2022

Leading the news this morning: elections, elections, and elections! With the razor-thin majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate hanging in the balance and several key elections too close to call, we may not know which party will take the majorities for a few days or weeks. This means community colleges remain unsure of who will hold the gavels to key education committees on Capitol Hill. Now let's dive into the latest news in higher education.

Minority Serving Intuitions Partnership Program Awards

The Energy Department recently awarded $30 million to a dozen minority serving institutions, two of which, Northwest Indian College and Denmark Technical College, are community colleges. These grants aim to develop highly-qualified science, technology, engineering and math students from underrepresented communities and to prepare them for the workforce.

Read the Department's press release here. 

Apprenticeships Webinar

The Department of Labor's Women's Bureau is hosting a panel discussion on how the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act can help promote gender equity in apprenticeships. This serves as an opportunity for community college leaders to learn more on how they may continue to promote gender equity among their apprenticeships programs. The Women's Bureau Director Wendy Chun-Hoon will moderate a conversation on the opportunity we have with recent federal funding to invest in our workforce and create new and better opportunities for women.

The webinar will take place on Thursday, November 17 from 4:00 - 5:30 pm EST. To register for the webinar, click here.  

Nursing Expansion Grant Program 

The Department of Labor issued a notice inviting applications for the Nursing Expansion Grant Program. The purpose of this grant opportunity is to address bottlenecks in training the United States nursing workforce and to expand and diversify the pipeline of qualified nursing professionals who can fill quality jobs in health care. 

The deadline to apply is January 6, 2023. The Department has posted the FAQs as well as a recording and slide deck from their prospective applicant webinar. To apply, click here. 

Feature Spotlight:

The Seldin Haring-Smith Foundation's (SHSF) Public Transit Maps project assessed public transit accessibility at community colleges across the country. Through their research they found that 57% of community college main campuses are transit accessible, but an additional 25% could be made accessible through extending existing bus lines. SHSF is producing interactive maps of each state, and we will be featuring these maps as they are made available.

The eighth  interactive map is Massachusetts. SHSF found that 81% of Massachusetts' community and technical colleges have a transit stop within walking distance. 17% of campuses are less than five miles from an existing transit line, which shows a window of opportunity to increase accessibility by connecting just one more college to an existing transit lines.  To delve deeper into Massachusetts' accessibility click here. To view the interactive map click here​​​​​​​.

• January 6 - deadline to apply for Nursing Expansion Grant Program 
• January 12 - deadline to apply for Special Education Research and Development (R&D) Center Grant
• February 23 - deadline to apply Lead of a Career and Technical Education (CTE) Network

Outreach Efforts

Is you institution meeting or hosting an event with federal elected officials?

We created a Congressional Contact Form that will help us track outreach efforts of community college leaders across our membership. By filling out the form, you are better informing ACCT's advocacy efforts and our advocacy team is able to continue those conversations with congressional staff in DC. 

We also put together an outreach toolkit and an advocacy guide to share best practices for meeting with elected officials and set your team up for success.

ACCT NOW is the go-to resource for issues affecting community colleges. Our new website features original reporting and research, as well as of-the-moment legislative updates. ACCT NOW also includes articles, reports, and research from outside sources that benefit the ACCT community. Read the Latest Articles on ACCT NOW:

Have a Question?

Contact us with any questions or concerns about public policy and ACCT's advocacy on behalf of two-year colleges and two-year college trustees. ACCT's Latest Action in Washington alerts are sent to interested ACCT members to keep you up to date on important legislative activities that impact community colleges. If you no longer wish to receive ACCT's Latest Action in Washington alerts, reply to this email with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line. For more information about ACCT's advocacy services, visit acct.org/advocacy

Spread the Word.

Please encourage your fellow trustees, presidents and colleagues to stay up to date about legislation that affects their community colleges by joining the Latest Action in Washington (LAW) E-Alert network. To join, simply e-mail publicpolicy@acct.org with 'LAW Alert' in the subject of the e-mail.

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