| WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor and Representative Marion Berry (AR-01) announced today that Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas has been awarded a $1,986,735 competitive grant from the U.S. Department of Labor. The funding is part of the Community-Based Job Training Grants Initiative designed to help community colleges equip workers with the skills needed by growing local industries.
The grant will allow Phillips Community College to lead a strategic partnership to train at least 550 workers for jobs in the growing renewable energy industry. In the Arkansas Delta, six bio-refineries are in production or under construction, and more refineries are in the planning stages. The region’s continued economic development is tied to the ability to train and educate a workforce. Currently, community colleges lack the capacity to support the development of this much-needed workforce.
“I applaud Phillips Community College and its partners for obtaining this grant to address the Arkansas Delta’s education needs and employment opportunities,” Lincoln said. “Their proactive efforts are a great example of public and private entities working together to strengthen our state and invest in our fellow Arkansans.”
“Phillips Community College has given so much throughout the years to strengthen communities throughout eastern Arkansas,” said Pryor. “This funding helps students enter the high-demand industry of renewable energy while also having a positive influence on the local economy now and in the future.”
“This grant helps Arkansas establish a highly-skilled workforce in the emerging biofuels industry,” said Berry. “With this initiative, we can continue to grow our local economies and make our state the example for others to follow in this new field. In these times where working families are paying more than ever at the pump, developing alternative energy will help alleviate our dependence on expensive, foreign oil while creating more, better paying jobs to boost our economy.”
Phillips Community College and its key partners seek to raise the skill level of the workforce by:
· Creating the Center for Excellence for Renewable Energy Technology to produce training materials and programs of study, provide region-wide support to the renewable energy industry, and create career pathways in renewable energy technology;
· Creating a pool of funds for tuition and training fees;
· Creating capacity to train workers in each of Arkansas Delta’s five community colleges;
· Developing partnerships between community colleges and the workforce investment system to facilitate enrollment of participants and tracking of common measures.
Phillips Community College is one of 69 community colleges awarded a competitive grant from the Community-Based Job Training Grants Initiative. Awardees were chosen from among 341 applications.
Joining Phillips Community College as the “Arkansas Delta Renewable Energy Training and Education Initiative” are the Arkansas Delta Training and Education Consortium; Arkansas State University and Arkansas Association of Two-Year Colleges; Eastern Arkansas Workforce Investment Board; local One-Stop Career Centers; Arkansas State Workforce Investment Board; five area secondary technical centers serving 33 school districts; U.S. Canadian Biofuels; FutureFuel Chemical; WinRock International; Department of Workforce Services and Department of Workforce Education; and the Arkansas Delta WIRED Region.
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