NIC earns $6.4M health care grant
North Idaho College has been awarded a record-breaking $6.4 million federal grant to train more health care professionals.
The grant calls for NIC to partner with three other Idaho colleges to meet workforce demand in the health care industry through a collaborative network of training programs.
The $6,438,050, four-year grant eclipses the $2.97 million grant that NIC received in 2012 to build the NIC Aerospace Center for Excellence, making it the largest grant in NIC’s history. NIC was the only college in Idaho to be awarded funding from the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training competitive grant program, which is co-administered by the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Education.
“This is incredible news for our community and for the state of Idaho,” said NIC President Joe Dunlap. “It will, in essence, revolutionize the delivery of education and training for health care career ladders in the state of Idaho.”
NIC will take the lead in a collaboration — with three consortium member colleges: Lewis-Clark State College, Eastern Idaho Technical College, and Idaho State University College of Technology — that targets the healthcare industry in preparing program participants for employment in high-wage, high-skill occupations. The project addresses the shortage of a skilled workforce by expanding and improving the ability to deliver education and corresponding student support programs suited for workers eligible for the Trade Adjustment Assistance for Workers program.
The consortium takes a collective, comprehensive approach to serving Idaho’s TAA participants and low-skilled adults, dislocated workers, and unemployed/underemployed individuals. The consortium colleges will work together to: 1) create an Idaho Center of Excellence Healthcare Partnership with the aim of providing educational opportunities for in-demand occupations in the health care industry statewide.
2) collaborate on program design, including the development of new curriculum and course redesign.
3) improve efficiency by eliminating redundancies and sharing resources.
4) improve results through a continuous improvement process.
“The target population will include TAA workers and veterans as well any other unemployed, underemployed, or dislocated workers,” said Lita Burns, NIC Vice President for Instruction. “The consortium will work to connect those target populations in Idaho to good jobs in the state’s growing health care industry.”
Career pathways and program areas that will be developed or expanded include surgical technology, medical lab technology, pharmacy technology, military medic 2 paramedic, dental assisting/dental hygiene, and medical assistant.
All four institutions are part of the Idaho system of Professional-Technical Education governed by the Idaho State Board of Education.
“North Idaho College and our partners would like to recognize NIC Grants Coordinator Sara Fladeland and Dean of Health Professions and Nursing Christy Doyle,” Dunlap said. “It was their hard work that brought together this collaborative effort.”
The strategies proposed by the health care partnership will be sustained beyond the life of the grant, Fladeland said.
The proposed programs include the expansion of existing programs at various institutions statewide, using industry sites for labs that are already built.
“We’re using technology that already exists. Resources won’t be duplicated,” Fladeland said. “Sustaining beyond the life of the grant will be done through existing tuition dollars and continued partnerships with industry.”
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden announced on Sept. 28 the recipients of a total $450 million in job-driven training grants going to nearly 270 community colleges across the country. Building on the strategies advanced in the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, grants were awarded to proposals aligned with the Vice President's job-driven training report released in July as an important way to successfully prepare and place workers in jobs that pay a middle class wage.
More information is available at: bit.ly/BidenGrantFacts_CDAPress