MATC Lands Grant to Help Displaced Workers

Campus Connection: MATC Lands Grant to Help Dislocated Workers
CAP TIMES.COM

Todd Finkelmeyer | Posted: Monday, October 12, 2009 1:10 pm |

Madison Area Technical College is one of 29 schools across the nation to share $11.25 million in grants distributed by the U.S. Department of Education for projects to benefit working adults and displaced workers.

MATC was promised $453,509 over the next two years and the grant is expected to bring in a total of $750,000 over the next three years, said Ed Clarke, the college's director of grant's and special projects.

The grants are administered by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, and are to be used to prepare adult learners with the marketable skills and knowledge to address employer needs in high-growth occupations.

At MATC, the grant will be used to establish a Center for Dislocated Workers and Adult Learning. The college is partnering with the Workforce Development Board of Southcentral Wisconsin to create this new arm of MATC, which initially will focus most of its energy on serving dislocated workers.

"The problem that you've got these days is people are being laid off after years of working in manufacturing, and they have to find a way to change careers," said Clarke. "What we plan to do is put together a new entry process into college for these people."

MATC will help displaced workers figure out what financial aid they qualify for, both through the college and Workforce Development Board, and help them create an academic plan. The school also is offering short, introductory courses that give displaced workers a feel for what it might be like to work in high-demand fields such as health care or information technology.

"The idea is to expose people to careers in new areas, and then also help them get a certificate so they can go out and find work," said Clarke. "We've also created bridge programs in things like math and sciences to help people who want to go back to school to learn a new career. And we are packaging all these things together into a new arm of the college."

The grant money to start funding this new arm of MATC kicks in at the start of 2010. After the federal funding runs out after three years, MATC has agreed to absorb these new elements into future budgets to keep the Center for Dislocated Workers and Adult Learning running beyond 2012.

"So we'll have a free-standing, permanent way to help dislocated workers and adult learners," said Clarke. "Initially, this will be targeted to dislocated workers. But if the economy picks up, we'll still have something that recognizes that adults learn differently, that they need different kinds of schedules and approaches to learning. So, ultimately, this new arm of MATC will help us provide a new way to educate adults in our community."

According to a news release put out by the federal government, two other state schools also received funding through this program: Milwaukee Area Technical College received $350,001 and Gateway Technical College in Kenosha earned $497,938.