The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) recently awarded $32.8 million in grants to support 213 humanities projects. On the list are a few community colleges that received NEH Humanities Initiatives grants.
Capital Community College in Connecticut will use a $149,426 grant to focus on the history and people of Hartford’s historic Talcott Street Church and Black School. The award will support place-based learning in Black history for students at the college and Capital Preparatory Magnet School (Capital Prep) in partnership with nearby museums.
A $150,000 NEH grant to New York’s Borough of Manhattan Community College will fund a three-year project, “Voices and Experiences of Poverty: A New Interdisciplinary Humanities Curriculum.” The project will create interdisciplinary course modules and curricular materials examining poverty.
In Oregon, Chemeketa Community College will develop a public-speaking curriculum featuring diverse content and speakers. The college received nearly $150,000 from NEH. And Maryland’s Howard Community College will use a $75,291 grant to train two faculty cohorts to produce 12 globally focused humanities courses with international partnerships.
Connecticut
Three Rivers Community College has secured a $705,000 grant from Advanced Technology International to design and teach a Navy-certified welding course to new Electric Boat hires. The grant covers both instructional costs and welding equipment.
The grant also supports a trade exploratory program, The Boat for Women. That program aims to support nontraditional students in the field of manufacturing.
New York
A $1 million grant to Westchester Community College (WCC) from the Wiener Philanthropy will create the Robert R. Wiener Center for Excellence in Cybersecurity. The center will include a state-of-the-art cybersecurity lab and technologically advanced classrooms.
The grant also covers the cost of faculty development, curriculum development and adding new degree programs and industry credentials. The funding also will establish the Robert R. Wiener Cyber Scholars, a scholarship for the top-performing cyber students at WCC.
The Wiener donation comes on the heels of WCC being named a Center for Academic Excellence (CAE) in Cyber Defense Education by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency. The designation is awarded to schools that commit to reducing vulnerability in the national information infrastructure by improving higher education and research in cyber defense and producing professionals with cyber defense expertise.
Pennsylvania
A former Lehigh Carbon Community College (LCCC) professor has left nearly $1 million to the college. Clifford F. Miller’s donation will go toward scholarships for students studying technology. In recognition of the contribution, the student services center on the Schnecksville campus will now carry his name.
Miller was hired in 1968 to teach mechanical technology at LCCC and retired in 1987. He was named professor emeritus in 1999. He died in April 2020 at the age of 94.
“Mr. Miller was immensely dedicated to LCCC students and the community, even after his retirement,” LCCC President Ann Bieber said in a release. “This gift is an example of his commitment to them. He understood the benefits of higher education and especially community colleges. He valued that students in his classes were likely to remain locally for work and were a positive impact on the economic development of our region.”
South Carolina
Aiken Technical College (ATC) has received a $25,000 American Welding Society (AWS) Foundation Workforce Grant to support its welding program.
The AWS grant will fund 20 additional welding booths and welding machines, expanding the total number of welding booths to 60 to help meet the growing student demand.
“When setting up lab schedules, we currently have to closely monitor the class sizes during the registration process, to avoid any overlaps of more students than welding booths,” said welding instructor Keith Cusey.
The increased lab space will also allow ATC to grow training capacity in supporting regional workforce needs.
“Welding is one of the critical skills that companies are in constant need of, and our ability to support our students in developing the skills to meet that workforce need is a focus of Aiken Technical College,” said Steven Simmon, the college’s dean of technical and continuing education.
Virginia
Patrick Henry Community College will use a $20,000 donation from the Howmet Aerospace Foundation to establish several scholarships for students in industrial electronics technology programs.
Students in these programs can receive $1,000 to cover classes as early as this month, and, if they maintain eligibility, could receive another $1,000 in the fall.
