Ivy Tech Community College – Evansville Receives Portion of $2.5 Million Federal Grant

Governor Mitch Daniels announced Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana has received a $2,572,436 grant from the President’s Community Based Job Training Initiative administered by the U.S. Department of Labor.  Approximately $124 million was awarded to 70 community colleges nationwide to promote job-training for high growth industries including health care, construction, energy, and certain types of manufacturing.

“We are aggressively working to secure a bigger share of federal dollars for Indiana, and this award to Ivy Tech is a significant win for Hoosier workers," said Daniels. “This grant will bolster Ivy Tech – and Indiana’s capacity to train the qualified and needed health care professionals we need in every corner of the state.”

Ivy Tech will blanket the state with health care training in allied health and nursing, designed in response to industry research on occupational shortages and educational needs.  Six training programs will begin in year one and nine projects in year two. 

The first six projects collectively will enroll 775 students, produce 660 graduates, and place at least 600 nurses and allied health professionals in jobs.  The second round of projects will enroll another 1100 students and place about 900 jobs for a total of at least 1,500 new workers.  The project will begin in January of 2006 and in year one will take place at Ivy Tech campuses in South Bend, Kokomo, Terre Haute, Indianapolis, Columbus and Evansville.

Evansville Grant Focus

The Evansville campus will increase capacity to deliver courses in their existing Certified Nursing Assistant program, Workplace Spanish for Healthcare and Pharmacy, and Paramedic to Nursing transition program.  They will deliver these courses through their new Media Center.  The Media Center will house course material and lectures on-line and transmit them through the Internet, Intranet, television and DVD. 

“We are grateful for the Governor’s leadership in the effort to increase our capacity to train workers in this important field,” Ivy Tech Executive Vice President Carol D’Amico said.  “Ivy Tech is well versed in high quality healthcare education and we are poised to lead our state into a new strategy for addressing the critical need for qualified people in these occupations.  We will embark on building our state’s capacity to share educational resources across our college’s regions, to offer new methods of delivery through distance learning, streaming video and to define a statewide strategy for deepening the involvement of employers in our efforts to train as many qualified health care professionals as possible.”