Owensboro Community and Technical College received a grant totaling $2,091,539 late last year. Titled E3@OCTC, the five-year grant outlines a plan for expanding experiential education, engaging educators and employers, and excellence in student support for experiential education.
E3@OCTC will work to increase student participation and degree completion by aligning classroom and workplace experience through on- and off-campus experiential learning opportunities (ELOs) across all OCTC degree programs.
The ELOs currently offered at OCTC include clinicals for healthcare programs, FastTrack Automotive, GO Fame and TechX manufacturing experiences offered through work and learn models.
Through the grant, OCTC will seek to increase the percentage of students participating in the program from 24% to 60% over five years. The entirety of the grant funds received will go to support this project.
“We couldn’t be more excited about this opportunity. This grant will give us the opportunity to transform this institution and the experiences that we can offer students and our workforce partners,” said Scott Williams, OCTC President.
The grant establishes an Experiential Learning Center (ELC) to support both the students and faculty. It provides professional development opportunities for faculty so they can learn how to implement these new practices while also providing a workforce liaison to industry and business that can connect students and faculty to outside business and industry contacts.
The ELC will provide students with coaches to guide them in career development and exploration and connect them to internal and external experiential opportunities.
The team responsible for driving the ELC initiatives are Nicole Ralph as the Project Director, Helen Bennett as the Center Coordinator, John Bristow and Rosa Richards as the two Success Coaches, and Jackie McCarthy as the administrative assistant.
There is also an endowment allotment provided through the grant that will serve to sustain the programs initiatives after the grant has ended. The college must raise $150,000 in local funding over the next three years to maximize the endowment opportunity. These funds can then be matched dollar for dollar by KCTCS and the department of Education to create a local endowment of $450,000.
In August 2020, the City of Owensboro and the Daviess County Fiscal Court each agreed to invest $25,000. This $50,000 local investment will be matched for a total of $150,000.
“We are humbled by the trust that this investment illustrates and are grateful that Mayor Tom Watson and Judge-Executive Al Mattingly were able to take action,” Williams said. “We truly see this as an economic development tool, 91% of our graduates remain in the region so enhancing their experiences will augment the businesses in our region also.”
