Congressman Brett Guthrie (KY-02) announced last week that Owensboro Community and Technical College (OCTC) has received a $2,091,539 grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Title III Strengthening Institutions grant program, which is used to support institutions of higher education. This money will be used to expand and implement an experiential education program, E3@OCTC, over the next five years.
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 clinical health care visits and manufacturing experience. Through this grant, OCTC will seek to increase the percentage of students participating in the program from 24% to 60% over five years.
“I am proud to announce that OCTC has received this competitive grant to expand its E3@OCTC program,” said Guthrie. “Every student learns differently, and experiential learning opportunities give students the chance to get out of the classroom and learn in a new way. This grant is a great opportunity for OCTC to help Kentucky students learn, and I look forward to seeing the results of the expanded E3@OCTC program.”
“We couldn’t be more excited about this opportunity. This grant will give us the opportunity to transform this institution and the opportunities that we can offer students and our workforce partners,” added Dr. Scott Williams, OCTC President.
ELOs will be developed and offered to include work experience, service learning, and course-embedded experiences. The project will also deliver related evidence-based supports, including faculty professional development, community ELO forums, an ELO Center, administrative ELO processes, early ELO exploration, and comprehensive ELO advising. For more information, contact OCTC’s Title III Project Administrator, Dr. Andrea Borregard, at 270-686-4521.
