NEW HAVEN, CT – New federal grant money, which will go to improving training resources for community college students, will allow for better job opportunities, a New Haven student said Thursday.
The training grant, which is part of a $70 million program, was praised as a crucial tool for students during a Gateway Community College event with Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su and Gov. Ned Lamont.
Adonis Dawson, a freshman computer science student at Gateway in New Haven, who is originally from the Bronx, said that the grant will give him and his peers the opportunities and resources they need to succeed.
Coming from the Bronx, Dawson said he saw the failures of an educational system without the proper resources. “Nobody cares – the students don’t care, and the teachers match that energy,” he said. But, Dawson said he was incredibly grateful for the grant, and the opportunities he hopes it will bring.
“With this grant we’ll be able to see success in our futures,” Dawson said, “and just, get better.”
Dawson’s fellow student at Gateway, Lexi Robinson – a sophomore STEM student – said it has been difficult to be the only woman in a few of her classes. Robinson said the equity grant would hopefully reduce some of the intimidation she and others feel going into a field that is predominantly made up of male students.
“I think this grant will provide a good initiative for women to break out, and break into these fields,” she said.
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who was present at the event to show her support for community colleges and equality in education, said she was proud to serve as ranking member of the Labor, Health and Human Services subcommittee.
“The funding under this legislation makes sure that our workforce is strong, that our families are healthy, and that our children’s future is secured,” Delauro said. She added that it is important to support programs that will help American workers thrive.
“We have jobs, but we don’t have workers to fill those jobs, so we need to create that pipeline of skilled workers for good paying jobs,” DeLauro said. “That’s what this program is all about.”
The state has 75,000 job openings at the moment, according to the Labor Department.
The funding will help “build the high road to the middle class, that’s how we’re going to build it for all communities, including right here in New Haven,” Su said.
John Maduko, inaugural president of the newly-consolidated Connecticut State Community College, and Su, both said they believed in equality in education and the workforce, and that the grant will bring positive developments for the future of equity in education.
Su, who was making her first visit to Connecticut as acting secretary, said it was important for America to keep building the infrastructure of its workforce, and continue to build the necessary highways of opportunity, so that all communities can have an equal chance to enjoy good jobs, and have dignity and security.
That, she said, is something that has not always happened in the past. “We need to do a better job at creating a workforce that says ‘Not this time’,” Su said.
Maduko said that he was proud of the CSCU institution, which holds 1/4th of all undergraduate students in the state, and said that community colleges are meant to provide upward mobility to those who come from underserved and marginalized communities.
He added that, beyond any metric of graduation rates or GPA, the most important thing for an institution like CSCU is that it gives its students the opportunity to thrive in their chosen path.
