Mesa Community College and Gilbert partner for COVID-19 grants in 2021
The Gilbert Town Council authorized a Business Resiliency Assistance contract on Sept. 29 in collaboration with Mesa Community College (MCC) and Chandler-Gilbert Community College (CGCC). The Town of Gilbert website explains funding will go toward career and technical training for students.
MCC students qualify if they are Gilbert residents impacted by COVID-19–but only for select programs.
“They’re open to additional programs, but right now, there’s 19 that are approved,” said Michael Voss MCC’s dean of instruction, career and technical education. “Twenty credit hours or less.”
Voss said the focus is on certificates of completion and programs leading to jobs that pay at or above median salary. Computer coding, EMT training, and automotive training were included in a list set by project manager Diane Meza.
“The goal is to provide fast tracks for a short duration through technical programs that are aligned with what’s in demand in the economy,” Voss said.
Voss serves as the project administrator with Diane Meza, the director of the Maricopa Community College District Information Technology Institute (ITI). While MCC and CGCC provide the educational training, ITI and Maricopa Corporate College will manage marketing. ITI will manage the grant.
The contract will offer $150,000, according to Voss, and go directly to students in both colleges, with a small percentage toward marketing.
“I believe up to $1,050 per participant goes toward standard tuition and registration fees,” said Voss. “The goal right now is to serve 120 participants.”
To get involved, students must complete a qualifying survey that will be sent to Meza at the grant manager’s office.
“They need to express some type of COVID impact, and what we’ll have is a landing page coming soon which explains this,” said Voss. “We’re still working on the process for how it will work with Student Affairs.”
The survey, provided by Meza, includes categories that count as COVID-19 impact, like temporary loss of employment, becoming a care provider for someone infected by COVID-19, furlough and full-time childcare.
“We ran the data to see our population for this program,” said Voss. “I think we had about 800 Gilbert residents that were in their last semester of college.”
MCC might be located in Mesa, but Voss said their Gilbert student body population and their large career and technical programming options qualify them for the program. Voss expects a webpage to be live by October to provide more details.
“We’re looking at a program launch for spring, the summer term and then we already got an extension for the fall,” said Voss. “2021 calendar year is the year that they can take advantage of this opportunity.”
Check for the web page on www.mesacc.edu toward the end of the month for more information.. A qualifying survey link will be included.
