January 17, 2023

With funds provided by the Alabama Legislature and the Alabama Community College System, Northeast Alabama Community College (NACC) continues to make a major impact in supporting students at tech centers and high schools with scholarships for career tech education.

Indeed, for the Spring Semester (2023) alone, the college awarded $365,228 in career tech and supporting core course scholarships to students in Jackson County at the Earnest Pruett Center of Technology (EPCOT) and North Jackson, North Sand Mountain, Pisgah, Section, Skyline, Woodville, and Scottsboro High Schools. 

A total of $332,592 went to students in DeKalb County – at DeKalb Technical School, Collinsville, Crossville, Fyffe, Geraldine, Ider, Plainview, Sylvania, Valley Head, and Fort Payne High Schools.

“This is a tremendous program, and we are so glad to provide it to our area students,” stated NACC President Dr. David Campbell. “This level of funding is for what the state considers high-priority jobs – jobs that are badly needed in our area and for which there are many available to obtain when our students complete their programs.”

Campbell thanked the college’s service area Legislators for supporting this program—Senator Steve Livingston, Speaker of the House Representative Nathaniel Ledbetter, and Representative Mike Kirkland.  “By supporting this our Legislators show a great dedication to workforce training and future jobs for our young students,” Campbell stated.

The amounts mentioned, Campbell noted, are for Spring Semester only, and these scholarships will be available to students in the Summer and Fall Semesters at Northeast in this fiscal year and beyond.

Northeast has been notified by the ACCS office that the college will receive $1,969,602 million for these career tech scholarships to award for this fiscal year 2023.  “We plan on awarding every penny of the funding that is allotted to us, also,” Campbell stated. “This is a great program, and we thank our system, the ACCS, and our legislators for making it available to us and our students.”

The college system grants appropriations to individual colleges based on a formula consisting of a college’s total hour production, career tech credit hour production, dual enrollment credit production, and the utilization of prior year funds.

Dual enrollment is a program in which students receive high school and college credit toward graduation at the same time.  The program helps students graduate earlier from high school and college.  This is important to students and their families as well as the Alabama economy, in which there is a major shortage of jobs in some areas.

“Our previous staff, Dean Sherie Grace and Dr. Mike Kennamer, recognized the potential impact for students of this program early on, and our current staff, Kerry Wright, Melissa Ledbetter, Barbara Kilgore, Jeff Hawes, and Staci Miller, have picked right up with it. As a result, we have one of the best career tech scholarship programs in the state,” Campbell said.

For the 2022 fiscal year, the college awarded $604,122 in career tech scholarships to high school students in Jackson County and $683,490 to high school students in DeKalb County. This was a total of $1,287,612.  “With our appropriation increase, we are in line to award even more this year,” Campbell stated.

High-priority programs include:

Machine Tool Technology

Industrial Maintenance

Mechatronics

Welding

Advanced Design and Manufacturing

Healthcare/MAT

Building Construction (Carpentry, HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical)

Engineering Technology

Childhood Development

Office Administration

Core courses in English, Mathematics, and Science appropriate to the major are also included.

For information about job training and workforce call the college at 256-228-6001 ext.  2217 (Kerry Wright), ext. 2254 (Seferina Valey), or ext. 2361 (Melissa Ledbetter).

For more information about Northeast Alabama Community College, visit nacc.edu or download the OneACCS app in the Apple Store or Google Play Store. Follow NACC on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn to keep up with the latest announcements, current events, and more.