“Developing a well-trained and educated workforce is a foundational pillar of VSU’s education platform,” Miller said in a news release. “This grant will help VSU stay at the forefront of helping to build Virginia’s economic and technological future by adding this new dimension to its curriculum offerings.” But before the VSU press release trumpeting the grant was even a month old, Miller announced his resignation amid concerns over drops in enrollment, fiscal strains and cutbacks in services to students.
The grant award and resignation may not be directly interconnected. But when looked at together, they both signal that VSU is at a crucial crossroads in terms of its future, its mission and its educational focus. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the VSU grant is that it was awarded through the Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training, or TAACCCT, competitive grant program. Other institutions of higher education besides community colleges are not precluded from competing for the grants; in fact, HBCUs are explicitly mentioned as being eligible. And previous competitors for grants from TAACCCT— a $2 billion signature program of the Obama administration and the largest federal investment in community colleges — include Hampton University, according to a Department of Labor database.
Grant controversy
Nevertheless, higher education and workforce development experts say the fact that VSU is competing for such a grant represents a new era for four-year institutions and HBCUs. The question is whether VSU — by going after the TAACCCT grant — is forging a new direction or being forced into a new direction. Anthony P. Carnevale, director and a research professor of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, characterizes the fact that VSU has stepped up to do workforce development as a refreshing “breakthrough” for four-year schools.
“Two-year schools are not alone in the need to connect students to jobs,” Carnevale says. “The important point is connection of postsecondary education to the workplace, and this grant certainly does that. It is refreshing to [see] the four-year schools starting to think this way.”
However, Marybeth Gasman, a professor of higher education in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, says she thought it was “a bit odd for a four-year institution to be the recipient of this grant.”
