Dallas College receives millions to help Latino students earn degrees, gain job training

Several Dallas community college campuses were awarded funding to help support Latino students in the area by providing them with more academic resources and career development.

Dallas College was awarded the $3 million grant on Wednesday to provide additional resources to Hispanic students at three of its seven campuses.

The grant, provided by the U.S. Department of Education, is intended to expand and improve academic offerings for students at colleges and universities nationwide, according to the department’s website.

To qualify, schools must meet federal guidelines as a Hispanic-serving institution, meaning that at least 25% of full-time enrollment are Hispanic students,. Dallas College’s enrollment is nearly 40% Hispanic .

“That group of students just continues to grow, so it was a wonderful opportunity for us to apply for a grant that would help us reach these students and get them into college and through college,” said Christa Slejko, president of Dallas College’s North Lake campus.

Dallas College will use the grant across campuses, though most of the funding will be directed toward the school’s El Centro, Eastfield, and North Lake campuses.

Before the seven campuses were unified earlier this year, each campus had applied separately for the HSI federal grants. Three of the school’s seven campuses received a grant individually, amounting to $3 million in grant funding for the whole Dallas College system.

“All students can benefit from what we’re doing, but we’re certainly being very mindful of the kinds of things that would help Hispanic students and their families,” Slejko said.

Some of those things include internships and apprenticeships that provide students with professional experience prior to graduating, Slejko said.

During the pandemic, the college is facilitating a mix of in-person and online internships and apprenticeships, depending on what the companies or organizations students are working for prefer. The school is currently developing more in-person professional experiences to take place once the pandemic is over, she said.

“We hope after spring, we’ll be back to a more normal course experience and work experience,” Slejko said. “But even in the current situation online, we are doing some things on-site with social distancing and masking.”

Some of the courses and internships that are still taking place in person include nursing and construction programs that can’t be done remotely, Slejko said.

Other plans include improving advising and online engagement between faculty and students, which Slejko said the college was interested in even before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

“It’s just crazy that everything happened, because now, doing online education well is so important,” Slejko said, adding that the school is nearly 100% online this fall and will be primarily virtual in the spring.

The Department of Education guidelines allow for such grants to be used for various purposes, including scientific or laboratory equipment for teaching, construction or renovation of campus facilities, faculty development and more. They may not be used to provide scholarships to individual students.

Slejko said that the grants will have a unique impact on the newly-unified Dallas College campuses, which operated as separate campuses before this summer.

“If there’s something really great going on at one campus, the students at any other campus will have access to that as well,” Slejko said. “So it’s an exciting time with the unification and these grant funds — we should be able to help more students get their credential and get a job that will make a difference to their lives and to their families.”

“Hopefully, a lot of this can be designed for a regular experience once we get past this COVID situation,” she added.

The department received $124,415,000 in funding from Congress during fiscal year 2019 to disburse in the form of Title V grants.

The five-year grant begins on Oct. 1 and ends on Sept. 30, 2025.