On a quiet Friday afternoon at Olive-Harvey City College in Pullman, a handful of students hurry through the halls to class. One woman carries a baby basket in one hand and holds onto a young boy with the other. Ameshia Cross, Director of Public Relations for City Colleges of Chicago, explains that this woman is probably on her way to the nursery on the first floor. The Far Southeast Side college offers free daycare to all students as part of a larger effort to eliminate obstacles to students’ learning and success. In addition to the nursery, the two-year college hosts high school outreach programs, remediation boot camps, a wellness center, and interactive math tutoring computer programs. It also offers technical certificates.

In October, Olive-Harvey—where in 2014 sixty-two percent of students were African-American—was awarded a grant for $600,000 a year for five years from the Predominantly Black Institutions Program (PBI) of the U.S. Department of Education. This is the second PBI grant Olive-Harvey has received in the last five years. The first grant, from 2011 to 2015, laid the infrastructure for an improved science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) program, including a Center for Teaching and Learning to provide professional development for the faculty.

Theater professor Robin Hicks, a writer of the recent PBI grant and dean at Olive-Harvey, says that part of the grant will go toward building a new STEM center, a space for study groups, supplemental instruction, and the robotics team.

“One of the things that I’m excited about is the simulators that we are hoping to get,” Hicks says. “One is for gaming and aviation, and students will be able to create games, design them, put it in there, and play it.” Hicks also says that a large part of the PBI grant will go to expanding Olive-Harvey’s outreach programs with local high schools in order to increase awareness of STEM, especially among minorities. In addition, the PBI grant will also fund two new English boot camp courses to improve and shorten the remediation period for students starting at Olive-Harvey and fund a peer mentoring program to help students make the psychological transition to college.

Though the majority of students pursue associate degrees, Olive-Harvey is also currently building a $45 million facility to enhance its technical training, as well as adding two new programs and improved equipment. Each of the seven City Colleges has a different focus when it comes to occupational programs, and the industry of focus at Olive-Harvey is transportation, distribution, and logistics. The program includes training to drive a limousine or a taxi, operate a forklift, and obtain a commercial driver license. The new facility will enable an automotive technology program and a diesel technology program. Angelia Millender, President of Olive-Harvey, sees technical training as another option for students in a “guided pathway” as they figure out what they want to do, be it transfer to a four-year college or enter the workforce.

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