Gap Investment Awardees - Round One

Educational Attainment and Curriculum Development

The financial services industry emphasizes the importance of learning diverse skills, as opposed to training for a specific job title. Northeast Pennsylvania has a strong base in education and training by virtue of the numerous colleges and universities, private licensed schools, and training providers throughout the nine counties. By building on that base, programs can be developed to advance students and bolster the region's name recognition to companies in the financial services, information technology and related industries. The following programs aim to increase educational attainment levels among the residents of Northeastern Pennsylvania and target demand driven curriculum development.

The Center for Advancing Partnership in Education (CAPE) will receive $292,315 for the Building a Regional Global Language Infrastructure Project, a program that will greatly expand the workforce's ability to understand, communicate, collaborate and compete with Chinese, Arabic, Russian and Japanese companies and cultures, as well as develop a sustainable model of critical foreign language and culture instruction integrated into the regional k-20 system.

 

Wilkes University will receive $219,727 to develop the Accelerated BBA Degree Program, which will allow adult students to attain a Bachelor of Business Administration degree with a specialization in Financial Services Operations. This program will work in collaboration with the Sidhu School of Business and is expected to create a battery of experienced workforce professionals, as well as build a sustainable educational resource.

 

 Penn State Worthington Scranton will receive $187,500 for the Security and Risk Analysis and Mitigation for Area College and Secondary Education, Industry, Community and Future Area Professionals Project. The goal of this program will be to provide broad based, subsidized training in Security, Risk and Network Integrity to the area's high school educators and students, financial services and other key area industry personnel and the community at large.

 

Luzerne County Community College will receive $165,000 for GED Completers Transitioning to Postsecondary Education to Prepare for Employment in High Growth Industries. This initiative will be a pilot project for GED completers who would like to focus on pursuing postsecondary education. GED completers will pursue an associate's degree that includes the different educational components necessary to succeed in the financial services industry.

 

The University of Scranton's Kania School of Management will receive $132,000 to develop an Enterprise Resource Planning Program which will focus on education and training through increasing the pool of instructors, creating programs to enhance recruitment within traditional student and adult-learner populations and developing courses in such functional areas as finance, accounting, supply-chain management, business data warehousing, customer-relationship management.

 

Marywood University will receive $92,000 for the Master's of Science Degree in Financial Information Systems Program. This initiative will develop a five-year Bachelor's of Business Administration / Master's of Science degree program in Financial Information Systems. This first-of-its-kind program will include topics in investments, portfolio management, data mining and warehousing, business intelligence and financial software applications.

 

East Stroudsburg University will receive $89,450 for the Business Continuity Training and Marketing Analysis, which will create a business continuity training environment in a data center environment. The goals of the project include providing experiential learning opportunities, technical training and infrastructure to support the workforce needs of Operations/Data Centers; creating a Virtual Operations/Data Center; raising awareness of careers; creating a pipeline of trained workers; and identifying the potential market of financial services companies in the nine-county region.

 

Penn State Berks will receive $55,377 for the Leveraging Information Security Education and Training through Web-Based Distance Learning Program, an online modular approach to expand information security learning in the region for all high school through college level students and then to incumbent workers through continuing education opportunities. The main goal is to design online learning modules and problem-based cases specific to core information assurance subjects that will be used to create customized training programs targeted at specific needs and student levels.

 

Luzerne County Community College will receive $31,850 for the WorkKeys Assessment to Provide a Baseline for Curriculum Development and Skills Gap Identification Program. This initiative will create a model to provide a baseline for curriculum development and skills gap identification based on valid, reliable benchmark data.

 

Career Development and Pathway Programs

To be more competitive, the Northeastern Pennsylvania region must prove they can develop the workforce as strongly and as quickly as New York City or other competitive regions. The following programs aim to address this issue by ensuring individuals and students understand where the career opportunities are and the variety of educational pathways to attaining those careers.

 

Junior Achievement of Northeastern Pennsylvania will receive $374,000 for the Junior Achievement of Northeastern Pennsylvania and Wilkes University Collaboration for Workforce Readiness. The program will create scholarships to allow students to attend Junior Achievement's 'Finance Park Program' and 'CEO Program,' as well as create new career awareness programs for high school students.

 

Penn State Berks will receive $341,233 for Project Lead the Way, a pathway program in engineering for diversely populated areas. Each county will have one high school that will oversee the program's pre-engineering courses and will receive both educational and administrative support to aid in the initiative's development.

 

Misericordia University will receive $167,486 for a program entitled Preparing Tomorrow's Financial Services Manpower. In partnership with Lackawanna College, Luzerne and Northampton Community College, and 60 regional school districts, the initiative will create a fast-tract program for grades 11 through MBA that will allow students to move into technical jobs in the financial services industry more quickly.

 

The Pike / Wayne Education Partnership will receive $84,000 to develop 21st Century Career Guidance Partnership which will implement a comprehensive career development framework allowing students the opportunity to identify career paths and begin taking the necessary steps to be successful in them.

 

Junior Achievement will receive $55,000 to create a Middle Grade & High School Traditional & Non-Traditional Program Expansion. Junior Achievement will develop hands-on learning programs in Berks, Lehigh and Northampton counties that will focus on economics and personal finance.

 

The Northeast Pennsylvania Employment Consortium will receive $29,560 for The Financial Industry Training and Support Program, a comprehensive career awareness and skill development program that will create a structured and highly focused forum to connect students, guidance professionals, and businesses. The goal of the initiative will be to increase awareness of financial service opportunities and facilitate the appropriate connections to ensure successful matches between students and industry employers.

 

The Lehigh Career & Technical Institute will receive $20,000 for the creation of the Wall Street West Business and Finance Dual Enrollment Initiative, a partnership that will allow high school students to enter the financial services workforce quicker by taking college-level classes. The overall goal will be to develop a pipeline of students that are work ready for careers in business and finance.

 

Workforce Development Systems

Companies frequently site the quality of the workforce and the talent development system as factors in deciding whether to remain or locate in a specific area. While this mind set exists in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it needs to be stronger and more efficient if the region expects to be an industry leader and a premier locale for financial services firms. The following programs aim to integrate systems and align education, economic development and employment:

 

The Lehigh Valley Workforce Investment Board will receive $1 million and be the lead project manager for the NEPA Business Education Workforce Partnership. In cooperation with the region's four other Workforce Investment Boards, 69 superintendants, four business education partnerships and the state Department of Education, the goal will be to develop business education partnerships, implement structured career exploration models and to provide a regionalized career pathway awareness program throughout the nine-county region.

 

GSP Consulting Corporation will receive $655,000 to create the Wall Street West Higher Education Consortium, an official collaboration of the region's educational assets that is expected to be recognized as the primary source for employers to build a well-trained workforce.

 

Workforce Wayne will receive $285,000 to create the Building a 21st Century Workforce Delivery System, a model and strategic plan to create an operational framework for delivery of services based on collaboration and regionalism that supports high skill and high wage opportunities.

 

TeamPA will receive $250,000 for the Northeast PA - Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Center. This project, being developed in other regions throughout the state and county, will create new and strategic methods for teaching these core curriculum topics in classrooms across the Wall Street West region. This project will be completed in collaboration with the National Governor's Association.

 

Incumbent Worker Skills Enhancement

Because the financial services and information technology industries are among the most rapidly changing business environments, a significant shift in the training of the current workforce to support retention and growth of incumbent firms is as important as attracting new organizations. The following programs aim to address this issue:

 

The Lackawanna County Workforce Investment Board will receive $500,000 to further develop the commonwealth's Industry Partnership and Worker Training Program. This initiative supports the formation of industry partnerships to address competitiveness and enhance incumbent skills.

 

The commonwealth's WEDnetPA Program will receive $475,000 for the continuation and expansion of their training and skill development programs. WEDnetPA partners with the community colleges and state higher education system schools to administer these programs to employees at incumbent companies.

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