OGLESBY – Illinois Valley Community College will join a four-college consortium vying for a $7.5 million Central Illinois Manufacturing Academy. The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity may choose the consortium’s grant application for the academy, which would be in East Peoria, with satellite campuses at Lincoln Land Community College, Spoon River College, and IVCC. The academy would significantly enhance IVCC’s ability to meet advanced manufacturing workforce needs, President Jerry Corcoran told the board Thursday. If selected, IVCC would receive $100,000 to upgrade its manufacturing facilities.
IVCC would also have to commit to paying $40,000 per year over three years for operational expenses such as the employment of a full-time manager and lab assistant at the academy.
“In my mind, extraordinary benefits to IVCC include shared curriculum, data collection, instructional materials including online training software, apprenticeships, common instructional training and part-time faculty,” Corcoran said.
“The academy will provide students access to credentials that lead to high-paying, family-sustaining wages,” he said. “It will benefit traditional students, nontraditional students upgrading their skills, and employers in need of worker training.”
Each site would offer welding, manual machining, manufacturing basics, and essential skills. Rapid prototyping, quality assurance and AWS welding certification and online instruction will be offered through the East Peoria site.
Corcoran said DCEO is expected to announce its central and southern Illinois academy sites by early spring so the initiative can be “well underway by fall.”
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