Photo courtesy Brightpoint Community College
Helping Student Parents
A program at Brightpoint Community College that supports students who are also parents has received a $10,000 funding boost.
Brightpoint’s College Attainment for Parent Students received with the funds in November through the Truist Charitable Fund. “This grant funding will help students facing financial challenges so they can continue their education and achieve their goals,” says Bill Fiege, Brightpoint’s president.
CAPS provides financial help to 20 students each semester to pay for child care and any unexpected living expenses. It also provides learning materials for children to help Virginia schools create family-friendly campuses, according to the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education. At Brightpoint, participating students can receive a $2,000 stipend each semester for child care and other expenses; emergency funding is also available. Single parents to children up to 18 years old are eligible.
“The financial support has been so beneficial to all of our CAPS students, but particularly our nursing students. Many of them have to work reduced hours so they can complete clinicals, study, be in class and still be Mom or Dad to their children. This is not always compatible with life in general,” says Holly Walker, director of communications and public relations. “Many of the CAPS students have shared how all of these different supports have been invaluable to their experience with the college in all areas. The wraparound services that have been offered and used have propelled them to reach their dreams of providing a life for their families.”
Brightpoint is one of five community colleges in Virginia with CAPS pilot programs.
The Body Electric
Reynolds Community College has been awarded about $924,000 in federal funding to encourage more students to enroll in training for in-demand health care occupations in metro Richmond. Virginia’s senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, secured the funding, which is targeted to renovate laboratories and buy equipment. The upgrades include expanding simulation labs that provide lifelike training opportunities for the students, such as artificial “patients” that simulate conditions and symptoms the students would experience in a real operating theater.
“I’m excited to see how this will grow Virginia’s health care workforce,” Kaine said in a social media post following a visit to inspect the downtown campus health care training site in July.
Independence Day Is Coming
Richard Bland College of William & Mary may soon have its own board of visitors. Such a governing board for the two-year affiliate school received unanimous support of the William & Mary Board of Visitors in November, and the General Assembly is expected to consider a bill to grant an independent board in the legislature’s 2025 session.
A similar measure passed the Senate in 2023 but failed to make it to the governor’s office. The Virginia Secretary of Education’s office also recommended a dedicated board for Richard Bland in 2024.
Richard Bland College President Debbie L. Sydow noted in a release that other Virginia universities, including Old Dominion, Christopher Newport and Virginia Commonwealth, were once governed by the William & Mary Board of Visitors. “Each has evolved in response to Virginia’s economic and industry needs, and these universities are presently among the finest in the state,” she said. “Richard Bland College now stands ready to work with a dedicated governing board to explore strategic alternatives and further position itself to optimally serve the educational and economic needs of Petersburg, rural Southside Virginia and the commonwealth.”
