Spartanburg Community College Foundation receives $20,000 grant from Duke Energy for new web development program
April 13, 2017
The Spartanburg Community College Foundation recently received a $20,000 grant from the Duke Energy Foundation for the creation and implementation of a new Front End Web Developer program designed to address regional workforce skill-set gaps and provide local residents an opportunity to begin a career in the high demand web profession.
“We are so appreciative to the Duke Energy Foundation for their generosity and commitment to higher education and helping SCC educate and train local residents for this high demand career,” explains Nannette Bongiovi, SCC’s director of Corporate Training and Career Development.
Because the state of SC has experienced a shortfall of skilled and trained workers in the web development profession, Bongiovi says this new program will provide regional economic development benefits by creating a pool of skilled web development professionals available for hire by regional employers and small businesses. According to the Conference Board’s Help Wanted Online® data series (2010-2014), the web developer occupation is listed as a high demand occupation in SC’s upstate region, and is expected to have a 20 percent growth rate over the next several years.
Bongiovi says that ideal candidates for the program include veterans, incumbent workers in the information technology industry as well as graduates of SCC’s Computer Technology Associate Degree Program. However, anyone with a technical aptitude who enjoys working on the technical aspects of a website, enjoys multiple coding languages, researching and learning new information as the profession grows and changes, may be an ideal candidate for the web development profession.
SCC’s Corporate and Community Education Division and Computer Technologies Department will collaborate to develop and deliver the non-credit web development curriculum and materials. Program course work includes 120 hands-on hours in the areas of Visual Studio, HTML, Cascading Style Sheets, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Photoshop, Social Media Basics, Search Engine Optimization, and a Website Production Lab. Completion of the coursework will provide students with the specific web developer knowledge and skills that can lead to rewarding employment in the high-growth, high-demand information technology field. The program is expected to be offered this fall.
While SCC’s tuition is very affordable and significantly less than four-year schools, cost is still an issue for many students since typical state and federal financial aid programs do not cover the cost of short-term certificate courses. To ease the financial burden on students interested in SCC’s web development program, grant funds may be available for tuition scholarships to veterans, low-income unemployed, underemployed students and those ineligible for other forms of tuition assistance.
For more information on SCC’s web development program through the Corporate & Community Education Division, contact Nannette Bongiovi at [email protected] or (864) 592-4279. Program information may be found at the following website:
www.sccsc.edu/cce-webdevelopment
About the Spartanburg Community College Foundation
The SCC Foundation exists to provide assistance to Spartanburg Community College through the provisions of scholarships, curriculum resources, equipment, facilities and grants that help students, faculty and the community achieve educational excellence thereby contributing to a vibrant, local economy.
