West Virginia awards Catholic ‘trade college’ $5 million grant for expansion

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 30, 2024 / 17:45 pm (CNA).

The College of St. Joseph the Worker, an Ohio-based Catholic college, received a $5 million grant from West Virginia to develop a construction company to employ students, provide job training and education opportunities, and create a pro-life public policy research center in the northern part of the state.

St. Joseph the Worker, which is based in Steubenville, Ohio, teaches construction trades to students while providing a bachelor’s degree in Catholic studies. The campus is located near the border with West Virginia just across the Ohio River.

The grant was approved unanimously by the West Virginia Water Development Authority (WDA) in October. It was awarded through the state’s Economic Enhancement Grant Fund, created in 2022 with funds from the federal American Rescue Plan Act.

“The college is extremely grateful to the state of West Virginia for the recent award of an economic development grant,” read a news release the College of St. Joseph the Worker provided to CNA.

The news release stated that the college intends to spend more than $10 million on the projects supported by the grants.

Nonprofit construction company employing students

More than $2.1 million of the grant will support the development of a nonprofit construction company in Weirton, West Virginia, located next to Steubenville in the narrow stretch of West Virginia territory that extends north between the borders of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

According to the grant proposal, obtained by the Parkersburg News and Sentinel through a Freedom of Information Act request, the construction company will employ students who are learning a trade and support revitalization in the Ohio Valley. The grant proposal vows that the economic and social impact of the company will exceed the state’s investment.

“As a mission-driven educational organization, we will be able to take on construction and revitalization projects that other, exclusively for-profit organizations would not, such as work of historical and cultural significance in communities that might otherwise be unattractive to investors,” the proposal states.

The proposal estimates the company will employ about 200 apprentice workers and between 50 and 100 construction workers. The offices, warehouses, and construction yard will be based in West Virginia and the company intends to purchase most of its material from other companies within the state.

“As a nonprofit, instructional institution committed to the common good, our projects will be selected based upon total positive impact on the local community and not on for-profit returns on investment,” the news release from the college read.

Job training and Catholic education

More than $1.6 million of the grant will support education investments in West Virginia, according to the grant proposal. 

The proposal notes that the college will purchase training facilities in Weirton and move some training instruction to the city. The college offers instruction in several construction trades: heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC); carpentry; masonry; electrical; and plumbing.

According to the proposal, the college will also use these funds to develop partnerships with tradesmen and contractors in West Virginia to place apprentices after graduation. Its goal is that at least 20% of graduating students be from the state and move back there.

The college also intends to use the funds to support the recruitment of West Virginia students, to offer scholarships for West Virginia students, and to renovate student housing. 

Another $200,000 will support the exploration of a potential branch campus in West Virginia with the intention of evaluating Teays Valley, which is in the western part of the state, near the capital, Charleston.

A pro-life research center

About $1 million of the grant funds will support advocacy, which includes the development of a research center that supports “broadly life-affirming policy in West Virginia,” according to the proposal. It will be called “The Center for the Common Good.”

Those funds will also support the development of a bioethics certificate for continuing education in medicine and psychotherapy.

Some West Virginia Democrats were critical of the grant funding, particularly regarding this element.

Delegate Joey Garcia criticized using “taxpayer money to fund a partisan center for ‘conservative public policy’ and a construction trades program by an Ohio-based college when [West Virginia] colleges could use that money the same way” in a post on X that was reposted by the West Virginia Democratic Party. 

Garcia also accused the WDA of “evading statutory requirements” in the approval of the grant because WDA officials did not receive a written recommendation from the secretaries leading the Department of Economic Development, the Department of Commerce, or the Department of Tourism. State law requires a recommendation from one of those three officials when the WDA approves an economic development grant through the Economic Enhancement Grant Fund.

WDA Executive Director Marie L. Prezioso told CNA she “had a verbal commitment from a cabinet secretary, but not [a] written recommendation.”

Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/261301/west-virginia-awards-catholic-trade-college-5-dollars-million-grant-for-expansion