Lilly Endowment Inc. has awarded Ivy Tech Foundation a $21.9 million, three-year grant to support the efforts of Ivy Tech Community College (Ivy Tech) to help strengthen Indiana’s early childhood education workforce. This funding will support programs and partnerships that will expand options for and improve access to high-quality postsecondary education and training for current and future early childhood education professionals.
Indiana’s current supply of well-qualified early childhood education professionals is inadequate and hampers the state’s capacity to provide high-quality child care options for Hoosier families. Demand for these professionals is expected to continue to grow. The grant will support Ivy Tech, already the state’s largest provider of post-secondary education and training to early childhood professionals, in its efforts to expand its current programs and create new, innovative education and training opportunities. These include, among others, new credentials for Hoosiers who seek to enter and advance in the early childhood education profession.
“As Indiana’s workforce engine, Ivy Tech has a responsibility to fuel the state’s pipeline of skilled early childhood education talent,” said Dr. Sue Ellspermann, president, Ivy Tech Community College. “We are grateful for the generous support from Lilly Endowment that is enabling us to remove barriers to education and training for early childhood educators. However, we also recognize more must be done to attract and retain talented, passionate Hoosiers to this important profession.”
“Among the most critical challenges facing early childhood education programs in Indiana are the recruiting, retaining and compensating of qualified teachers and caregivers,” said Ted Maple, Lilly Endowment’s vice president for education. “Though Ivy Tech cannot solve these challenges alone, we believe that its plan to expand and enhance training and education offerings has the potential to improve the quality of the early childhood workforce in significant ways, ultimately to the benefit of thousands of young children in Indiana.”
With support from the new grant, Ivy Tech aims to increase enrollment in its early childhood education programs by more than 100 percent by 2027, ultimately graduating 1,950 individuals annually with industry-recognized credentials and degrees. Ivy Tech will:
“Early childhood educators are essential to children’s learning and development and foundational to the success of Indiana’s workforce and economy,” said Courtney Roberts, president, Ivy Tech Foundation. “This generous grant from Lilly Endowment will enable Ivy Tech to deliver relevant and responsive postsecondary education and training that will improve the quality of the state’s early childhood education sector, support efforts to retain existing professionals and attract more educators to the field.”