Four years ago, Bayza Weeks joined Dunwoody College of Technology in Minneapolis to help launch the school’s Pathways to Careers program, which helps underserved students overcome barriers to success.
Barriers can be especially daunting, she says, for single-parent students.
“Single-parent students often face incredible challenges in their pursuit of a better life for their families through education, but earning a college degree in a technical field opens the doors to a successful career,” says Weeks, executive director of Dunwoody’s Women in Technical Careers (WITC) program.
Dunwoody is trying to eliminate some of those barriers in a new partnership with Raise the Bar, a nonprofit organization dedicated to “increasing opportunity and economic mobility for single-parent families through higher education.” The partnership offers rental housing subsidies, one-on-one coaching, emergency grants of up to $1,000 and child care support for single-parent students preparing for careers in traditionally male-dominated industries, including construction.
In the following interview, Weeks talks about the partnership with Raise the Bar and other topics. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself and your role at Dunwoody.
A: I am the executive director of Community Partnerships at Dunwoody -- actually the first executive director for the college. I came on four years ago and created the Pathways to Careers (P2C) scholarship program. Within my first year, we formed the community partnerships department, which also holds our P2C and Women in Technical Careers [WITC] signature scholarship programs.
More specifically, my role as the executive director is designed to support our strategic plan at the college to close the achievement skills and income gaps for under-resourced student populations, including women. And closing these gaps will have a significant contribution for meeting industry needs and to build a more equitable and diverse workforce.
Prior to coming to Dunwoody, my career has been in educational roles of many types from educational institutions to nonprofits with similar missions -- to interrupt persisting disparity gaps for students and women and professionals of color.
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Q: What did you like about this opportunity with Dunwoody? A: I found it to be very much aligned with where we're at as a society right now. Due to the tragic and unfortunate murder of George Floyd, my position was created at the college to elevate current strategies to implement access and opportunity for students of color. And that's what I'm deeply passionate about as well.
Q: Tell us more about the partnership with Raise the Bar. A: First, just a little bit more about WITC. Our mission there is to empower women to earn technical degrees from Dunwoody College and to eliminate barriers for women to enter and succeed in these trades, and in the spaces that have been historically dominated by men. And it is truly important for Raise the Bar to provide opportunities and wraparound supports for single mothers through higher educational opportunities.
Our partnership with Raise the Bar will support a cohort of up to five students this fall, in 2024, and in subsequent years we want to enroll even more. But we want to work with Raise the Bar’s Whole Family Program to provide a number of combined support services. One will be rental subsidies to ensure safe and stable housing, financial support for education-related expenses, such as childcare and housing, emergency grants of up to $1,000, one-on-one coaching, and financial literacy and career development programming.
Q: How great is the need for those services? A: There is great need for these types of services. The challenge that we have is that many women, especially single parents, want to enter into the trades. But they've been discouraged to do so simply because of the low numbers of women in these fields. So these programs not only help to create access, but to also create the foundational support that is needed for them to be successful in their academic programs and see themselves in these trade roles.
Q: What types of jobs, specifically, are they training for? Will some of the graduates, for example, work in the construction industry? A: Absolutely. We have women in all of our programs at Dunwoody, everything from automotive to welding to construction to land surveying, engineering. We have women that are participating in everything that we do at Dunwoody and helping to change what it looks like for a woman to work in the trades.
Q: It’s no secret that there’s a need for more workers in the trades. Are you working with construction industry partners on these efforts? A: Absolutely. It would be really hard for me to name all of the industries that we partner with. But Dunwoody has been around for over 100 years now. And we have a long reach in the industry sector, in the community-building sector, and also in education.
And our hope is that through the partnerships that we have, which is also a component of the work I do as executive director, that we will forge these opportunities forward and also help to create a more equitable and diverse workforce.
Q: You can make a pretty good living in construction. Do you think that's exciting to some of the students? A: Absolutely. For the students my department supports, the P2C and WITC students, they're often first-generation college students. And single mothers often have less resources than a traditional student would have. And we are seeing that the supports are necessary and our students are excited because at Dunwoody we have an average of 98% job placement. And salaries are starting around $58,000 a year once they graduate and have secured their internship and their employment. So these jobs can change lives and they can change industry dramatically.
RELATED: Q&A: Construction ‘gave me opportunities’ for a better life Copyright © 2024 BridgeTower Media. All Rights Reserved.
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