The Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs was awarded a $6 million grant for "green" job training and establishing the Alabama Energy Sector Partnership program.
"This grant not only will help Alabamians reduce energy costs, it also will provide employment opportunities for many residents," said ADECA Director Doni Ingram in a press release Jan. 20.
The funding for the program came from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Matthew Williams, Office of Sustainability project manager, said the University did not receive funding from this grant. But the department does receive money from other sources, Williams said.
"There are additional funds that are coming to the University, the city and the state that are part of the ARRA," Williams said. "Some of those funds are for creating jobs here locally, some of them are for research that will help to expand and create green jobs in the future."
Auburn's building science program applied for the ADECA grant, but did not receive it.
"The stimulus money the president has put forward and the ADECA just got is to create specific new jobs," said Richard Burt, head of the build- ing science department. "I would imagine in the con- struction field they would be things like weather- ization, manufacturing 'green' products and those sorts of things."
Burt said the building science program has been preparing students for "green" construction for a few years.
Building science students take courses about "green" building to prepare them for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification.
LEED is a "green" building certification system, which verifies that a building was designed and built using strategies directed at improving performance.
"A lot of our students are doing is taking special classes our faculty offer on 'green' building," Burt said. "So they are able to take the certification to get them qualified to work on 'green' building projects."
The Gorrie Center,
where the building science program is housed, is a LEED certified 'green' building.
"Our graduates tend to go off to work with general contractors that build larger construction projects like the new basketball coliseum," Burt said. "They're working on projects that are becoming more 'green' and sustainable."
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