Heartland Community College receives new funding to support their REV UP initiative

Photo provided by Heartland Community College

NORMAL, Ill. – The Illinois Community College Board has recently awarded nearly $10 million to community colleges across Illinois. Heartland Community College received approximately $525,000 for its REV UP initiative, which supports job training and education in the Electronic Vehicle industry. Heartland Community College’s Assistant to the President Steve Fast shares how this will be beneficial for current and incoming students who plan to work in the electric vehicle industry. 

“It will give prospective students and our current students some more options, so currently, we offer an applied associate of science degree which is in electric vehicles, and what we’ll do with this money is we’ll develop some additional instructional programming that will have additional training and certifications in two different areas: heavy duty and medium duty EV technology and EV infrastructure,” he said. “So we will develop certificate programs in those which can be folded into that associate’s degree or they can be taken separately as certifications.” 

Normal’s twin-municipality, Bloomington, is home to Rivian, an American electric vehicle dealership that has been a partner with Heartland within their electric vehicle program. Fast explains how this is beneficial for the community and how Heartland plans to build on that. 

“We’ve had a long-standing partnership and good communication with Rivian since we first started our EV program in 2021, so this is something where there is room for expansion for electric vehicle technology,” he said. “So we would probably build upon some of our existing relationships such as with Rivian and Tesla with their dealership. But also, this could pan out into something like working with Connect Transit for their busing systems if they were thinking about going electric with their bussing systems, which can really have a positive impact for sustainable energy for public transportation as well.” 

Heartland’s goal is to give its students accessible and equitable opportunities once they are enrolled as a student. Fast explains that advanced manufacturing is growing in the industry and providing that education to Heartlands students can be key to their success within the electric vehicle industry.

“Throughout all of Illinois, we are seeing the advanced manufacturing is growing so that is a key area for us to make sure that those educational opportunities and pathways are open to our students. We have had programs and sustainable energy for over a decade here at Heartland Community College, and it is another area that is an investment not only in our community but in the resources of the workforce that help move things along,” Fast said. “These are all areas where we see some good metrics saying that they are going to continue to be sustainably growing for offering jobs for potential students but also benefit the overall community.”