William Pundmann, St. Charles Community College Board of Trustees secretary, participated in the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) 2016 National Legislative Summit in February to meet with federal lawmakers.
The National Legislative Summit, held in Washington, D.C., is the premier community college advocacy event, brining together more than 1,000 community college leaders.
The event showcased the importance of the nation's community colleges to Congress and the administration by highlighting ACCT's community college federal legislative priorities including gaining support for the federal Pell Grant Program and higher education funding, among other initiatives.
In February, St. Charles Community College Board of Trustees Secretary William Pundmann (left) met with U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt to advocate for community colleges during the ACCT 2016 National Legislative Summit in Washington, D.C.
“The National Legislative Summit event has always been beneficial to our students from our advocacy with the United State legislators, especially the Pell Grants. Our SCC students received $6,422,390 in Pell Grants for the 2014-15 school year,” Pundmann said. “Combine that with other federal assistance programs like federal direct loan funds, federal work-study programs, and federal supplement educational opportunity grants, SCC and SCC students saw $10,308,941 from these programs alone, which represents nearly one-third of our SCC operating budget for the said year.”
“I discussed ACCT federal legislatives priorities for 2016 with United States senators and representatives,” he said. “We will see how we made a difference in 2016 at the end of the year.”
Pundmann's past advocacy efforts made a difference for 2015. Community colleges saw funding increases for several priority programs, support was maintained for Pell Grants, “ability to benefit” qualifiers gained access to a maximum award and more.
St. Charles Community College is a public, comprehensive two-year community college with associate degrees and certificate programs in the arts, business, sciences and career-technical fields. SCC provides workforce training and community-based personal and professional development as well as cultural, recreational and entertainment opportunities. For more information, visit stchas.edu.