OUR INITIATIVES
The Black Belt Initiatives
Following the seed grant funding provided by the EDA for UA’s $93 million proposal, the Education Policy Center has since moved forward advocating and seeking funding for 4 programs, rooted in DRIVE, that most impact the Black Belt and the state as a whole.
The University of Alabama’s Education Policy Center, the oldest center, or institute, at the state’s flagship university, has dedicated itself to promoting access and economic development in Alabama’s historically underserved regions. We possess deep knowledge of how place-based community colleges, regional universities, and flagship universities can serve as strategic partners in alleviating persistent poverty—an area where sustained research and programming by place-based researchers and practitioners has been notably absent in recent decades.
The Black Belt Challenge
Alabama’s Black Belt region continues to face entrenched challenges of persistent poverty: 19 of Alabama’s 21 persistent poverty counties are located in this region. Recent data reveals a troubling trend: the Black Belt’s poverty rate increased from 23.8% in 2020 to 24.6% in 2023, even as Alabama’s overall poverty rate declined. Youth poverty is particularly acute at 34.9%, with stark racial disparities persisting (33.2% Black poverty vs. 12% White). Perhaps most concerning is the region’s labor force participation rate of just 40.2%, significantly lagging behind the state average of 57.2%.
Despite significant state efforts to attract manufacturing and improve infrastructure, the region continues to struggle with persistently high unemployment rates averaging 3.7% (compared to 2.4% in non-Black Belt counties), extremely low labor force participation rates (as low as 24.4% in some counties), significant educational attainment gaps (only 24% of residents hold bachelor’s degrees). The region is challenged in workforce development and retaining skilled workers, and insufficient coordination between education, workforce, and industry partners, and a limited capacity to compete for and manage federal grants.
Our Proposed Three-Pronged Approach
The Black Belt 2025 Initiative represents the University of Alabama’s comprehensive strategy to address these complex challenges. It brings the robust intellectual capital of a major research university and leverages our convening power to advance the Black Belt by scaling up indigenous, proven programs that create pathways to economic opportunity and break cycles of persistent poverty. We are currently seeking funding for three key components:
Project 1: Black Belt 2025
The Black Belt 2025 Research Series expands our successful partnership between UA’s Education Policy Center, Center for Business and Economic Research, and AL.com to produce consistent, comprehensive research on persistent poverty in the region. This research established an inclusive definition of the Black Belt region (no generally accepted definition exists), informs policy decisions with data-driven analysis, expands coalitions and partnerships to build momentum for sustained attention to the region’s needs, and examines critical issues of educational attainment, infrastructure, healthcare, transportation, and business development. This vital research foundation ensures our interventions are targeted and effective while building public awareness of both challenges and opportunities.
The EPC received a $30,000 internal grant from the UA Office of Research and Development’s Rising Tide Program to continue this impactful research through 2025. We now seek additional funding to expand the series beyond 2025.
We propose to host a National Conference on Alleviating Persistent Rural Poverty in 2026—the first such gathering in decades specifically addressing this issue at the national level. This conference would bring together stakeholders from across the approximately 300 counties, boroughs, and parishes nationwide facing similar challenges. We hope to create momentum by involving national foundations and commissioning policy-relevant papers highlighting successful programs, to create a national registry of effective practices that can be implemented in persistent poverty regions nationwide. Combined, these efforts represent a crucial step toward renewing national attention on rural poverty solutions while ensuring Alabama’s Black Belt receives the focused research attention it deserves.
Project 2: Black Belt Leadership Academy
The proposed Black Belt Leadership Academy (BBLA) would be a year-long advanced leadership, mentoring, and training program that targets emerging leaders in small Black Belt towns. This intensive leadership development initiative would specifically include a Rural Grants Boot Camp connecting participants with federal funding opportunities. It would create sustainable networks of local officials and college grant-writing experts who can navigate complex federal programs. Focused on sharing small-town success stories, the Academy would help participants create economic and community assessments to guide targeted interventions while building self-sustaining institutional capacity for ongoing development. By investing in local leadership, we aim to strengthen the region’s ability to address its own challenges and secure the resources needed for transformation. We seek $1.2 million over 3 years to launch BBLA.
Project 3: KickStart College & Careers
The proposed KickStart College & Careers program would build on our successful model that has served 11,000 Title I Black Belt 8th graders since 2012. This expanded program would bring all 34,500 8th and 11th grade students from 24 Black Belt counties to visit automotive manufacturers and colleges over three years, providing every student with individualized career and college exploration plans. By deploying the Alabama Office of Apprenticeship and Alabama Transfers dashboards, we would empower students with the tools and knowledge to connect to 21st-century employer needs, opening pathways to economic opportunity for the next generation of Black Belt residents. This comprehensive college and career readiness program represents a direct investment in human capital development across the region. We seek $1.26 million for this 3-year initiative.
Building on a Foundation of Success
The Black Belt 2025 Initiative builds upon the Education Policy Center’s extensive history of impactful work in the region. From Director Steve Katsinas’ comprehensive fieldwork across Alabama’s community colleges in 1986 to our involvement in the Ford Foundation’s $45 million Rural Community College Initiative (1994-2002) and our work with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Project ACCLAIM, we bring decades of experience in addressing rural poverty through educational institutions.
Our geographically-based classification of rural-, suburban- and urban-serving Associate’s Colleges was published by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and is embedded in all federal Department of Education databases. We’ve successfully implemented the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation’s near-peer advisement model at 15 Alabama community colleges, partnered with the Alabama Commission on Higher Education to study Pell Grants (leading to the restoration of Summer Pell Grants in 2017), and developed Alabama’s comprehensive transfer website.
Most recently, our research-based approach for the $93 million Driving Regional Innovation through Vehicular Electrification (DRIVE) proposal identified indigenous programs already serving the Black Belt and proposed using federal funds to take them to scale—representing what the Brookings Institute called “a broader shift toward talent-driven economic development” that engages with “wicked problems.”
Through the Black Belt 2025 Initiative, we seek to continue our commitment to building capacity in a region that has suffered from persistently low labor force participation rates and entrenched poverty. By leveraging our research capabilities and convening power, we aim to create lasting pathways to economic opportunity for all Black Belt residents.
The DRIVE Coalition
The DRIVE Coalition assembles nearly every heavy hitter and promising upstart in Alabama’s nascent vehicle electrification industry. Our partners come from the public and private sectors, from education and industry, from research and practice”—”all with the shared mission to revitalize Alabama’s rural economies by providing free and low-cost technical training and creating well-paying jobs.
Led by the University of Alabama’s Education Policy Center, the coalition also includes West AlabamaWorks (the regional workforce development board); multiple school districts and community colleges, including Shelton State Community College; the Tuscaloosa County Economic Development Authority; and the University of Alabama College of Engineering.
Best put by the Brookings Institutes feature on DRIVE: “The DRIVE coalition illustrates this evolution to broader, multisystem talent development strategies.”
“DRIVE focuses on the largely rural “wider West Alabama” region and builds on its education and industrial assets. the DRIVE proposal stands out for its willingness to engage with “wicked problems” such as low high school graduation rates and weak connections with the labor market—issues that are crucial to achieving inclusive prosperity. Time will tell if this approach is a blip or a trend.”
Find Brookings full story on DRIVE here, and for more information on DRIVE, the Building Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC), and more visit our DRIVE page.
ALABAMA WORKS!
AlabamaWorks! And Alabama Workforce Council Launch Survey to Further Identify In-Demand Jobs and Skills
AlabamaWorks! And the Alabama Workforce Council (AWC) are pleased to announce the Governor’s Survey of Employer Competencies. This new tool will survey business owners in each sector and region of the state to assist the Alabama Committee on Credentialing and Career Pathways (ACCCP) with identifying the current in-demand occupations and competencies, as well as the credentials of value aligned to those occupations.
AlabamaWorks! and the AWC recognize that the majority of jobs lack specification regarding the necessary skills required to perform the job and, as a result, the bachelor’s degree has become the default certification for most jobs that require a postsecondary education. Identifying the skills, knowledge, abilities and attributes needed to succeed within in-demand jobs will prepare Alabama’s workforce for the future.
“This survey is vitally important as we continue in our ‘Strong Start, Strong Finish’ education and workforce initiative,” said Governor Kay Ivey. “We remain committed to our post-secondary attainment goal of adding 500,000 highly skilled employees to the workforce by 2025, and this survey will help us clearly identify the in-demand careers and associated skills that will help us develop the necessary competency models needed to reach that goal and provide quality opportunities for Alabama’s citizens.”
The Governor’s Survey of Employer Competencies will be conducted annually to assist the ACCCP’s 16 Technical Advisory Committees (TACs) with their work of linking credentials of value to one or more specific competencies and then sequencing competencies to build the DNA for a career.
“The AWC has consistently engaged in and supported efforts regarding credentialing,” noted AWC Chairman Tim McCartney. “The future of workforce in Alabama will be highly impacted by these efforts to establish clear career pathways that are built upon the skills and knowledge shown to be in the most need and provide the highest value for employees and employers across the state.”
Ultimately, the specificity provided through the survey results will enable the unbundling of traditional degrees that will make it easier for employers to create competency-based job descriptions by listing the specific skills required for a job, rather than using associate or bachelor’s degrees as placeholders. Survey results will also further verify that the work of the ACCCP is accurate and aligned to business and industry priorities. Additionally, the results will drive draft competency models to help facilitate this important workforce shift.
Employers of all sizes and from each industry sector are highly encouraged to respond to the survey as responses are critical for the future of workforce in Alabama. Responses will be accepted through Friday, June 26th at 5:00pm.
About Alabama Works!
AlabamaWorks! stands for opportunity, innovation, accountability and inclusion with the vision of a better future for Alabama in which communities, business, and industry are supported in a collaborative process to build prosperity through the opportunity of meaningful work and a growing economy. Our mission is to recruit, train, and empower a highly skilled workforce driven by business and industry needs and to be the competitive advantage for Alabama’s economic growth. Whether you’re an employer, a job seeker or a student, AlabamaWorks is the springboard for your success and promises to provide profitability and economic growth by creating opportunities for success and an improved quality of life for Alabamians.
About Alabama Workforce Council
The Alabama Workforce Council is comprised of business executives from some of the most important industries and organizations in the state of Alabama. The Council’s goal is to facilitate collaboration between government and industry to help Alabama develop a sustainable, top-notch workforce that is competitive on a global scale. Since its inception, the Council has been committed to analyzing important issues related to workforce development and making sound recommendations that will help to create more and better opportunities for all Alabamians.