[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 10 (Wednesday, February 1, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E62-E63]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      UNIVERSITY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA GRADUATE PROGRAMS ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 1, 2006

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today I introduce the University of the 
District of Columbia Graduate Programs Act that amends Section 326 of 
the Higher Education Act to provide federal Historically Black College 
and University (HBCU) grant funding to the qualified graduate programs 
at the University of the District of Columbia.
  The University of the District of Columbia, or UDC, is the District's 
only public university and institution of higher learning. An open 
admission institution at the undergraduate level, the University has 
consistently and historically provided higher education opportunity to 
D.C. residents at low and affordable cost. The University justifiably 
prides itself on its vital role in educating the leaders of the next 
generation by producing theoretically sound and practically skilled 
graduates, ready to undertake careers in service in both the public and 
private sectors.
  UDC also is one of the Nation's oldest HBCUs, but the university did 
not receive federal funding as an HBCU until 1999, when Congress passed 
the District of Columbia College Access Act that my good friend, 
Government Reform Committee Chair Tom Davis, and I sponsored to 
establish the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program.
  Funding from the Historically Black Graduate Institutions (HBGIs) 
program will allow UDC to increase its production of skilled graduates 
in vital disciplines and jobs in which African Americans, Hispanics and 
others are underrepresented and to strengthen its graduate programs in 
occupations where there are shortages in our region. For example, the 
University has graduate degree programs in cancer biology prevention 
and control, early childhood education, mathematics, special education, 
and speech and language pathology, and other graduate programs in the 
College of Arts and Sciences, the David A. Clarke School of Law, and 
the School of Business and Public Administration. A graduate curriculum 
is being developed in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
  I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill.

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