Copyright 2000 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
April 13, 2000, Thursday
SECTION: PREPARED TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 2302 words
HEADLINE:
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF REP. BART STUPAK
BEFORE THE
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN
SERVICES AND EDUCATION SUBCOMMITTEE
BODY:
Mr.
Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to submit my requests to the
Subcommittee on the Fiscal Year 2001 Labor, Health and Human
Services and Education Appropriations. I appreciate your willingness to allow me
to discuss issues that are extremely important to the citizens of my district of
northern Michigan.
Gogebic Community College
My first two
requests to this Subcommittee involve funding that will provide critical aid to
the Upper Peninsula of Michigan by helping two institutions that are extremely
important to this area. First, I ask for your support in providing
$350,000 to Gogebic Community College. This community college
is located in the western part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and is the
only higher education school in six counties of my district. I cannot emphasize
enough the importance of this institution. The western Upper Peninsula, or as we
refer to it, the "UP", and Gogebic county are suffering great economic hard
times and high unemployment. This creates not only a need for financial aid for
students, it also makes the role of higher education that much more crucial. A
college education offers a light at the end of the tunnel for this economically
depressed area, and a community college is critical in providing affordable
education to those who have limited means. Unfortunately, like the community as
a whole, Gogebic Community College (GCC) is also undergoing difficult times due
to its limited funding base and declining enrollment. However, since 1995, when
Dr. Donald Foster, the President of Gogebic Community College took office, GCC
has taken substantial steps to revitalize itself as an institution. It developed
a plan, entitled Planning for the 21= Century, through the use of focus groups
both on and off campus, to study the college's strengths, weaknesses and future
goals. The focus groups have determined that GCC needs to enhance its technology
resources to further serve a variety of students in the future.
To build
upon this study, and the conclusions that were drawn from it, GCC now seeks
$350,000 to implement these findings; and advance GCC to its
full potential in serving its community. The funds will be used in a faculty
development program to develop the faculty's instructional technology skills and
knowledge, and to establish an Instructional Technology Center to further
faculty development. Four permanent multimedia "smart" classrooms will be
equipped and an additional seven mobile multimedia units acquired. At least 59
courses will be strengthened by this integration of instructional technology
into the curriculum.
These steps are critical to bringing Gogebic
Community College into the current information age, and in turn, to revitalizing
the surrounding community. I hope that this Subcommittee will fully support this
request.
Suomi College
I also urge this Subcommittee to support
my request for grant assistance to Suomi College in the amount of
$2.5 million for educational operations to continue its
conversion to a baccalaureate institution from associate-degree, junior-college
status, as well as to further its economic, social and cultural contributions to
the Upper Peninsula. Suomi College is the only Finnish heritage institution of
higher education located outside of Finland. It is a not for profit institution
which combines a liberal arts education with career preparation, with a focus on
serving its local area, as well as Finnish immigrant communities and groups
throughout the United States. The College maintains the largest archive of
Finnish immigrant materials in the country and has formal partnerships with nine
institutions of higher education in Finland.
Suomi College is in the
process of transforming itself from a junior college to a niche-' oriented,
baccalaureate institution to better serve the economic, cultural, social and
health needs of its rural service area. Like Gogebic Community
College, Suomi College is also essential to the vitality of the Upper Peninsula
of Michigan It is the fourth largest private employer in two counties of the
Upper Peninsula, where the median household is approximately
$17,600 - 43 percent less than for Michigan as a whole.
Suomi College is implementing programs and committing resources to
function as a key contributor to development of a sustainable economy.
Recognizing that a sustainable economy is dependent on the provision of
health care, education, social services and cultural
opportunities, as well as on the support of existing businesses and the
establishment of new businesses, the College has organized itself into four
schools to address these needs, The College also has committed resources to
providing the instructional support necessary to implement baccalaureate degree
programs, including technology and library materials.
The College's
Business Innovation Center brings together baccalaureate degree programs of the
International School of Art and Design, the International School of Business and
their nine partner institutions in Finland both to support existing businesses
and to foster the start-up of new businesses. The School of
Health, Education, and Human Services is training people to
work in area health care, social welfare, criminal justice and
education agencies. It provides, for example, 80 percent of the registered
nurses working in the Keweenaw Medical Center hospital. The School of Arts and
Sciences and the Finnish-American Heritage Center serve the area's cultural
needs. College expenditures related to the transformation of the four schools to
contribute to area development also include outreach centers and instructional
support.
Funding in the amount of $2.5 million is
integral to Suomi College's ability to fund the above educational operations and
to facilitate the College's continuing transformation and functions. Such an
investment would pay major dividends for the future of Michigan's Upper
Peninsula, and I hope that you will give strong consideration to my request.
Olympic Scholarships
The Olympic Education Scholarship was first
authorized in the 1992 Higher Education Act, and re-authorized in Section 836 of
the Higher Education Act of 1998. It is designed to assist Olympic athletes in
continuing their pursuit of education while training at the various Olympic
Training and Education Centers by providing money for college scholarships. Last
year the scholarship program was funded at $1 million dollars,
but unfortunately was reduced to $925,000 due to the across the
board budget cuts. I ask for this Subcommittee's help in again funding the
scholarship program at $1 million for FY 2001, to continue this
important support for our Olympic athletes.
Olympic athletes train at
four Olympic centers in the United States: Marquette, MI; Lake Placid, NY;
Colorado Springs, CO; and Chula Vista, CA, outside of San Diego. Hundreds of
athletes train full time at these four training sites to prepare for the Olympic
Games and thousands more train part time. Many of these athletes participated in
the Nagano Games during the last winter Olympics, and many will be representing
the United States later this year in Sydney.
These scholarships are
vital for our athletes, who have dedicated their lives to representing this
country.
Except for a very few sports, there is no post-Olympic
professional athletic career for most Olympians. As a result, education becomes
a critical factor in the lives of these young people. But as so many of our
American Olympians will attest, too often they must postpone or even forego an
education in order to prepare to represent the United States in the Olympic
Games. Many of the athletes have greater access to college because of the
Olympic Scholarship, and the education they receive while training provides them
with an excellent opportunity to prepare them for post-Olympic life.
Some athletes currently attend college while training. Many others,
however, do not have the resources to pay tuition and are unable to take
classes. Unlike college athletes, many Olympic athletes spend thousands of
dollars annually on equipment and travel to major events.' The only way they can
attend school is if scholarships are provided. A vivid example of the need for
the Olympic Education Scholarships is Mark Lenzi a gold medal winning diver at
the Barcelona games in 1992 who announced on network television that he would
sell his Olympic gold medal to help him pay his college tuition Congress
instituted the Olympic Scholarship Program in order to address these athletes'
needs, and I urge this Subcommittee to continue full funding of the program for
FY 2001.
Mr. Chairman, I am tremendously impressed with the dedication,
determination, and work ethic of our Olympic hopefuls. Given the opportunity,
they apply the same dedication to academic endeavors. Balancing a schedule of
rigorous training and education is very difficult for any person. We should not,
however, put our Olympic athletes in a position where they have to sacrifice an
education in order to represent our country in the Olympic Games. Funding
Olympic scholarships provides a commitment to our Olympic athletes beyond their
performances in the Games, and I urge this Subcommittee to endorse such a
commitment.
Northwestern Michigan College
I would also like to
request funding for an effort that will have a great impact on our use and
understanding of one of our most important resources, the Great Lakes.
Northwestern Michigan College is seeking $1.2 million for the
development of a Great Lakes Water Research Center on its West Bay Campus in
Traverse City, Michigan. I ask for this Subcommittee' s help in this endeavor.
This campus is situated on the west arm of Grand Traverse Bay on Lake Michigan
and is the home of the Great Lakes Maritime Academy; one of only six state
maritime academies in the nation.
Northwestern Michigan College is
planning a major rebuilding of its West Bay Campus by adding an 80,000 square
foot building to be completed by 2003, and by upgrading the harbor by dredging
it to safely berth larger vessels. The building will house the Great Lakes Water
Research Center, which will be the centerpiece of the facility.
The
Research Center will preserve, monitor and study the fresh water of the Great
Lakes and the world, and will be a hub of local, regional, national and
worldwide fresh water research and policy review, i am sure that I do not need
to emphasize the importance of the Great Lakes region to the Members of this
Subcommittee, in fact, perhaps some of you have been among the 250 million
visitors that come each year to the region. In addition, the Great Lakes are the
largest reservoir of fresh water on earth, and a drinking source to more than 35
million people. Such a research facility will be invaluable in educating a new
generation in the environmental and communal issues of fresh water, and in
benefitting the region and the nation in preserving and understanding the Great
Lakes.
Through the efforts of Grand Traverse County and the state of
Michigan, the West Bay Campus project has already raised nearly one half of the
$15 million projected cost of the development. I ask for your
help in appropriating $1.2 million to assist Northwestern
Michigan College in reaching their goal. Northwestern Michigan College will use
this funding to advance educational opportunities and scientific research on a
range of issues related to this extraordinary natural resource.
Federally Qualified Health Centers
As you know,
federal health centers provide a critical safety net for the
provision of essential health services for many of our most
vulnerable citizens. Few federal programs have been as successful or as
cost-effective in providing access to health care services to
underserved populations as the community health centers.
Maintaining this network of cost-effective providers that have helped ensure
continued access to primary care services for millions of poor and
uninsured Americans is to our nation's
health.Specifically, I request that you appropriate
$1.16 billion to health centers, a
$150 million increase from last year. This increase is urgently
needed to allow health centers to continue to serve and improve
their care to uninsured patients. Despite increasingly tight
budgets, these health centers have increased their role in
providing health care for the uninsured
working families and the medically underserved.
Today, over 1000
health centers serve approximately I 1 million
uninsured and underserved patients, at an average cost of
$320 per person per year. This is as much as a third less than
other primary care providers. Over the past three years, these
health centers have extended care to more than one million new
uninsured patients, for a total of 4.5 million
uninsured patients being served. In the state of Michigan,
there are 26 Community and Migrant Health Centers providing
services at 60 clinic sites, giving care to over 260,000 patients annually, and
7 Health Care for the Homeless programs serving over 20,000
homeless people.
It is exceedingly difficult for health
centers to continue producing those savings, when their federal funding has
eroded in real dollars over the last ten years. While waiting lists of
uninsured patients for health centers have
risen by more than 20 percent recently, some 700 underserved communities that
have sought funding for new health centers have gone without
services, due to limited federal funding.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for
this opportunity to submit testimony regarding the FY 2001 Labor,
Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill. I
appreciate any help that you and the Subcommittee can provide for these
necessary projects.
END
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2000 
