Congratulations to Augustana College and its continuation of the Augustana Prison Education Program (APEP), which for the first time graduated three students who are currently serving prison time in the East Moline Correctional Center.
We appreciate this program for giving an educational opportunity for prisoners and making them more marketable in the workforce when they finish their prison sentences.
The graduation ceremony was held last month inside EMCC’s walls.
There Augustana President Andrea Talentino saluted APEP graduates Brandon Johnson, Jorge Herrejon and Christopher Allen, who earned their degrees through the program at EMCC.
The Augustana College president also congratulated the men on what she called an “exciting” and “hard-earned day,” according to an article in the QCBJ.
Also cheering the honorees – all of whom graduated summa cum laude by maintaining 3.9 GPAs or better despite their imprisonment – were more than 30 fellow inmates dressed in prison blues who are currently enrolled in the program.
Kent Barnds, Augustana’s executive vice president for strategy & innovation and vice president of enrollment & communication, also donned a cap and gown to join a procession and recession full of robe-clad Augustana leaders.
He later told the QCBJ “The inaugural commencement ceremony held at EMCC … was a great celebration of three committed, hard working students and a testament to the transformative and redemptive power of a liberal education.”
Like it or not, ex-convicts can be an important part of filling the workforce challenges in the region. Providing them constructive educational instruction while in prison will only help them when they are released and help them give back to the community as they re-enter the workforce.
Big tech companies continue to invest in Iowa
Representatives of Google and Cedar Rapids government leaders participated in a “special Google investment announcement” in Cedar Rapids on Friday, May 30. It revealed that the company will invest an additional $7 billion across Iowa in the next two years, primarily to expand data centers in Cedar Rapids and Council Bluffs.
The announcement comes after Google was identified in March 2024 as the company developing a monumental data center project in southwest Cedar Rapids – the largest economic development project in the city’s history at the time.
A Google spokesperson confirmed to the Corridor Business Journal after the event that the Google investment in Cedar Rapids is part of the $7 billion announcement, but added that the long-cited $576 million local investment figure “is not representative of the full Cedar Rapids project, which is well above that.”
This significant investment builds on other tech company infrastructure investments in Iowa.
Notably, Amazon has started to build a second facility in Davenport. That facility will be a 114,000-square-foot “last-mile delivery station” located near the current Amazon Robotics Fulfillment Center at 2022 Research Parkway, according to company officials.
The new facility is scheduled to be complete by the end of this year, according to a QCBJ news report.
The “last mile” facility will join Amazon’s Fulfillment Center in Davenport, which opened in October 2023 and employs approximately 2,000 people.
We appreciate big tech’s interest in Iowa and welcome more investment.
