Continuing a long-running partnership with Pathways to Apprenticeship (P2A), Columbia hosted one of Pathways to Apprenticeship’s cohorts for a five-week training program at the Manhattanville campus this summer, culminating in a ceremony at David Geffen Hall for 47 recent P2A graduates.
P2A strives to end intergenerational poverty by offering a guaranteed interview with a construction union to those who complete their free, construction training program, which includes OSHA-30 training, professional development, physical fitness, and mentorship. The program offers this pre-apprenticeship program across multiple New York City boroughs and neighborhoods.
Columbia has partnered with P2A on several cohorts offered in West Harlem since 2019. The Columbia University Facilities and Operations’ Construction and Business Initiatives (CBI) department offers administrative support and strategically identifies space to host P2A, such as open classrooms and outdoor space for physical fitness training. The CBI team also helped organize and staff the graduation ceremony at Geffen Hall.
P2A has helped place more than 300 people into union employment. Back in 2019, one of those graduates, Mahogany Jones, worked on the Columbia Business School construction site; the now completed project served as the graduation and learning spaces for West Harlem’s newest P2A cohort.
