Kennedy-King College Launches New Programs And Reopens Restaurant

Kennedy-King College is gearing up for an exciting Spring 2025 Semester and looking beyond to new programs. PHOTO PROVIDED BY CITY COLLEGES OF CHICAGO.
Kennedy-King College is gearing up for an exciting Spring 2025 Semester and looking beyond to new programs. PHOTO PROVIDED BY CITY COLLEGES OF CHICAGO.

Kennedy-King College Launches New Programs And Reopens Restaurant

By Tia Carol Jones

The Spring Semester at Kennedy-King College began on Monday, Jan. 13th. Katonja Webb-Walker, Ed.D, President of Kennedy-King College, said there are a lot of new programs, along with the return of some programs, that students and potential students can take advantage of.


The Washburne Culinary & Hospitality Institute is located on the campus of Kennedy-King College and offers hands-on training to its students. Sikia restaurant is set to reopen on Jan. 30th. The sit-down restaurant closed in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Once open, Sikia will operate for lunch from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and will be reservations only. Webb-Walker said that as one of the few sit-down restaurants in the community it will be beneficial for the students from Washburne to be able to offer service to the residents in the community.


Dawson Technical Institute houses the college’s construction trades program. It will launch a carpentry bridge with the college’s adult education program. The carpentry bridge will provide an opportunity for people in the community who might not have a high school diploma to complete the GED while earning a certificate in carpentry. There will be two pipelines, one in English and one in Spanish. 


“We have partnerships with a number of construction companies, a number of builders and they can’t generate enough employees to fill the vacancies they have,” Webb-Walker said.

Kennedy-King College received a grant from the Department of Labor. It will use the grant money for a program to bring justice-involved youth into the construction trades. It will provide opportunities for young people with a criminal background to get training, with the hope of having skills that will get them a career. The college is also working on a construction engineering and management program with four-year institutions. Students will be able to transfer directly from Kennedy-King’s associate’s degree program into a bachelor’s degree program at Purdue Northwest. 


Kennedy-King College is branching out into the electric vehicle technology industry. The college received funds from the Rev Up grant to develop a new electric vehicle tech program. The goal is to launch the program in the coming year. A partnership with Inner-city Muslim Action Network (IMAN) will offer certification and an associate’s degree in Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) for returning citizens and justice impacted people.


“We know that’s important because when we can get our justice impacted folks into training, get them into college, we see the recidivism rates dramatically decrease. I think this will be something great, not just for them individually, but for our community, at large,” Webb-Walker said.


Kennedy-King College is bringing back a nursing program. Several years ago, City Colleges of Chicago consolidated all its allied healthcare and nursing programs to the West side at Malcolm X College. People from the community provided feedback that they wanted a nursing program on the South side to accommodate residents who live there. The nursing program will launch at Kennedy-King College in partnership with Malcolm X College in 2027. Before that, Kennedy-King College will launch its certified nurse assistant (CNA) program in April 2025. It will be a direct pathway into the nursing program.

For more information about Kennedy-King College, visit www.ccc.edu/kennedy/home/.


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