WestConn wins grant to increase 'underrepresented' population
DANBURY, CONN. — Western Connecticut State University has been chosen by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation to participate in Project Compass, the foundation’s new multi-year initiative aimed at increasing the number of underrepresented populations graduating with four-year degrees. WCSU will be awarded an initial grant of $100,000 to support a year of planning and capacity building.
WestConn is one of six New England universities chosen for the grant.
“Our effectiveness in educating students from underrepresented groups should be measured by their academic success, not just by access to our curriculum,” said WCSU President James W. Schmotter. “Project Compass will enable us to partner even more purposefully with local community organizations to achieve this goal.”
WCSU will define initiatives to increase access, improve retention, and support academic success for its Latino/Hispanic student cohort, primarily first-generation students from low-income backgrounds. Project Impact (Improving Minority Paths to Achievement through Community Transformation) takes a student-focused approach to broad-based community transformation with a project team that includes academic and student life campus leaders, and representatives from local schools and community organizations.
The initiative is being launched at a time when college retention is a major higher education issue, especially for low-income students and students of color who are now the fastest growing segments of New England’s population. Project Compass will support innovative, institutional programs and strategies that strive to eliminate achievement gaps and significantly increase academic success, retention, and graduation rates for minority and low-income undergraduate students.
“With Project Compass, we’re continuing the Foundation’s long-standing commitment to college success for underserved students,” said Nellie Mae Education President & CEO, Nicholas Donohue. “We’re excited to work with Western Connecticut State and hope that, in doing so, we’ll help inspire and nurture the type of bold thinking around postsecondary education that will be necessary if we want to ensure that the majority of all learners acquire the skills needed to succeed in the 21st century.”
The new initiative will be administrated by the New England Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE) at the University of Massachusetts Boston and will create a learning community of colleges and universities that will measurably improve academic outcomes for underrepresented students, while at the same time change institutional policies and practices to sustain and expand those efforts.
“NERCHE looks forward to working with these six campuses to shape institutional responses that increase the retention and academic success of underrepresented students,” said John Saltmarsh, director of NERCHE. “The Foundation’s investment in Project Compass is critically important for exploring and creating effective models for institutional change.”
The initiative will serve students from various populations that are currently underrepresented on New England college campuses: from first-generation immigrant students in Connecticut to Native American populations in northern Maine; from urban students of color, to rural low-income learners. The colleges will work to identify challenges to academic success for these populations in order to help students persist and graduate.
The other five public colleges from around New England chosen to join the initiative are: Eastern Connecticut State University, Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts, Lyndon State College in Vermont, the University of Massachusetts-Boston, and the University of Maine-Presque Isle.
The initiative will be organized into two distinct phases. The first phase will fund the chosen six institutions for a planning and capacity-building year. During the second phase, the Foundation will award up to four years of annual implementation grants of $150,000 - $200,000. The second-phase grants are contingent upon the institutions’ yearly progress on objectives developed during the planning year.
For more information, call the WCSU Office of University Relations at (203) 837-8486, Sharon Davis, Nellie Mae Education Foundation 781-348-425, or Nick Lorenzen, Nellie Mae Education Foundation 781-348-4239.
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Western Connecticut State University offers outstanding faculty in a range of quality academic programs. Our diverse university community provides students an enriching and supportive environment that takes advantage of the unique cultural offerings of Western Connecticut and New York. Our vision: To be an affordable public university with the characteristics of New England’s best small private universities.
The Nellie Mae Education Foundation is the largest philanthropy in New England that focuses exclusively on promoting access, quality and effectiveness of education. Established in 1998, the Foundation provides grants and other support to education programs in the region designed to improve underserved students' academic achievement and access to higher education. The Foundation also funds research that examines critical educational opportunity issues. Since it was established, the Foundation has distributed nearly $72 million in grants. Currently, the Foundation is realigning its program investments. It will continue to focus its grantmaking on strategies that support underserved learners while building knowledge about how to dramatically improve outcomes for the majority of New England's learners. While the funding focus transitions to new program work, the Foundation is building on what has been learned through successes in order to define the future. The emerging program areas include early learning, the use of time in learning, the examination of the pathways involved between secondary and postsecondary education, and adult learning with a focus on postsecondary opportunities. For more information on the Foundation’s current work, visit www.nmefdn.org.
The New England Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE) is a center for inquiry, research, and policy. NERCHE supports administrators, faculty, and staff across the region in becoming more effective practitioners and leaders as they navigate the complexities of institutional innovation and change. NERCHE focuses on higher education institutions as complex workplaces. We provide resources for practitioners who are exploring innovative ways to shape higher education and create opportunities for learning and applying their collective knowledge and experience. NERCHE’s research projects, programs, and activities draw upon the practitioner perspective to improve practice and to inform and influence policy, moving from the local to regional and national levels. For more information, visit www.nerche.org
