FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DCC SELECTED FOR NATIONAL PROGRAM

TO INCREASE STUDENT SUCCESS

            DANVILLE, VA., June 7, 2004 – Danville Community College is among 27 community colleges in five states and one of five Virginia community colleges selected to participate in Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, a new initiative designed to enhance the academic success of low-income and minority students. DCC will receive a $50,000 investment grant to develop plans for addressing this challenge and will be eligible for additional funding to implement its plans.  

            Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count is a multi-year initiative funded by the Lumina Foundation for Education and involves several national partner organizations. The first phase of the initiative will directly involve the selected colleges in Florida, North Carolina, New Mexico, Virginia and Texas. In future years, the initiative will expand to involve eligible community colleges in additional states.  Currently in the planning phase, the national initiative will be launched in the fall of 2004.

            “This is a real coup for DCC,” said Dr. Carlyle Ramsey, DCC President. ‘This new initiative will enable us to expand our efforts in access and build upon the success of the neighborhood centers and other strategies in place at the college. Our overall goals are to improve student achievement and success, thereby increasing DCC’s retention and graduation rates.”

            A team of national reviewers selected the 27 participating institutions from among 60 community colleges that submitted proposals. Eligible colleges were regionally accredited, public, associate degree-granting institutions. Each college was required to have an enrollment that was at least 33 percent minority students or 50 percent students who receive government-supported financial aid.

            According to the reviewers, the colleges selected are those that most effectively demonstrated their commitment to increasing student success and best communicated their vision for accomplishing this at their institutions.

            In addition to DCC, other colleges selected from Virginia are: Mountain Empire Community College in  Big Stone Gap;  Patrick Henry Community College, Martinsville;  Paul D. Camp Community College, Franklin; and Tidewater Community College, Norfolk.

            Danville Community College and other participating community colleges will be supported in their work by initiative partners with significant expertise in this field, including the American Association of Community Colleges; Community College Leadership Program at the University of Texas-Austin; Community College Research Center, Teacher’s College, Columbia University; Futures Project, Brown University; Jobs for the Future; MDRC and Public Agenda. These organizations, along with the initiative’s managing partner, MDC Inc., will help colleges identify and adapt practices and policies that will enable their institutions to achieve their goals.                                       

            The DCC Core Planning Team includes Dr. Carlyle Ramsey, President; Dr. Max Glass, Interim Vice President for Academic and Student Services; Pete Castiglione, Director of Student Development and Enrollment Management; Cynthia Griffith, Director of Planning, Effectiveness and Research; Joan Tarpley-Robinson, Assistant Professor of Developmental Mathematics; Andrea Burney, Director of Public Relations and Minority Concerns; Dr. Thomas Johnson, adjunct faculty member; and Shahnaz Ahmed, member of the State Board for Community Colleges and member of the DCC Educational Foundation. The DCC team will learn more about the Achieving the Dream initiative and begin their planning efforts at a Summer Institute to be held June 13-17 in Austin, TX.

            Following the Summer Institute, Ramsey said the college will begin its planning stage, drawing upon the entire college for input of ideas and strategies. For more information about the initiative, go to http://www.luminafoundation.org/.

Here is the list of participating community colleges in the Achieving the Dream Initiative:

Florida

Broward Community College, Fort Lauderdale, FL

Hillsborough Community College, Tampa, FL

Tallahassee Community College, Tallahassee, FL

Valencia Community College, Orlando, FL 

New Mexico

Albuquerque Technical  Vocational Institute, Albuquerque, NM 

New Mexico State University-Dona Ana (New Mexico State Univ.), Las Cruces, NM

San Juan College, Farmington, NM 

Santa Fe Community College, Santa Fe, NM

Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, Albuquerque, NM

University of New Mexico-Gallup (University of New Mexico), Gallup, NM

North Carolina

Durham Technical Community College, Durham, NC

Guilford Technical Community College, Jamestown, NC

Martin Community College, Williamston, NC

Wayne Community College, Goldsboro, NC

Texas

Alamo Community College District, San Antonio, TX (Northwest Vista College, Palo

Alto College, San Antonio College, St Philip's College)

Brookhaven College, Dallas, TX

Coastal Bend College, Beeville, TX

El Paso Community College Distict, El Paso, TX

Galveston College, Galveston, TX

Houston Community College  System, Houston, TX

South Texas Community College, McAllen, TX

Southwest Texas Junior College, Uvalde, TX

Virginia

Danville Community College, Danville, VA

Mountain Empire Community College, Big Stone Gap, VA

Patrick Henry Community College, Martinsville, VA

Paul D Camp Community College, Franklin, VA

Tidewater Community College, Norfolk, VA