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GTCC wins national award

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

(Updated 12:34 pm)

Staff Reports

GREENSBORO — GTCC has been awarded the national Leah Meyer Austin Institutional Leadership Award for the school’s initiative to help students from low-income families and students of color succeed.

The award was presented Tuesday during the annual Achieving the Dream Strategy Institute in Charlotte. GTCC became only the second school to win the award. The school received $25,000. The Lumina Foundation for Education in Indianapolis created the award in honor of Austin, a former senior vice-president of the organization. Her visionary leadership helped shape the national Achieving the Dream program, an initiative founded in 2004 to help more community college students succeed.

GTCC also was recognized as one of 21 community colleges in the nation designated as “Leader Colleges” for commitment and progress in the Achieving the Dream principles.

Evaluators have found GTCC has put its focus squarely on identifying effective programs and processes that will lead directly to student success, particularly among higher risk, developmental education students.

The college piloted 15 projects, 11 of which continue today. One of the most productive programs has been GTCC’s reorganized orientation process. The new Student Orientation Advisement and Registration (SOAR) program has enhanced the original one-hour orientation seminar to a more comprehensive three-hour orientation that includes the addition of advising and registration support.

The college also is scaling up pre-placement refresher courses, intensive advisement of entering developmental education students, and case management services for higher-risk developmental education students.

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