As part of yesterday’s
State of the University address, SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher announced the projects that will be funded through the system’s investment fund. Applications to the fund were limited to four-year colleges, but these institutions were strongly encouraged to partner with community colleges. Proposals needed to focus on projects that would promote increased access, success, and completion within SUNY.
The Chancellor’s announcement of the awards meant very good news for The College at Brockport and SUNY Geneseo, and thus, for MCC, since we had been selected as their own community college partner in several projects with wonderful potential for our students at every point in their degree pathways. The following proposals were funded:
* Critical Language Consortium – Geneseo (lead), Brockport, and MCC will pilot a course-sharing model across the three institutions to increase student access to critical language courses in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian.
* Honors Transfer Path Program – Geneseo (lead) and MCC will collaborate to create new opportunities for articulation for honors students and for professional development for honors faculty.
* Rochester Integrated SUNY Excels (RISE) Network – Brockport (lead) will partner with its REOC and MCC to create a strategic integration of the expertise, programs, and services of Rochester’s SUNY institutions to better serve our community and increase college readiness and access.
MCC is also part of a funded project that includes 25 SUNY colleges: Smart Track to Re-Enroll to Complete. The goal is to leverage information from loan services on student stop-outs/drop-outs. SUNY will use this information to reach out and encourage re-enrollment.
In working on these proposals, we started to see the relationships across our colleges anew and saw the potential to do more—together—to provide opportunity for our students and increase their likelihood of success and graduation. What you see here is just the beginning of a renewed commitment to strengthening these pathways, and I thank Brockport President Heidi Macpherson and Geneseo President Denise Battles for their leadership and partnership.
Share your perspective on the potential opportunities these projects hold for our students on the
blog.