Staff report

Paul D. Camp Community College is among 27 community colleges in five states (Florida, New Mexico, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia) 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.

Paul D. Camp 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 is a multi-year initiative funded by Lumina Foundation for Education and involving 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.

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 Paul D. Camp, other colleges selected in Virginia are: Danville Community College, Mountain Empire Community College, Patrick Henry Community College and Tidewater Community College.

Paul D. Camp 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

A core team representing Paul D. Camp 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. Paul D. Camp staff who will be attending include Dr. Doug Boyce, President;

Dr. Maxine Singleton, Vice President of Instruction and Student Development; Dr. Jerry Standahl, Director of Assessment and Institutional Research; Monette Williams, Acting Coordinator of Student Services; and Dr. Carolyn S. Mayfield, Associate Professor, English and Developmental Reading