NPCC competing for $ 1M
National Park Community College is one of 120 community colleges nationwide selected to compete for the $ 1 million 2013 Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence.
Sally Carder, NPCC president, said Monday that NPCC joins the College of the Ouachitas in Malvern and Arkansas State University- Beebe as the three Arkansas schools nominated for the prestigious prize.
According to an institute press release, the Aspen Prize is funded by America Achieves, Bank of
America Charitable Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Joyce Foundation, Jpmorgan Chase Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation and Lumina Foundation for Education.
The Aspen College Excellence Program “aims to identify and replicate campus- wide practices that significantly improve college student outcomes.”
Carder said she was notified of the nomination on Thursday and the application for the award is due May 25. The winner will be announced in March 2013.
She said the Aspen In- stitute is, “an international, nonprofit organization, and it is dedicated to fostering leadership, the appreciation of timeless ideas and values and open- minded dialogue on contemporary issues.”
“It’s for innovative ideas, and I’m sure we were selected because of our involvement in Achieving the Dream,” she said, adding she isn’t certain who nominated the college for the award.
Carder said the college is in its fifth year of the Achieving the Dream Grant.
“We’ve completely changed the culture of our decision- making,” she said. “We base decisions about our resources, about our instructional delivery, about our technology on data as opposed to opinions.”
She said through this process, the college has “drastically increased our student retention and our student graduation.”
“We’ve become more student- oriented and more success- oriented,” she said.
According to a press release, the Aspen Institute identified the 120 community colleges – 10 percent of all institutions – using a quantitative formula that assesses per- formance and improvement in four areas: graduation rates, degrees awarded, student retention rates and equity in student outcomes.
The release states the application submitted must demonstrate that NPCC delivers exceptional student results, uses data to drive decisions and continually improves over time.
Carder said the college is, “just excited to be nominated.”
“Out of 1,200 community colleges, there are only 31 states with nominees,” she said. “It’s just a really big honor to be nominated.”
Carder said if the college were to be selected for the award, her recommendation would be to use the funds for improving technological resources on campus.
“We could use those funds for a multitude of things, but right now, what we would do would be dedicate them to resources to ensure our students succeed,” she said. “There are all kinds of technology needs; technology is expensive.”
The release states NPCC and 119 other community colleges will be pared down to between eight and 10 finalists in September based on criteria of how much students learn, how many complete their programs on time and how well students do in the job market after graduating.
Those college finalists will receive site visits in the fall. The prize jury, cochaired by John Engler, president of Business Roundtable, former Michigan governor, and former president of the National Association of Manufacturers, and Richard Riley, former South Carolina governor and United States Secretary of Education, will select a grand prize winner and four runners- up.