MCC Awarded $1.1 Million Student Support Services TRIO Program Grant
Manchester, Conn. (August 21, 2015) Manchester Community College has received a total of $1.1 million in annual funding over the next five years through a renewable Student Support Services TRIO Program grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
Student Support Services TRIO provides a centralized, structured student development and retention program for students as they work toward earning a degree. The TRIO staff advises and mentors first-generation and/or students with financial need, as well as students with disabilities.
“MCC’s TRIO program staff will serve as ongoing advocates for students to support their college success,” according to G. Duncan Harris, dean of student affairs and enrollment management. “The federal Student Support Services TRIO Program has continuously exceeded its annual targeted goals of achieving excellent persistence, grade point averages, and transfer and graduation outcomes for its participants.”
One of MCC’s strengths in competing for the grant was its existing support programs, such as the Student Training and Academic Retention Service (STARS), a program for recent high school graduates transitioning to college; Foundations in Retention, Success and Transition (FIRST), which is committed to providing students with the support needed to have a successful first semester through the use of the learning-community model; and Adults in Transition (AIT), which is designed to help non-traditional age students to start or re-start a college career as smoothly and successfully as possible.
The college’s support programs help provide academic tutoring in reading, writing, study skills, mathematics, science and other subjects; advice and assistance in course selection; assistance with information on the full range of student financial aid programs, benefits and resources for locating public and private scholarships, as well as help in completing financial aid applications.
The new funding will enable MCC to substantially increase the size of its current level of support, according to Jason Scappaticci, director, Student Success and First Year Programs.
“The towns served by MCC are home to numerous eligible students,” he said. “With this funding, we will be able to provide more of them with expanded support and resources to attain their degrees. The program will be able to increase its scope by 50 to 75 percent.”
Dr. Gena Glickman, MCC president, added, “It is exciting to be one of only a few colleges to be awarded first-time funding. The TRIO grant, which we can continue to reapply for after each five-year cycle, enables us to provide much broader resources to help students reach their goal of a college degree.”
About TRIO: The federal TRIO program emerged out of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, in response to the Johnson administration’s War on Poverty. In 1968, Student Support Services was authorized by the Higher Education Amendments and became the third in a trio of original programs in the series including Upward Bound and the Educational Talent Search Program, which is now called the TRIO Educational Opportunity Programs. By the late 1960s, the term TRIO was formally adopted to describe these three original federal educational programs. Since that time, the Ronald McNair Scholarship program, the Veteran’s Upward Bound program, and the Educational Opportunity Centers (EOC) program have been added to the TRIO programs.
