| Lumina Foundation Selects Only Brookhaven College from
Dallas Area for Student Success Program |
| Farmers Branch, Dallas, TX • College
is one of only 27 community colleges in five states 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. Brookhaven
College was the only Dallas-area institution selected. |
| Brookhaven College 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 involves 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. |
| 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. Brookhaven College's minority
student enrollment makes up just over 50 percent of the total enrollment
of the college with a student population that is 14.8 percent African-American,
20.5 percent Hispanic, 11.5 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, 0.6 percent
American Indian, and 3.1 percent non resident aliens. |
| According to the reviewers, the colleges
selected are those that most effectively demonstrated a commitment to increasing
student success and best communicated their vision for accomplishing this
at their institutions. |
| Brookhaven College 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. |
| Representatives of Brookhaven College 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, 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. |
| Other colleges selected in Texas are: Alamo
Community College District, San Antonio; Coastal Bend College, Beeville;
El Paso Community College Distict, El Paso; Galveston College, Galveston;
Houston Community College System, Houston; South Texas Community College,
McAllen; and, Southwest Texas Junior College, Uvalde. |
