UC awarded $50,000 grant to advance student success
University of Cincinnati to use community-university partnership grant to streamline high school-to-college transition for CPS students
As public universities aim to develop new strategies to improve student success, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU) today awarded a grant to the University of Cincinnati supporting the piloting and scaling of university-community partnerships focused on advancing student success.
The grants, known as Collaborative Opportunity Grants, are supported with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and will support the institutions’ efforts to leverage community partnerships as a means of improving students’ access to, success in, and completion of college.
“We are honored to be among the select universities in the nation to receive this generous grant from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities,” says Larry Johnson, dean of UC’s College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services, or CECH. “With this grant, we take another step in bolstering our valued partnership with Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS). At UC and CECH, we believe in the transformative power of education, and therefore we are proudly committed to strengthening our public school system. This grant allows us the tremendous opportunity to enhance our community partnership and further lean into our university’s Next Lives Here mission to become CPS Strong.”
UC is collaborating with CPS to create an integrated engagement environment for students transitioning from high school to college. Rather than treating the senior year of high school and the first year of college as two distinct experiences, the effort will help harmonize college transition programs in CPS and at UC. The new joint initiative will help students prepare for and adjust to college by cultivating a sense of community, building shared understandings, and integrating and bolstering support systems
“The institutions being awarded grants are working to tackle the obstacles facing students with innovative and dynamic new approaches,” said Shari Garmise, Vice President of APLU’s Office of Urban Initiatives. “As these institutions have shown, tackling challenges is often most effectively done through partnerships with other community stakeholders that bring added resources and insights. And we’re finding that substantial student success gains can be achieved through that collaboration.”
Four of the eight institutions awarded grants are receiving initial funding from APLU and USU to advance community-university partnerships that improve student success. After being awarded initial Collaborative Opportunity Grants in 2017, the other four institutions are receiving additional funding to expand and enhance projects they already have underway. All eight institutions will each receive $50,000 to collaborate, accelerate, and improve implementation efforts. They will also receive support and resources from APLU and USU to scale their efforts.
In addition to having to collaborate with an external partner and align with investment priorities, the grantees had to show that their program is an emerging approach to student success and demonstrate that their institution has capacity to sustain and scale the effort. The grantees also had to outline a quantitative and qualitative assessment plan to track the program’s efficacy.
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