Durham Tech Receives $100,000 Grant for software to help students stay on track

A commitment to learning is pervasive in Durham.  Aside from the well known universities in Durham, Durham Technical Community College is also here, and it is both a gateway for some on the path to a four year degree, as well as a destination for those seeking certificates and a less traditional secondary education path.  The latter just got a big leg up.

Dr. Bill Ingram, president of Durham Technical Community College, announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded the college a $100,000 grant through its Market Acceleration for Integrated Planning and Advising Services (IPAS) initiative, to help students get – and stay – on track. The grant will provide a student success plan (SSP) software system and implementation funds to support the college’s continuing efforts aimed at student retention, persistence, and goal completion.

According to Ingram, “As a result of the college’s long-standing involvement with and work in Achieving the Dream, Durham Tech has made significant progress in student success, involving numerous campus stakeholders in supporting at-risk student populations, including low-income, minority, and first-generation college students. The IPAS grant will help us expand academic planning, counseling, and coaching, as well as facilitate risk targeting and intervention.”

Dr. Thomas Gould, dean and department head of Arts, Sciences, and University Transfer, adds, “The new software will give students direct access to the planning system, which will enable them to chart, develop, and assess comprehensive and accurate individual academic plans – a personal road map – as they navigate from registering for their first classes all the way to graduation. IPAS will also provide Durham Tech faculty and staff with access to new data sources to facilitate the advising and registration processes and provide more timely support interventions.”

“The SSP software will provide an organized, centralized, and accessible means to manage student educational pathways. IPAS will be our GPS for student success,” explains Ingram. “This is a college-wide collaborative effort aimed at student success and completion.”

Learn about all of Durham's educational institutions online.

Wide-Eyed and Learning

There's a moment  - a really special one - when a kid learns something.  It's usually obvious because their eyes go saucer big in wonder.  It's a moment worth savoring.

Durham is home to a plethora of places to learn, and one in particular probably gets more than its fair share of the aforementioned moments.  It's probably no small coincidence that it's called the Schoolhouse of Wonder.

The school calls itself "a consortium of lifelong learners," and maintains a focus on nature as a subject, backdrop for learning and a source for capturing the moments when learning is most exciting.  The school also runs camps throughout the year based on a variety of school schedules and has other programs that might be of interest to those homeschooling their children.  Programs are targeted by age group and kids aged 5 through 12 are best suited.

The school is run at the West Point on the Eno city park and is funded in part by fees and in part by community support.  Like many other non-profit organizations, the school has been hit hard by the economy.  They are hosting a fund raiser on Sunday, October 23.  Details are here.

UNC System Approves NCCU’s Doctorate Program in Biosciences

North Carolina Central University in Durham received final approval today from the University of North Carolina Board of Governors to introduce a doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.) program in integrated biosciences. The university will now begin recruiting students to enter the program in fall 2012, and would award its degrees four years later. They would be the first Ph.D.s awarded by the university in more than 50 years.

The interdisciplinary doctorate will be offered on two tracks, biomedical sciences and pharmaceutical sciences. The program will be housed in the College of Science and Technology, but will draw also on the resources of NCCU’s Julius L. Chambers Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute (JLC–BBRI), the Biomanufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprise (BRITE) and the School of Library and Information Sciences. The curriculum will include offerings from the life sciences, physical sciences, computation and information sciences, pharmaceutical sciences and mathematics.

“Our Ph.D. in integrated biosciences is consistent with the UNC Tomorrow initiative, our own mission, and our strengths in health disparities research and biotechnology,” said NCCU Chancellor Charlie Nelms.  “All 32 faculty engaged in the program have earned terminal degrees from some of the best research universities in the nation, and we have constructed nearly 150,000 square feet of state-of-the-art science space in the last 12 years.”

Research involving health disparities — the gaps between the health status of the nation’s racial and ethnic minorities compared with the population as a whole — has been explicitly part of the mission of BBRI since it opened in 1999, and a key focus of other NCCU science and public health programs for decades.

Shepherding the program to fruition was the NCCU dean of graduate studies, Dr. Chanta Haywood. “There is a diverse population of extremely bright students who want to be leaders in health disparities research,” Haywood said.  “As graduate dean, I’m confident that we’ll attract them to our program.”

NCCU expects the program to reach an enrollment of about 20 full-time students in its fourth year of operation, and to graduate about five per year. An additional aim of the program is to expand the number of minority scientists, particularly African-Americans, in biomedical research. A recent report by the National Science Foundation noted that African-Americans make up about 12 percent of the U.S. population, but account for only 3 percent of the work force of scientists and engineers.

NCCU had a doctoral program in the mid-20th century that was short-lived but historically significant. From 1955 to 1964, five people earned the Ph.D. from the institution then known as North Carolina College at Durham, all in the field of education. The degree received in 1955 by Walter M. Brown, a future dean of the NCCU School of Education, was the first Ph.D. awarded by a historically black college or university in the United States.

Founded in 1910, North Carolina Central University was the first publicly supported liberal arts college for African-Americans.  Today, this dynamic campus has a diverse student body of 8,300 enrolled in academic programs including law, biotechnology, library science, business, nursing, education and the arts.