Funding roundup

A rendition of how Columbus State Community College's new hospitality management and culinary arts building will look when it opens. (Image: CSCC)

Columbus State Community College (CCSC) announced this week that Cameron Mitchell Restaurants has pledged $2.5 million toward the college’s fundraising efforts for its planned 2019 new hospitality management and culinary arts building.

CSCC’s $33 million Discovery District gateway project will be funded by a $10 million philanthropic campaign, $10 million in state capital funding and project financing secured by the college. Columbus State is also working with the City of Columbus on aligned streetscape, utilities and parking improvements in support of the project.

“It is an incredible honor to give back to the community that has embraced our company for 25 years and provided the foundation for thousands of our associates to build meaningful and rewarding hospitality careers,” said Cameron Mitchell, CEO and founder of Cameron Mitchell Restaurants. “This project will elevate Columbus State’s already outstanding programs to a level consistent with Columbus’ growing reputation as a culinary and hospitality center.”

CSCC will name the building Mitchell Hall in recognition of Mitchell’s donation and partnership with the school and his full support and chairmanship of the philanthropic campaign.

The new building “will serve as a new front door to Columbus State and a development driver in the Discovery District’s ‘Creative Campus’ neighborhood,” said College President David Harrison. “We are proud to take our service to the community to the next level by introducing this asset, which will offer significant benefits to the public.”

Groundbreaking is planned this spring with completion in fall 2019.

Alabama

Wallace Community College–Dothan (WCCD) received $3,500 from the USPOULTRY Foundation and given in part by Wayne Farms. The grant, which is intended to grow student interest in poultry science, will fund an interactive Poultry Science Expo on the Wallace Campus in April.

Poultry is big business in Alabama, accounting for more than 44,000 jobs statewide. WCCD partners with Auburn University on a 2+2 program, where students attend WCCD their freshman and sophomore years and transfer to Auburn’s Poultry Science School for their junior and senior years.

Arizona

Pima Community College is using a $1.32 million Veterans Upward Bound grant to provide free services to help separating military personnel and veterans succeed in college. The five-year grant comes from the U.S. Department of Education. The goal of Veterans Upward Bound is to serve 125 eligible first-generation/low-income veterans. PCC will help participants build critical skills, and provide opportunities for personal development, training and educational advancement.

California

DeAnza College is moving forward with an ambitious storytelling project with the help of a $20,000 grant from California Humanities. DeAnza’s “1500 Stories” project will use interviews and community meetings to produce digital video, photo and audio stories about life at different economic levels in Silicon Valley and the United States.

“I see this project as an empathy-generating machine. The idea is to tell the stories we don’t always hear,” said sociology department chair Jennifer Myhre.

Santa Rosa Junior College has received a five-year, $650,000 National Science Foundation grant that will provide 60 students with academic support and scholarships in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (S-STEM) fields. The new STEM MILES (Mentoring Innovative Learning Experiences for Students) scholarship program seeks to increase the number of low-income, academically talented students in STEM and to improve the education of future scientists and engineers.  Included in the grant is a study on the impact of identified factors or evidence-based curricular and co-curricular activities and their effect on the success, retention, transfer, academic and career pathways, and graduation in STEM of low-income students.

“In designing the STEM MILES program, we hope to provide community college students with the high-touch, focused faculty advising model typically found at smaller private four-year institutions of higher education. We hope to demonstrate that the same results are possible in a community college setting,” said Jan Kmetko, the program’s lead principal investigator.

Mississippi

Coahoma Community College (CCC) and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (MGCCC) will benefit from a $900,000 grant from the Woodward Hines Education Foundation to Achieving the Dream (ATD). The grant enables the two colleges to join the ATD network.

New Jersey

Raritan Valley Community College (RVCC) received a $34,000 grant from NORWESCAP, a nonprofit social service agency. The grant establishes the NORWESCAP Legacy Fund, which will provide emergency support for students enrolled at RVCC and help to defray the cost of rent, food, car repairs, child care or other basic needs. A student may receive a maximum of $500 a year.

Pennsylvania

BC3 President Nick Neupauer (left) with former state Sen. Tim Shaffer. (Photo: BC3)

Butler County Community College (B3) is celebrating a $1 million gift from former state Sen. Tim Shaffer that will help to expand BC3’s registered nursing program and will create the Shaffer School of Nursing and Allied Health.

The college has plans for a $10 million state-of-the-art nursing and allied health facility, which will carry Shaffer’s name, that will include skills laboratories, simulated hospital rooms and architectural accoutrements to mirror those found in high-tech healthcare settings. Shaffer’s donation adds to a $1 million donation from Janice Phillips Larrick received in September.

Utah

SLCC President Deneece G. Huftalin and Kenworth Sales President Kyle Treadway at Kenworth’s West Valley City facility. (Photo: SLCC)

In Utah, Salt Lake Community College’s new Westpointe Workforce Training & Education Center landed a nice investment: $400,000 from Kenworth Sales Company. The funds could be earmarked for additional equipment or scholarships for students attending classes at Westpointe, a $43 million, 121,000-square-foot facility that will open this fall.

Kenworth President Kyle Treadway was on a tour of the Westpointe facility when he decided his company needed to invest in the students who will soon be training there, and particularly in the diesel technician program.

“I saw their commitment and said, ‘I can get behind that. I can commit when I see that there are others going in the same direction,’” Treadway said. “I could see that it was a serious facility geared toward current technology – and that’s what we are lacking.”

About the Author

Tabitha Whissemore
Tabitha Whissemore is a contributor to Community College Daily and managing editor of AACC's Community College Journal.
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