2008 PROGRAM ENHANCEMENT        GRANTS AWARDED ON CAMPUS

The CCCC Educational Foundation funds innovative projects on campus through an annual competitive grant process. Since 1994, the College Foundation has provided $160,000 in seed money for some 107 different initiatives on campus through this special grant program. 

Music Practice Room Equipment - $680, Nancy Willets

Music courses at CCCC now include guitar, jazz ensemble, and select chorus.  In the planning are two courses in piano.  The numbers of students involved in these courses has steadily increased over the past few years.  We are now providing music students access to a practice room upstairs in the Tilden Arts Center, where they may practice their instruments in preparation for class work and ensemble meetings.  This grant is for the purchase of four electric keyboards with headphones and stands for student use.  Our music offerings are growing.  As we continue to reach out to our local high school students, offering a viable music program with the expected areas for study and practice is a necessity.  We believe that having piano equipment for the students to utilize will attract a wider, more diverse student population.  It is also our belief that retention will improve if students are actively engaged in our music classes and extracurricular music activities. .

English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Tutor Training Across Academic Areas - $3,000, Diane West 

Cape Cod has a large community of non-native English speakers.  More and more of these ESOL students are pursuing their education goals at CCCC.  Each academic year there are students enrolled in non-credit ESOL programs through the ACCCESS program in Hyannis and in West Barnstable credit courses in English as a Second Language (ESL) as well as non-native speakers enrolled in other credit courses.   Combined, there are approximately 750 students identified as non-native speakers of English and 37 foreign students enrolled.   There are a few trained ESOL tutors in the Tutoring Center, but they are all English/Writing/Reading tutors.  This project is to train tutors from all academic areas on tutoring ESOL students.  Very often, the ESOL student is seeking help in a science or math or other-than-English subject, but the difficulty is the language.  All tutors being trained in helping ESOL students will improve academic support services to this growing group of students here at CCCC.  An ESOL tutor training class is proposed for all tutors on campus (from the Tutoring Center as well as from the several other support programs on CCCC’s campus).   This improved academic support for ESOL students will improve their success in all their academic pursuits. 

Nontraditional Career Day - $2,000, Maria Sastre

The first “Nontraditional Career Day” was held at CCCC on June 3, 2008 as part of the College’s effort to promote equitable opportunities in education. The program’s goal is to reach middle school students in the service region to increase awareness of gender as an aspect of diversity and to support nontraditional by gender career choices such as a male nurse or female firefighter.  The grant will help fund the June, 2009 event.  The Program involves students, educators, and parents, as well as high school and college student mentors.  This event increases awareness of gender as a facet of diversity and understanding of the effects of gender stereotyping, and encourages and supports interests and career choices that might not be considered because they are nontraditional by gender and yet might be personally gratifying and lead to economically sustainable occupations.  

Honors Colloquium: Mind Body Connections: Implications for Sustaining Optimal Health in a Challenging World - $2,000,      Marcy Smith
The Honors Colloquium is a team-taught, interdisciplinary seminar course addressing timely, global issues in a learning community.  The Honors Program provides students with opportunities to enrich their learning experiences, pursue independent research, develop critical thinking skills, and prepare for advancement to the Commonwealth Honors Program.  This colloquium will offer students an interdisciplinary perspective on sustaining optimal health incorporating the most current information from the fields of neuroscience, behavioral medicine, psychology and health and fitness, incorporating global implications.  Students will learn to evaluate primary source material, develop research skills, create a course project for exhibition locally and on the state level, participate in course related field trips and other extra learning experiences designed to stimulate and reinforce concepts of the course.

Organic Gardening at CCCC - $1,500, Stephanie Brady, Connie Marr

Cape Cod Community College is a national leader in Sustainability.  In addition to our LEED certified building, our recycling and composting program, paper reduction initiative and our dynamic academic environmental technology program, this grant will start an organic garden program on four raised beds near the front of the greenhouse on campus.  In collaboration with the Environmental Technology program, the Students for Sustainability, Project Forward, and the CCCC Culinary Arts Program, the garden will provide hands-on learning as well as food for our culinary arts program, students, staff and faculty.  Besides being a learning tool for the students, with the food locally produced it reduces our carbon footprint.  

 

Scholars for Service Learning - $750, John French

Funds to encourage new faculty to develop and deliver courses with Service Learning components that send CCCC students into the community to volunteer in various places with different organizations and groups.  The unique part of Service Learning is that there are two components that are “win/win” for the college.  The students volunteer and gain from that experience alone, plus they also tie what they have experienced in the community with the work they are doing in their classroom.  This project will foster the educational process of the student, introduce or immerse them to the different cultures that we have on the Cape, and at the same time bring what they have learned to the campus and throughout our community at large.