Gateway One of 24 Colleges in the Nation Selected to Receive Inaugural Round of First in the World Program Grants

During a national conference call U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, announced that Gateway Community & Technical College is one of only 24 institutions of higher education nationwide selected to receive the very first round of grant awards as part of the First in the World Program administered by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education.

The First in the World Grant Competition was created to seek out proposals for unique and innovative strategies that would help increase national postsecondary graduation rates. Gateway proposed to integrate evidence-based strategies that, within one streamlined framework, will seamlessly deliver three interventions to a target population of degree-seeking students who have at least one developmental need. Through its Flexible Learning and Exploration space (FLEXspace) project, Gateway will address the specific challenges that community colleges face related to access, engagement and completion of underprepared, underrepresented and low-income students.

The announcement of Gateway's $3.6 million, four-year grant, along with that of the other 23 institutions awarded, occurred during a nation-wide conference call at 1:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, September 30. At that time, Dr. Ed Hughes was one of three college presidents in the country to discuss the award and highlighted Gateway's project, bringing national attention to the college.

After receiving nearly 500 applications from around the country, were excited to announce Gateway Community & Technical College will receive a First in the World grant, funded for the first time this year, said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

The grant competition was open to all institutions of higher education so Gateway's application was evaluated and selected from a pool of both two-year colleges and four-year universities. In addition, Gateway is the only college awarded in Kentucky and Ohio.

Each grantee demonstrated a high-quality, creative and sound approach to expand college access and improve student outcomes, U.S. Secretary Duncan continued. We are confident these projects will have a positive impact on increasing access and completion and help us reach President Obamas 2020 goal, to once again have the highest share of college graduates in the world.

Gateway is thrilled to be part of this national initiative and to be working toward this goal in the company of such outstanding educational institutions as Purdue University in Indiana and Hampton University in Virginia, said Gateway President Dr. Ed Hughes. Im pleased that our talented faculty and staff are being recognized for their innovative approach to creating active learning environments that we believe will increase student completion. While we will create an Information Learning Commons on each of our campuses that centralizes student learning support services in a high tech but user-friendly approach assisting faculty and staff to be even more engaging and active facilitators of student learning is the real key. We are beyond thrilled to have this unique opportunity to build on our innovative learning approaches.