LVC Awarded American Talent Initiative Grant to Improve College Access and Success for Community College Students

LVC's $250,000 grant will create a partnership with HACC to enable more students to enroll in and graduate from LVC.

Today, Lebanon Valley College is proud to announce that it has been awarded a highly competitive American Talent Initiative (ATI) Grant provided in partnership with the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program and Ithaka S+R, and funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies.

The ATI Fund, which will award $5 million in grants across 16 ATI member institutions, was created to support and expand promising practices that help more students earn a four-year degree. Lebanon Valley College is honored to be among the 16 recipients selected from a pool of 47 applicants, reflecting the College's commitment to fostering an inclusive academic environment where all students can thrive.

Dr. James M. MacLaren, Lebanon Valley College President, and Dr. John J. "Ski" Sygielski, Harrisburg Area Community College President, announced that the American Talent Initiative awarded LVC a $250,000 grant to launch a program to support community college students transferring to LVC. This program will provide an infrastructure that fosters student engagement with an awareness of opportunities at LVC, resulting in more community college students transferring to the College after earning their associate's degree and completing their LVC bachelor's and/or master's degree.

"This generous IDEAS Fund grant from the American Talent Initiative will help us strengthen and improve our strong Pell enrollment and graduation rates," said President MacLaren. "Focusing on clear pathways and strong faculty and administrative support, including a new 'transfer coach' who will work with students beginning when they are enrolled at HACC, we will provide seamless guidance to enroll -and succeed-at LVC." The College's new program is built on these principles:

1. Providing individualized support beginning while a student is enrolled at HACC. This approach will empower transfer students to succeed as they prepare for meaningful careers while attaining their community college and LVC degree or degrees.
2. Hiring a dedicated support person-cross-trained in academic affairs, admissions, and student-who will minimize barriers that students often encounter, ease their transition to LVC, and help them be successful.
3. Allowing students in this program to take one LVC course per semester at no cost while earning their HACC degree to accelerate their timely degree completion and increase their comfort in taking classes on our campus.
4. Meeting the demonstrated financial need of all Pell-eligible students once they transfer to the College to ensure that LVC tuition is affordable.

"LVC eventually will extend the program to other community colleges, inviting them to join us in this critical mission," said Dr. Susan Tammaro, LVC Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs. "The impact of this work will help us improve our understanding of effective practices, and we will share our experiences with other U.S. colleges and universities."

For more information about ATI, please visit their website.

About the American Talent Initiative

The American Talent Initiative (ATI) is a Bloomberg Philanthropies-supported collaboration between the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program, Ithaka S+R, and more than 125 top colleges and universities nationwide committed to enrolling, supporting, and graduating more than 50,000 talented students from lower-income backgrounds by 2025. To realize this milestone, ATI facilitates research, practice-sharing, and communications campaigns around presidential leadership, access and affordability, community college transfer, student veteran engagement, and student success and equity in the academic experience. With this support, members can make measurable progress toward aspirational lower-income student enrollment goals and minimize equity-based graduation gaps by 2025. To learn more about ATI, visit www.americantalentinitiative.org.