Provost Brenda Allen
Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) has been selected by the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) to receive a $100,000 Walmart Minority Student Success Award grant to support the university’s continuing efforts to provide additional academic assistance for first-generation college students.
WSSU was one of only 14 minority-serving institutions in the nation selected by IHEP to receive a grant and the only institution from in North Carolina. The award, made possible by a $4.2 million grant to IHEP from the Walmart Foundation, is aimed at increasing and enhancing efforts to enroll, retain and graduate first-generation college students.
“Winston-Salem State is honored to be selected as one of just several institutions nationwide to receive the Walmart Minority Student Success Awards,” said Dr. Brenda Allen, WSSU provost. “This award will enable us to expand our work with first-generation students, which is such an important part of the university’s efforts to move in new directions to support student success, while maintaining our mission and heritage as an HBCU (Historically Black College and University) of providing access to higher education for minority students.”
The Walmart grant will support a project designed to increase academic success in the first years of college so that students are prepared to enter and succeed in any major. The project will place special emphasis on students entering majors in the health and allied sciences. It will focus on increasing the number of first-generation students from the freshman class each year who are retained in good academic standing and who graduate from the university within five years.
“We see a great many first-generation college students come to WSSU underprepared in the sciences, mathematics and reading,” Allen explained. “They often struggle and quite frequently never graduate. This is an unacceptable outcome for our students and also for economic development in the communities these students represent. We must provide the academic support necessary to ensure that these students are able to succeed.”
In addition to the work done on the WSSU campus, university representatives will be attending the annual IHEP Summer Academy, where they will be able to work with representatives from other minority-serving institutions to share ideas on how better to serve first-generation college students and also to develop partnerships with these other colleges and universities.
“The institutions in our 2010 Minority Student Success cohort broaden and deepen the pool of minority-serving institutions committed to ensuring the success of the first-generation student both at their campuses and beyond,” said Michelle Asha Cooper, Ph.D., president of IHEP. “We are pleased to be working with them on programs that are sure to serve as models to all of higher education.”
“At Walmart, we understand that education is critical to the lives and well-being of all Americans. We’re proud to support giving that enables the success of first-generation college students,” said Walmart Foundation President Margaret McKenna.
