Bunker Hill Community College Earns Grant to Expand Higher Education Access for Latinos
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC) has received a $200,000 Vision Project Performance Incentive Fund grant from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education for a project designed to help greater numbers of underserved Latino students attend college and complete their degrees. Latinos comprise 23 percent of the BHCC student population.
“This project, Latino Student Success: Building Pathways from High School to Baccalaureate, will help us develop a more coherent higher education pathway for our Latino students. We are excited to begin this work,” said BHCC President Pam Eddinger.
The grant brings together BHCC, Chelsea High School, UMass Boston and local community-based organizations to collaborate on greater engagement of Latino students and their families, career and educational planning, community-based and experiential learning and aligned and accelerated curricular pathways. In addition, Latino Studies Program faculty at UMass Boston will work with BHCC faculty to integrate Latino studies into the College’s curricula.
Director of Learning Communities Liya Escalera will serve as team leader for BHCC; Lorna Rivera, associate professor of Women's and Gender Studies and director of Latino Studies, will serve as UMass Boston’s team leader for the project. “We’re eager to increase the number of Latino students from Chelsea who successfully complete college degrees,” said Mary M. Bourque, Ed.D., Superintendent of Chelsea Public Schools.
The Vision Project is a Massachusetts Department of Higher Education initiative. Its goal is to help create the best educated citizenry and workforce in the nation. Funded in FY 2012, the Vision Project Performance Incentive Fund is a competitive grant program that supports public campuses in creating or strengthening programs intended to advance Vision Project goals, including college participation, college completion, student learning, workforce alignment, preparing citizens and eliminating disparities among students from different ethnic, racial, gender and income groups.
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About Bunker Hill Community College
With more than 50 years of academic excellence, Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC) is Massachusetts' largest community college, annually welcoming a diverse community of around 16,000 students. With campuses in Charlestown and Chelsea, BHCC extends its reach across several locations in Greater Boston. The College offers associate degrees and certificates, early college and dual enrollment, community education, corporate training, and industry-specific training programs. BHCC is celebrated for its diversity, boasting a student body where 65% identify as people of color and more than half are women. The College also embraces a global perspective, with over 600 international students representing 90 countries and conversing in more than 65 languages. Our commitment to diversity is further reflected in BHCC's designation as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) and an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI).