Montgomery College Foundation Announces 2013 Innovation Fund and Holy Cross Hospital Fund Winners

The Montgomery College Foundation is pleased to announce the winners of the 2013 Innovation Fund and the Holy Cross Hospital Fund grants. The purpose is to support new and creative initiatives of Montgomery College faculty, staff, students, and administrators that enhance the education of Montgomery College students. The Innovation Fund was established by Montgomery College president Dr. DeRionne Pollard and the generosity of donors such as the Webber Family Foundation and The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation.

To quote Dr. Pollard: "The Innovation Fund is about creating sustainable, systemic, intentional organizational improvements at Montgomery College. Just like a good Fortune 500 company, each project should include creating a cycle of discovery, testing, and scaling up, because a good idea should not just live with one person, one department, or even one campus. If these innovative ideas can make a difference in the lives of our students, enhance their education, and improve services, the Innovation Fund can help."

For the 2013 grant cycle, just over $20,000 was awarded to five winners:

1) Dr. Debra Bright: An award of $3,000 for The Mentoring Project for Women at MC to promote an intergenerational community of women at the college to guide and support our first-year female students.

2) Dr. Eun-Woo Chang: An award of $4,400 for his STEM project for Teaching Certification and Mentorship for Adjunct Faculty.

3) Margaret Latimer: An award of $3,500 for her project called "The Block Party" which will support the students enrolled in a block of developmental courses for the FY'14 academic year.

4) Amina Rahman: An award of $4,830 for the Peer Tutoring project in the Writing, Reading and Language Center to train and certify peer tutors.

5) Tanner Wray: An award of $5,000 for an ethnography and participatory design in the MC Libraries as a way of aligning the college's assessment goals with the library service needed by our students in the 21st Century.

Holy Cross Hospital Fund

Through the generosity of Holy Cross Hospital, a fund has been established with the Montgomery College Foundation to support educational programs that assist students seeking hospital-related jobs, including those in nursing, bioscience, health science, and the technical fields.

A total of $105,000 was awarded during this grant cycle:

1) Corrine Smith: An award of $7,350 for an American Health Information Management Association Virtual Lab

2) Dr. Theodore Tadese: An award of $13,000 for a laboratory capacity expansion for nursing and pre-professional students.

3) Amanda Williams: An award of $14,850 for her development of a Biomedical Careers Pathways Program.

4) Barbara Nubile: An award of $22,483 for the new nursing curriculum for the fall of 2013.

5) Dr. Beverly Walker-Griffea and Uma Ahluwahlia and Resa Levy: An award of $48,000 for tuition and child-care scholarships for citizens participating in the County's Neighborhood Opportunity Network and for the clients of the county's Family Justice Center who wish to pursue credit and noncredit health sciences courses. This will be a collaboration of the county's Health and Human Services Agency, the Family Justice Center, and the College.