NEWS RELEASE
Houston Community College System * North Harris Montgomery Community College District/North Harris College * University of Houston *
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 12, 2005

 

HOUSTON-AREA INSTITUTIONS TAKE FOUR OF SIX
STATE STAR AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE IN ‘CLOSING THE GAPS’

HOUSTON, October 12, 2005—Four Houston-area institutions for higher learning are among the six recipients of the prestigious Star Award given annually by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

The schools, and their award-winning programs, are the Houston Community College’s Graduates and Completers Program, the North Harris Montgomery Community College District-North Harris College’s Summer Bridge Program, the University of Houston’s Center for Mexican American Studies and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston representing the Gulf Coast Consortia/Keck Center.

“Houston and Harris County really are the models for the state for closing the gaps in Texas higher education,” Laurie Bricker, a member of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board from Houston, said. “It is vital that we continue to improve the rate of college participation and success if our state wants to offer a competitively educated workforce. That improvement begins with models of excellence such as these Houston-area Star Award winners.”

The awards were announced as part of the Coordinating Board’s 2005 Governing Boards Conference for higher education regents and trustees, who oversee universities and colleges. This year, the conference focused on improving excellence in higher education – one of the four goals of the state’s Closing the Gaps by 2015 higher education plan. The plan aims to close the gap between Texas’ college-going rate and that of other states and to increase minority participation in higher education. According to state figures, less than 6 percent of the state’s population is enrolled in higher education, which is lower than a decade ago. Without a concerted effort to reverse that trend, the state predicts that by the year 2015 less than 5 percent of the projected population will be enrolled in higher education. The Star Award was established to recognize exemplary contributions toward closing educational gaps within the state’s educational systems.

“The winners represent the state’s most effective efforts for closing the education gaps that challenge our state,” Commissioner of Higher Education Raymund A. Paredes said. “The Coordinating Board is proud to recognize the people and the institutions that develop and implement these programs.”
The 2005 Star Award winners include:

Houston Community College System – Graduates and Completers Project uses six strategies to increase the number of graduates and other completers from 2,025 in 2000-01 to 6,144 in 2003-04. The strategies include degree audits and related assistance to help students take the courses needed for graduation; degree completion fairs; a twice-a-year Student Success Week focusing on advising, transcript evaluation, and graduation applications; identifying and advising students who have completed core courses; a process allowing students to transfer back equivalent courses taken within three years of enrollment in the system; and a focus on resolving individual students’ graduation problems.

North Harris Montgomery Community College District-North Harris College – Summer Bridge Program provides an intensive three weeks of developmental education to high school graduates who need improved reading, writing, and math skills. Students have links to faculty and staff mentors, access to grants for pay for textbooks, and $100 scholarships on successful completion. Summer Bridge success rates are much higher than for traditional 16-week courses, i.e. 84.4 percent compared to 44.3 percent in a math course and 98.8 percent compared to 62.3 percent in an English course. In 2004-2005, 48 percent were first in their families to attend college. The program has been extended to Kingwood, Montgomery, Tomball and Cy-Fair Colleges.

University of Houston – Center for Mexican American Studies is a diverse spectrum of programs that promotes preparation for college, student recruitment, students’ transition from high school to college, financial and academic support for undergraduate students, and career counseling. Approximately 86 percent of participating high school students enroll in higher education, and are much more successful in college than non-participants. For example, the college graduation rate for participating students is 76 percent, compared to 39 percent for all other Hispanic students at the institution.

The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston – Gulf Coast Consortia/Keck Center. The Gulf Coast Consortia, one of the largest inter-institutional cooperatives in the world, brings together the strengths of Houston/Galveston-area academic medical research institutions and universities to build interdisciplinary collaborative research teams and training programs at the frontiers of biomedical sciences. The W. M. Keck Center for Interdisciplinary Bioscience Training – the training arm of the consortia – supports more than 60 trainees and has more than 200 affiliated training faculty with five joint training programs. This collaborative effort also allows consortia members to more successfully obtain federal science and engineering research funding. Members include The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Baylor College of Medicine, Rice University, and the University of Houston.

A nine-member committee consisting of Coordinating Board members, state community leaders and out-of-state education experts selected the State Award winners from a pool of 58 applications. The panel selected 10 finalists earlier this year.

This year’s winners also include Texas A&M University-Commerce – Navarro College Partnership and The University of Texas at El Paso – UTEP Model Institutions for Excellence Initiative.

For information on the Houston Community College’s Graduates and Completers Program, contact Charles Cook, Vice Chancellor of Educational Development, at 713.718.5042.

For information on the North Harris Montgomery Community College District-North Harris College Summer Bridge Program, contact Linda Luehrs Wolfe, Associate Vice Chancellor for Curriculum and Instruction, at 832.813.6504.

For information on the University of Houston Center for Mexican American Studies contact Brooke Durbin, Director for P-16 Outreach and Planning, at 713.743.1846.

For information on the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston Gulf Coast Consortia/Keck Center, contact David Gorenstein, Associate Dean for Research, 409.772.2402.

For more information about UH visit the university’s ‘Newsroom’ at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom.