NRCC History Book

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Fall 2018. A second $500,000 endowment was given by the NRV Health Foundation for nursing scholarships the following year. In 2019 Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation provided $4,800 in grant funds to address food insecurity. NRCC’s food pantry was supported by the NRCC Educational Foundation, and the new grant funds supplemented the existing program and helped continue serving students’ needs. Access to Community College Education (ACCE) In Fall 2013, administrators, foundation board members, school board members, and board of supervisors from Giles County began discussions with NRCC about forming a Tuition Promise Program. Funded by the locality and private donations, this partnership would allow high school graduates in Giles County who met program guidelines to attend NRCC tuition free for two years. Participating students would be required to perform 80 hours of community service in the county and meet other requirements. These early discussions led to the Access to Community College Education (ACCE) partnership which would provide free tuition to all students in NRCC’s service region by the end of the decade. In the spring of 2015, students in Giles County were informed of the ACCE program, and 67 students applied for Fall Semester 2015. The first group of ACCE students included 36 high school graduates--11 from Narrows High School and 25 from Giles High School. The remaining students who applied received full financial aid and did not need ACCE support. Before fall semester began, many students completed over half of their 80 hours of required community service. Bridget Meneghini, an NRCC connection

specialist from Giles County, provided student services support to these students. The ACCE program was a tremendous success in Giles County and has been in place since 2015. An annual fund-raising event to support ACCE in Giles County is the Muddy ACCE 5K Race at Glen Lyn Park. The inaugural race, held on October 1, 2016, had 325 participants and raised $85,000. After the success of ACCE in Giles County, Angie Covey, executive director of NRCC’s Educational Foundation, and her staff continued to promote ACCE to the remaining four localities in the service region. A video highlighting ACCE students, their classes, and community service experiences publicized the ACCE program in the NRV. Floyd County and the City of Radford enrolled their first ACCE students in Fall 2017, with Montgomery County following in Fall 2018. Pulaski County enrolled its first students in 2020. The Second Strategic Plan Achieve 2015, the second strategic plan for Virginia’s community colleges, was proposed in 2009 with goals covering five strategic areas: (1) access, (2) affordability, (3) student success, (4) workforce, and (5) resources. The five strategic areas were identified by the re-engineering taskforce appointed by Chancellor DuBois in 2009 and served as a guide to community colleges as they faced both unprecedented enrollment surges and state funding cuts. The goals included: (1) Access: Increase the number of individuals who are educated and trained by Virginia’s community colleges by 50,000 to an annual total of 423,000, with emphasis

Chapter 2