MetLife Foundation Community College Excellence Award

Three community colleges have been announced as winners of the 2010 MetLife Foundation Community College Excellence Award, which honors the important roles community colleges play in addressing educational, social, and economic needs and opportunities. The winners of the award program, which is administered by Jobs for the Future and sponsored by MetLife Foundation, will each receive a $50,000 grant.

The winning colleges are:

• Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, California for Service to Students. The college has demonstrated a sustained commitment and clear strategies to help larger numbers of students succeed through its Opening Doors to Excellence initiative.  This campus-wide program intervenes with students on academic or progress probation and helps them keep on track toward a degree.
• Clover Park Technical College in Lakewood, Washington for Service to Communities. The college is successfully addressing demographic and economic change in its community through its Brownfields to Green initiative. The program combines environmental mitigation with opportunities for older adults and veterans to retrain for future employment.
• Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey, Illinois for Service Through Innovation. The lack of health care for rural communities inspired Lewis and Clark to develop the Nurse Managed Care program.  This initiative includes mobile care units that reach the underserved and incorporates training for future nurses.

Six other community colleges were named as finalists, and will each receive a $20,000 grant from MetLife Foundation. The finalists in each of the three award categories were:

2010 Winners for Service to Students

• Florence-Darlington Technical College, Florence, SC
• Queensborough Community College, New York, NY

For Service to Community

• Forsyth Technical Community College, Winston-Salem, NC
• North Iowa Area Community College, Mason City, IA

For Service Through Innovation

• Erie Community College, Buffalo, NY
• Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale, VA

Fuller descriptions of the award winners and finalists are included in the award brochure at the top of this page.

JFF administers the MetLife Foundation Community College Excellence Award. The award is given to colleges that are especially effective in helping students from underserved populations to succeed in postsecondary learning.

The MetLife Foundation Community College Excellence Awards were created in 2002 and have been awarded biennially to exemplary institutions, with a focus on recognizing community colleges that contribute to helping less-advantaged youth and adults meet educational and career goals.

Past Winners

2008: The Community College of Baltimore County in Maryland and South Texas College in McAllen, Texas.

2006: Indian River Community College in Fort Pierce, Florida and LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City, New York.

2004: City College of San Francisco and Community College of Denver.

2002: West Hills Community College in California's San Joaquin Valley and Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio.

Partner and Funder
MetLife Foundation

For more information, contact:
Jeff Landis, jlandis@jff.org, 617.728.4446