Education Department Grant: Pitt-Bradford Receives $2.6 Million to Help Students Succeed From Their First Year
The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford (Pitt-Bradford), in Bradford, Pennsylvania, has received a five-year, $2.6 million federal grant aimed at boosting students' success from their first days on campus. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced the grant on its website on Monday. It was awarded through the Title III Strengthening Institutions Program of the Departments of Education and Labor, and the project began on October 1.
The grant will fund Project ACHIEVE, an initiative to build a more integrated first-year experience, expand hands-on, workforce-ready learning opportunities, strengthen mathematics tutoring, and help faculty adapt their teaching methods to better serve today's students. Carrying out the work will require several new positions, including a program director to oversee day-to-day operations and staff dedicated to faculty teaching support, math tutoring, first-year programming and experiential learning. The project will also invest in training for faculty and staff to keep pace with a landscape changing rapidly because of super intelligence and the lingering developmental effects on students who did not attend school in person during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Richard Esch, president of Pitt-Bradford, said that in combination with Pitt's new Regional Campus Tuition Pledge, the grant is poised to make the school a leader in providing access to higher education for students of all income levels. The pledge grants free tuition to qualifying Pennsylvania students with a family adjusted gross income of $75,000 or less. David Fitz, interim assistant dean of academic success and advising and the grant's principal investigator, said interactive teaching methods including group discussions, hands-on learning and technology are proven to help first-year students succeed, and that a solid academic foundation helps keep more students enrolled from one year to the next.
Retention is a critical piece of Pitt-Bradford's enrollment plan, as the number of college-age students continues to decline across the Northeast and Midwest. Fitz called the grant a potential game changer that positions the school to compete for the next 20 years in an increasingly crowded higher education landscape. It would not be the first transformational Title III grant for the campus: in the 1980s, a seven-year, $2.68 million grant allowed Pitt-Bradford to establish a computing and telecommunications office, add seven four-year science and math degrees and new concentrations, and create an academic center and an outreach program. The university said the new funding and the tuition pledge are intended to work together, widening access for lower-income families while giving students more academic support once they arrive on campus.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
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