Schools Receive Grant for Collaborative Study

The Teagle Foundation’s Board of Directors has approved a grant of $230,000 to Hilbert College, St. Bonaventure University, Erie Community College, and Jamestown Community College for the project “A New Structure for General Education.” The grant will be funded over three years.

This collaborative proposal brings together four Western New York institutions for the purpose of revising general education requirements that will help improve learning outcomes and processes for all students, including those who transfer between these institutions. The project seeks to rework the general education curricula to reflect a common set of learning outcomes and create a more coherent experience for all students.

National and regional trends are expected to affect enrollment within institutions of higher learning across Western New York. Consequently, institutions in Western New York must re-think how higher education functions and develop initiatives aimed at collaborative efficiencies.

This initiative will be a faculty-led rethinking of how learning objectives can help ensure student success. In addition, this innovative partnership between public and private, two-year and four-year institutions will be able to serve as a model for additional collaborations.

The Teagle Foundation was established in 1944 by Walter C. Teagle, longtime president of Standard Oil Company (now Exxon Mobil Corp.). It has a broad mandate “to advance the well-being and general good of mankind throughout the world” and over the years the foundation has made grants in many areas, always with an emphasis on the aid Teagle envisioned for “institutions of higher learning and research.”

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