Spotlight
Spotlight on Sinclair
Over the past 20 years, the Sinclair Community College has secured nearly $100 million to fund innovative projects to benefit students, faculty and their community. We recently asked Neil Herbkersman, Director of Grants Development, and Karla Hibbert-Jones, Assistant Director to share with us some of the secrets of their success.
Q: Sinclair Community College is perhaps the most successful Community College in the nation in obtaining grant funding. What three key factors do you attribute to this success?
A. The first key factor is our faculty and staff. They are passionate about improving student learning and are professionally active—attending conferences, reading professional journals, connecting with business and industry, and networking with peers nationally. The second key is the administrative support for grant development. Our administrators consider grants development an important means of advancing the College and expanding faculty and staff expertise using off-campus funds. The final key is an efficient and effective grants office that knows its role and has the processes, expertise, and training to fulfill that role.
Q: To what extent has grant procurement strengthened or advanced the mission of Sinclair Community College?
A: The grants obtained at Sinclair Community College have had a tremendous impact on the college. Over the past twenty years, $100 million of external funds have advanced nearly all aspects of the campus. For example, grants have:
- Improved the success rate of disadvantaged students to the point that there is no difference in student success rates of minority and non-minority students engaged in our student Individualized Learning Plans.
- Provided a nurturing, alternative educational setting to help former high school dropouts complete their high school diplomas and matriculate to Sinclair.
- Infused high technology into the classroom from gas chromatography/mass spectrometry instrumentation in organic chemistry to rapid prototyping in engineering design.
- Improved the literacy among school age children participating in school-based reading programs.
- Sent Sinclair faculty to India, Italy, Greece, England, Eastern Europe, and other countries to benchmark best practices, conduct research to improve curricula, improve teaching methods, and improve literacy among indigenous populations.
- Provided needed skill enhancements to transition unemployed and underemployed workers into new jobs with family-sustaining wages.
- Provided faculty development in advanced manufacturing, automotive hybrid technology, and manufacturing workcell simulation.
Most of these activities would not have happened without grants because student tuition, state subsidy, and the local tax levy cannot provide all of the funds needed for innovation and expansion.
Q: With the years of experience you have and with your successful history – what advice would you offer to a community college desiring to maximize the potential for faculty and program development with the assistance of grant funds.
A: We have three suggestions for community colleges wanting to maximize their potential. First, get faculty and staff involved professionally. Once our faculty and staff learn more, they discover new ways to improve student learning and student success. These faculty and staff have more passion and want to secure grant funds to implement improvements.
Second, develop a culture where grants development is an expectation. This is created from the top where administrators create an environment that fosters innovation and supports faculty and staff to seek grants to implement changes.
Third, develop repeatable processes for proposal development such as the use of Compression Planning® with Storyboarding and proposal templates. This streamlines the development process.
Q: What have been some of your greatest challenges associated with grants procurement? What have been some of your greatest success stories?
A: The major challenge involves the declining discretionary grants available from the federal government, based in large part to the war effort and rebuilding the U.S. Gulf Coast after the devastating hurricanes of 2005. This increases competition for the federal funds requiring more effective and efficient grants development. Funding opportunities at the state level have also decreased.
The greatest success stories may be seen in the smiles of students who succeed—graduate from high school, graduate from Sinclair, and obtain family-sustaining careers—based on the grants developed from our office. The greatest successes are focused on four centers of excellence that are funded 100% from grants:
- Project READ—the literacy coalition for the greater Dayton area—for 16 years has coordinated local adult and youth literacy efforts. Hundreds of adults and thousands of elementary students have increased their reading, math, and critical thinking skills due to the efforts coordinated by this initiative.
- Miami Valley Tech Prep Consortium—which manages the 2+2 articulation between Sinclair and nearly 60 local high schools involving nearly 3,000 students at the high school and community college levels.
- Fast Forward Center—a comprehensive program to provide alternative educational programming for an estimated 6,000 youth who had dropped out of school. Based in large part on this initiative, the Montgomery County, Ohio dropout rate has decreased significantly.
- National Center for Manufacturing Education—since 1995, this NSF National Center of Excellence has been developing innovative hands-on curriculum, disseminating curriculum materials, and providing professional development to community colleges across the country.
Q. Your wish list for the future of the Grants Department at Sinclair – what would it include?
A. Our wish list is actually quite simple: to enjoy the success that Sinclair Grants Office has enjoyed in the past for many years to come.