GCC recieves TRIO Student Support Services Grant

IRONWOOD — Gogebic Community College has been chosen as the recipient of the 2015-2020 TRIO-Student Support Services Grant in the amount of $247,580.

“This is the fourth time GCC has received the grant, and one of a very limited number of programs to receive a perfect score on the grant application,” said Jessica Leinon-Novascone, Director of TRIO-SSS.

According to GCC, TRIO began in 2001 at GCC and has been successful so far at helping students succeed over the past 14 years.

Leinon-Novascone said the goal of the program is to increase college retention and graduation rates of its participants and help students make the transition from one level of education to the next.

The SSS program at GCC currently provides support services to 160 students enrolled in a post-secondary education program that are low income, first generation (parents don’t have a bachelor’s degree) or have a documented disability.

“This is huge for GCC because the program targets students who need a little extra help to succeed,” Leinon-Novascone said.

Through the program, students can receive professional tutoring, personal and academic counseling, advising, career guidance, instruction, financial literacy information, transfer assistance and other opportunities for education and success.

According to GCC, TRIO is a set of eight federally-funded college opportunity programs designed to motivate and support students from disadvantaged backgrounds to get a college degree.

TRIO began as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. The programs were the first national college access and retention programs to address the social and cultural barriers to education in the U.S.

Congress mandated that two-thirds of the students served must come from families with incomes at 150 percent or less of the federal poverty level and in which neither parent graduated from college.

According to GCC, more than 2,800 TRIO projects currently serve close to 790,000 low-income Americans, more than 7,000 students with disabilities and approximately 6,000 U.S. veterans.

Over the years, the TRIO-SSS program has exceeded its objectives as approved by the U.S. Department of Education and is contributing to increased retention and graduation rates at GCC.

For the past academic year, Leinon-Novascone said the SSS program surpassed its required percentage rate by 21 percent, with 84 percent of program participants graduating or returning for courses the next fall semester. Ninety-one percent of program participants were in good academic standing at the institution. Fifty-nine percent of the participants of students who started with the program graduated and 28 percent of those students transferred on to four-year institutions.

Current staff members include Leinon-Novascone, Coordinator Tara Tregembo, Counselor Mark Wendt, and Assistant Monica Ramme.

Moving forward, Leinon-Novascone said she’s excited about the programs future.

“We have a good group of staff members that like to help them,” she said. “We hope to keep that up and we’re very excited to get rolling again for another five years.”