April 10, 2023
Roane State has been selected for the inaugural Community Vibrancy Cohort with Achieving the Dream (ATD), a nationwide network of colleges committed to closing achievement gaps and accelerating student success.
ATD announced the Community Vibrancy Cohort on April 5 with a total of 17 Network colleges chosen to participate. As part of the project, Roane State and the other selected colleges will be testing new tools and training materials intended to help address inequities on their campus and in their communities.
“Roane State measures its institutional success by the success of its students, and participation in this project will provide an exceptional opportunity to work with community partners to enhance not only the lives of our students and their families, but also the communities in which they live,” said Karen Brunner, Roane State’s vice president of institutional effectiveness.
Projected cohort results include:
“The ability to think bigger and act urgently is central to community colleges creating more economically vibrant communities,” ATD’s statement about the cohort read. “It starts with colleges seeing and understanding local communities in new ways, which can collectively lead to upward mobility and help communities flourish and thrive economically.”
To help institutions build their capacity to enact change at this level, ATD put the Community Vibrancy Cohort together with generous support from Ascendium Education Group and Crimsonbridge Foundation. The tools and materials being tested by the colleges will attempt to provide data to assess market potential amongst opportunity populations, track the right institutional metrics and monitor both workforce outcomes and community vibrancy metrics.
The project will last approximately one year and culminate in a sharing event at DREAM 2024, ATD’s annual conference.
Additional information and a complete list of the ATD network colleges selected to pilot this work are available online at achievingthedream.org/community-vibrancy-cohort.
About Achieving the Dream:
Achieving the Dream is a partner and champion of hard-working leaders at more than 300 community colleges across the country. The community colleges we work with are distinct: They choose transformation over tradition, curiosity over inaction, innovation over status quo. Drawing on our expert coaches, groundbreaking programs, and national peer network, we build customized growth plans to address the unique challenges each institution faces. We provide institutional leaders, faculty, and staff with actionable solutions grounded in years of experience and the knowledge of what it’s like to be in their shoes.
Roane State Community College does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, ethnicity or national origin, sex, disability, age, status as protected veteran or any other class protected by Federal or State laws and regulation and by Tennessee board of Regents policies with respect to employment, programs, and activities. View full non-discrimination policy.
