FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Liz Cooper
ecooper@MassBay.edu
![Left to Right: Ted Mitchell, ACE President; David Podell, President of MassBay Community College; Patrick Vaughan, Senior Vice President and Fidelity Investments Tax Exempt Practice Lead]( "Left to Right: Ted Mitchell, ACE President; David Podell, President of MassBay Community College; Patrick Vaughan, Senior Vice President and Fidelity Investments Tax Exempt Practice Lead")
Left to Right: Ted Mitchell, ACE President; David Podell, President of MassBay Community College; Patrick Vaughan, Senior Vice President and Fidelity Investments’ Tax Exempt Practice Lead
WELLESLEY HILLS, Mass. (March 6, 2022) — MassBay president David Podell accepted the American Council on Education (ACE)/Fidelity Investments Award for Institutional Transformation on Saturday, March 6 at the ACE2022 Annual Meeting in San Diego. The award was created to recognize institutions that have responded to higher education challenges in innovative and creative ways and achieved dramatic changes in a relatively brief period. MassBay and the University of North Dakota earned the prestigious prize this year, which includes a $10,000 prize.
Facing a retention problem, in 2015 MassBay Community College set out to learn why certain students weren’t succeeding and connecting with their academics. They conducted a survey that showed 52 percent of students were suffering from low or very low food security. This was accompanied by stories from faculty, staff, and advisers about students who were missing classes or simply unable to keep up with the work because of situations they were facing in their personal lives, often related to basic needs.
Committed to being student-centered and student-ready, the college implemented a variety of programs that provided students with food, housing, transportation and other necessities, forming the Student Nourishment And Care Committee (SNACC), comprised of staff, faculty, students and community volunteers, and led by the vice president for student development and dean of students.
Over the last five years SNACC has partnered with several local organizations that address food insecurity, including hosting a monthly mobile food market of free fresh fruits and vegetables with the Greater Boston Food Bank. They also launched the MassBay Meal Scholarship program, which provided free meals to students before and throughout the pandemic. Of these recipients, GPAs increased significantly after receiving the scholarship and students returned to school at a rate 21 percentage points higher than the overall retention rate of the college.
Other initiatives include providing more public transportation and ride sharing options to campus throughout the Boston area, as well as a new fund to assist MassBay’s single mother students with emergency financial needs to pay for such expenses as childcare, housing, and other basic necessities.
“These initiatives are lifelines to many of our students who live on the margins while trying to gain the education they need to secure stable jobs and change the trajectories of their families,” said David Podell, president of MassBay Community College. “At MassBay we believe access to education is an issue of social justice, and we continue to focus on ways to eliminate obstacles for our hard-working students and ensure they achieve their academic goals. We are especially grateful for this award because we know these funds will truly make a difference in the lives of our students.”
MassBay Community College is the most affordable higher education option in MetroWest Boston, offering a robust portfolio of courses and more than 70 associate degree and certificate programs with flexible day, evening, and weekend classes in Ashland, Framingham, Wellesley Hills, and online. MassBay students receive an unmatched educational value by earning stackable credits that transfer to bachelor’s degree programs, and workforce-ready skills necessary to advance careers in high-demand fields such as health and life sciences, automotive technology, engineering, business, cybersecurity, and the humanities. MassBay’s Associate Degree in Nursing (RN) and Practical Nursing (LPN) programs were both ranked as the #1 Nursing Program in Massachusetts in 2020-2021 by national nursing advocacy organizations RegisteredNursing.org, and PracticalNursing.org. Since its founding in 1961, MassBay has been accredited by several governing bodies and remains firmly committed to its mission of meeting the needs of the diverse local communities it serves. We value the intrinsic worth of all individuals, collectively in pursuit of inclusiveness and prioritize our work towards achieving equity within our community and beyond