BSC receives federal Department of Education grant Posted on 10/20/2011
The U.S. Department of Education has approved a request from Bismarck State College for a $1,932,550 grant from the Strengthening Institutions Program (Title III).
The college will use the funds to develop a data management and integration project over the five years of the grant. Funding of up to $400,000 per year is expected to begin this month.
Mike Kubisiak, BSC institutional research analyst, said campus discussion over several years has revealed frustration over fragmented data stored in many locations and departments. The Title III grant will help BSC focus on improving academic quality, management and fiscal stability.
"The entire BSC team is excited about what the grant means for our campus," said Dr. Larry C. Skogen, BSC president. "It will help us focus on student assessment, improve our data-informed decision-making process, and, ultimately, increase student success. In the final analysis, BSC students are the winners with this grant. This is the first Title III grant for BSC, and was awarded in part due to the support of North Dakota's congressional delegation."
The project has three objectives:
Identify and centralize BSC campus data to assist in strategic planning and decision-making
Identify and develop data to assess student success by tracking the student life cycle and program outcomes
Train BSC employees to use collaborative technologies to access data and contribute to data-informed decision making.
The $1.9 million grant includes an endowment of $322,091 that will be matched through funds raised by the BSC Foundation. The endowment strengthens BSC's ability to sustain the project.
