Contact: Melissa Reifert
January 19, 2007

MECC Receives Chancellors E-Learning Award

Recently, Mountain Empire Community College was one of 11 schools in the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) chosen to receive a Chancellors E-Learning Enhancement and Development (CEED) Award.  MECC will be awarded $11,490 to complete the implementation of e-learning biology laboratories at the college. 

According to Carolyn Reynolds, Dean of the Arts and Sciences Division at MECC, and Carol Burkart, Assistant Professor of Biology, software will be purchased with a portion of the award money.  This software will be implemented into web-based biology courses at the college, providing students who take the classes online with lab activities.  The enhanced offerings should be available to MECC students by the fall 2007 semester.

The awarded funds can also be used to bring college-level biology courses to local high school students participating in MECC’s Dual Enrollment Program, which allows high-achieving students to meet the requirements for high school graduation while simultaneously earning college credit.  MECC will partner with area public schools to train teachers in the use of Blackboard, a leading provider of e-Education software applications and services, including technology for online learning and a network that enables faculty to teach students beyond the classroom. 

“We want the web-delivery to be as consistent as possible with on-campus courses,” says Burkart, who worked with Reynolds and MECC Grants Coordinator Nikki Morrison to compose the award proposal.  “Off-campus students can share as many of the same experiences as on-campus students without actually being here.”

The CEED Program is an initiative of the VCCS instructional technology and offers up to $30,000 per award.  Twenty-nine proposals expressing the need for funding were submitted by Virginia’s community colleges.  Proposals that were funded fit the CEED purpose of creating, expanding, or completing a program to be delivered in a distance education format using e-learning technology.

More Press Releases