October 31, 2019
Project IMPACT expanding support for transfer students and their communities
Submitted by Michele Benevento
Project IMPACT, part of the Department of Diversity and Multicultural Student Affairs for more than 10 years, is expanding its partnership with Cargill through a new program.
In a new role as executive director of Project IMPACT, Mirta Chavez designed a Transfer College-for-a-Day program to increase the community college transfer rate, as well as create community engagement with college-going culture in the Dodge City area where the vast majority of students are multicultural first-generation college students.
Project IMPACT is a suite of research-based programs of best practices in partnership with the colleges of Agriculture, Business Administration and Engineering, and several corporate partners, of which Cargill provided the initial lead gift. Since the development of Project IMPACT in 2008, there has been a 60% increase in multicultural student enrollment universitywide
Chavez created the program after a corporate engagement event last fall. The Transfer College-for-a –Day was developed in response to a need for Cargill employee-community engagement based request from Scott Eilert, vice president of customer quality. The intent of this program is to target Cargill employee families and Ford county residents to expose, encourage, and build college-going intent in Ford County.
The Transfer College-for-a-Day Institute provides scholarship support for students. The students are eligible for a $1,000 scholarship while attending Dodge City Community College and a $2,000 scholarship after they transfer to K-State. Students are given this financial support to increase their opportunity to transfer and graduate. The development of this program brings targeted opportunities for multicultural, first-generation, and economically disadvantaged students as well as more than $82,000 in scholarship and programming funding for the department.
Project IMPACT has been possible through continued generous support of corporate partners, and more recently through a grant from the State Department of Children and Families. Project IMPACT has been successful as a result of the university's support as a whole and the partners in the colleges of Agriculture, Business Administration and Engineering.