HU Receives Grant to Support First-Generation Students

Hampton, VA -Hampton University been selected by the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) to receive a $100,000 Wal-Mart Minority Student Success Award. The grant aims to help build upon HU’s demonstrated successes in enrolling, retaining, and graduating first generation college students. The grant is made possible by a $4.2 million grant to IHEP from the Wal-Mart Foundation.

HU was selected as one of only 30 minority-serving institutions (MSIs) through a highly competitive application process to strengthen efforts to support first-generation students.

The grant will support a two-year program for incoming HU freshmen who are first-generation college students, providing them with mentorships, textbook stipends and career seminars beginning this fall semester. Participants will begin in July with a summer enrichment reading list and will be assigned a faculty advisor to connect them with the campus prior to their arrival.

“Hampton University already has a unique and effective set of programs in place for our large number of first generation college students. This grant will, in particular, synthesize all of the work currently being done and allow for us to better utilize our current resources,” said Assistant Professor Erica Woods-Warrior, the principal investigator for the grant.

“Hampton University is honored to be selected as one of just several outstanding higher education institutions nationwide to receive the Wal-Mart Minority Student Success Award,” said HU Provost Dr. Pamela Hammond. “Thanks in large part to this award, we will be able to enhance and expand our work with first-generation students.”

IHEP is an independent, non-profit organization that is dedicated to increasing access and success in post-secondary education around the world. Established in 1993, the Washington, D.C.-based organization uses unique research and innovative programs to inform key decision makers who shape public policy and support economic and social development.

“The institutions in our 2010 Minority Student Success cohort broaden and deepen the pool of MSIs committed to ensuring the success of the first-generation student success both at their campuses and beyond,” said IHEP President Michelle Asha Cooper, Ph.D. “We are pleased to be working with them on programs that are sure to serve as models to all of higher education.”

For more information or to apply for the grant, please contact Erica Woods-Warrior at (757) 727-5349 or via email at press@hamptonu.edu.