Gateway Community College hosted a Partnership Academy meeting on April 27, to reassess existing partnerships with New Haven Public Schools and Southern Connecticut State University.  Since 2014, GCC’s college readiness initiatives in Math and English have expanded to include several dual enrollment programs that allow students to earn college credits while still in high school.

In 2014 New Haven’s Superintendent, Garth Harries, and Gateway’s President Dr. Dorsey Kendrick, established a “dual enrollment” opportunity for high school students with significant gaps in Math and English skills to enroll in specific College developmental courses taught at the high schools by qualified high school teachers. This project is aptly labelled the “College Reading Initiative” (CRI).  Over the past three years over 1,000 New Haven students have successfully completed these college readiness courses.

In 2015 and 2016 GCC English faculty joined forces with their counterparts at Southern Connecticut State University for a two-day workshop that reviewed student writing outcomes, focusing on over 800 essays by high school students and developing stronger norms and rubrics for assessment. The deepening professional partnership between the two colleges is charting the course for a stronger alignment of outcomes for college students who start at the two-year college and transfer to the four-year.

With the formation of the Partnership Academy, attention turns toward a long-term partnership for planning and executing future initiatives and establishing a formal platform of engagement and collaboration between the three educational entities that will increase academic support and college readiness initiatives. Proficiency in Math and English remain the highest priority along with job-readiness, career education and addressing social-emotional needs.

"We look forward to creating sustainable and successful pathways for our students," said Dr. Mark Kosinski, Dean of Academic Affairs.  "As we build on the past three years' work, we look forward to creating opportunities for more students."