Village Project expansion

NIC’s Village Project will serve over 500 students through January of 2016, many of whom owe their success in college to the program.

The Village Project’s theme is “Redefining Engagement.” It strives to engage with students at the level they are at.

In the first year of the project 75 prospective students who had dropped out of high school were targeted. The project’s coordinators and volunteers helped these people obtain GED’s and enroll in college classes; they also helped them navigate the process of securing financial aid.

Students who are enrolled via the Village Project are separated into 3 “Villages” and each village enrolls in the same classes so they are all together throughout each school day, they form study groups together and are each assigned a peer adviser and an intrusive adviser.

The term “intrusive” means that the faculty member engages in cohort learning with the student through the integration of early alerts.

Molly Kreyssler, the project’s coordinator, said, “We meet them where they are at and help them to be successful.”

The Project also helps students learn self-advocacy by facilitating conversations with faculty members to help them get through their problems. Students in the Village Project build a sense of community and learn how to transfer knowledge and synthesize information as they move through their groups.

Kreyssler said that by the end of the first year students will know their direction and will have chosen a major.

This January saw 62 students enrolled at NIC through the Village Project. According to Kreyssler it’s never too late to go back, anyone can come in and ask for help in getting signed up. The project office is located in room 233 at the Hedlund Building.