Miami, Sept. 22, 2017 – Miami Dade College (MDC) and Florida International University (FIU) have been awarded a three-year, $2.5 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support humanities students completing their degrees at MDC and transferring to FIU, as well as strengthening faculty and staff collaborations between the two institutions.
Through the Making Diversity Meaningful in the Humanities: An MDC-FIU Pathway Partnership, the grant will support programs that aim to assist about 5,000 students each year. It will fund efforts to streamline curricula for students on the MDC-to-FIU path, help students complete degrees, attract more students to humanities fields, foster even more collaboration between MDC and FIU humanities faculty, and reinforce the importance of the humanities to a democratic society.
This partnership will rely on cooperation across all levels – administrative, faculty, staff and students at both institutions. FIU advising staff will be located at MDC’s eight campuses to support students who are considering or pursuing humanities degrees. FIU will host two residential summer bridge programs that will provide students with intensive exposure to humanities research and writing. Students also will gain academic and job skills through paid research fellowships with MDC and FIU faculty, as well as internships and externships at museums, archives, and botanical sites.
About MDC:
Miami Dade College is the nation’s largest, campus-based institution of higher education with an enrollment of more than 165,000 students. It is also the nation’s top producer of Associate in Arts and Science degrees and awards more degrees to minorities than any other college or university in the country. The college’s eight campuses and outreach centers offer more than 300 distinct degree pathways including several baccalaureate degrees in education, public safety, supervision and management, nursing, physician assistant studies, film, engineering, and others. In fact, its academic and workforce training programs are national models of excellence. MDC is also renowned for its rich cultural programming. It is home of the Miami Book Fair International, Miami International Film Festival, the MDC Live! Performing Arts Series, the National Historic Landmark Miami Freedom Tower, a sculpture park and a large art gallery and theater system. MDC has admitted more than 2,000,000 students and counting, since it opened its doors in 1960.
About FIU:
Florida International University is classified by Carnegie as a “R1: Doctoral Universities – Highest Research Activity” and recognized as a Carnegie Community Engaged university. It is a public research university with colleges and schools that offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs in fields such as business, engineering, computer science, international relations, architecture, law and medicine. As one of South Florida’s anchor institutions, FIU contributes almost $9 billion each year to the local economy. The university is ranked second in Florida in Forbes Magazine’s “America’s Best Employers” list and received honors in all categories of The Chronicle of Higher Education’s 2017 “Great Colleges to work for” survey. FIU graduates are consistently among the highest paid college graduates in Florida and are among the leaders of public and private organizations throughout South Florida. FIU is Worlds Ahead in finding solutions to the most challenging problems of our time. FIU emphasizes research as a major component of its mission with multiple state-of-the-art research facilities including the Wall of Wind Research and Testing Facility, FIU’s Medina Aquarius Program and the Advanced Materials Engineering Research Institute. FIU has awarded more than 220,000 degrees and enrolls more than 54,000 students in two campuses and centers including FIU Downtown on Brickell, FIU@I-75, the Miami Beach Urban Studios, and Tianjin, China. FIU also supports artistic and cultural engagement through its three museums: Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, the Wolfsonian-FIU, and the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. FIU is a member of Conference USA and more than 400 student-athletes participating in 18 sports. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu/.