UNC Partnerships with Tier I Counties (Part III)

Community and Economic Development – Blog by UNC School of Government

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UNC Partnerships with Tier I Counties (Part III)

By CED Guest Author

Published February 2, 2012

Will Lambe is the Director of the Community & Economic Development Program and the Community-Campus Partnership.

As described in parts I & II of this series, UNC Chapel Hill faculty, staff and students are engaged in creative partnerships with Tier I counties across North Carolina. This post is the third in a series that will highlight community and economic development partnerships between Tier I counties and UNC. The purpose of this series is to provide examples of projects, for potential or future community partners, in which UNC resources have been available to assist Tier I counties.

Faculty members from the UNC School of Education (SOE) have worked recently with school system leaders in Caswell County on a variety of education-related community development projects.

Caswell County:

• Teachers and administrators at N.L. Dillard Middle School in Yanceyville, NC partnered with Dr. Suzanne Gulledge from SOE on a classroom mentoring project called Carolina ACES (Academic Curriculum Enrichment Students). The program involved training UNC-Chapel Hill students to serve as classroom mentors in grades 6-8. Twelve UNC-Chapel Hill students traveled weekly to Dillard, where they worked as mentors and tutors in sixth, seventh and eighth grade math, science, social studies and language arts classrooms. In addition, SOE faculty provided Dillard School teachers with training in AVID (Advancement Via Individual Development), a nationally acclaimed program designed to support the academic achievement of young adolescents through work with college students in the school setting.

• Caswell County School administrators partnered with Dr. Judith Meece and Ms. Martinette Horner from SOE to analyze school drop-out events in the county and to design a school retention program. The project involved interviewing students to understand their reasons for dropping out, interviewing school counselors and parents to verify information on dropout patterns, reviewing literature on effective school retention programs for late adolescent rural youth, and providing recommendations for school retention programs. Dr. Meece and Ms. Horner continue to work with school administrators to implement school retention efforts.

Will Lambe authored the NC Rural Center report, Small Towns, Big Ideas, and he served as Director of the Community and Economic Development Program at the School of Government from 2009 to 2014.