TITLE III GRANT
In August 2003 Martin Methodist College was notified by the U. S. Department of Education that it had been awarded a five-year $1.8 million grant under the Strengthening Institutions Program, authorized under Title III, Part A of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Martin Methodist College was one of 74 out of 307 applicants awarded funding that year.
The intent of the grant is to upgrade technology campus-wide, to improve institutional management, to integrate technology into its existing academic programs, to develop new academic programs in Management Information Systems and Nursing, and to provide training to faculty and staff in the use of the technology acquired.
Through the first two and one-half years of the grant, the College has added its first integrated administrative computer system, which benefits faculty, staff, students, and alumni through improved financial management; access to student, alumni, and donor records; and, facilitates advising of students by faculty. Other accomplishments include the upgrading of its computer laboratory; the addition of six technology-enhanced (or “smart”) classrooms; training of over 70% of its faculty to using the new technology; upgrading the Learning Center to improve student access to technology to support their academic programs; starting the upgrade of its biology and chemistry laboratories in order to strengthen its pre-health professions programs: adding an MIS major in the fall of 2005; and receiving approval in February 2006 from the Tennessee State Board of Nursing to initiate a baccalaureate nursing program in the fall of 2006.
The objectives of the grant are intended to help the institution increase enrollment, to improve student satisfaction with the educational experience they have here at Martin Methodist College, and thus to improve our retention of students; and though all of these things to enable the institution to be stronger financially.
