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Samantha Aaron Oversees New Guilford Edge Grant Program BY BRIAN SCHUH ‘02
Several campus innovations greeted students this year. New Summer Bridge programs to prepare for the school year, technological upgrades and renovations to create collaborative learning spaces and two new faculty positions in public health and sustainable foods debuted. More enhancements are on the way. These community additions may appear separate from one another, but all are a part of a five-year plan from a federal grant to assist Guilford College in retaining students and improving their academic experience. Guilford last year received about $2 million in federal funding — the single largest non-endowment grant ever awarded to the College — through a Title III grant known as Strengthening Institutions Program to support the Guilford Edge. The program helps colleges and Aaron said the grant will improve
and project-based learning in Hege
serve low-income students by providing
the learning environment for Guilford
Library Academic Commons and the
funds to improve and strengthen
students. “It is positioned to enhance the
transformation of Duke Hall’s Leak
the academic quality, institutional
learning technologies and facilities in
Room into an interactive collaborative
management and fiscal stability of
terms of classrooms, the availability of
learning and presentation space.
eligible institutions.
state-of-the-art technologies and digital
Samantha (Sam) Aaron, who was
“There are a lot of innovations that
art marketing, and building up the
are warranted on Guilford's campus and
hired in April as the College’s Title III
academic hub of the college by enhancing
Title III has given us an opportunity to
Director, is tasked with overseeing
the efforts of the Guilford Edge, “ said
really enhance our classroom spaces
the implementation and spending
Aaron. “All of these improvements
and some of our broader learning
of the grant. Aaron came to Guilford
enhance students’ abilities to stay and
spaces from the ground up,” Aaron said.
from Piedmont Community College
their desire to continue.”
in Roxboro, N.C., where she directed
One example of a transformed space is the Collaboratory on the second floor of
the Trio Program, a federal outreach
Technological Innovations
program targeting students from
Learning technology upgrades will
space as a fluid learning environment
disadvantaged backgrounds.
include innovations in online, blended
with large monitors and furniture that
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Hege Library. Aaron describes the new
PHOTOS BY JULIE KNIGHT
universities expand their capacity to
