MCC-Penn Valley celebrates National TRIO Day

College is a challenging time for students as they work to achieve their goals and improve their lives. The experience can be especially difficult for students who are the first in their families to attend college.

Project Success at MCC-Penn Valley is a Student Support Services TRIO program whose services include: tutoring, counseling, transfer assistance and cultural assistance. Project Success, run by Toni Alexander, is open to low-income, first-generation or disabled college students, and is designed to increase retention and graduation rates as well as assist with transferring to four year colleges.

The program recently participated in National TRIO Day by hosting a breakfast that featured a panel discussion on "Retention, Graduation, Transfer: Student Support Services TRIO's Role in All of It." English Instructor Lisa Spaulding served as moderator. Student panelists included: Vera Campbell-Adams, Stephanie Carrillo, Dianna Izaula, Darryl Norton, Rachel Pulluaim and JuJuan Turner.

National TRIO Day is a day of celebration, reflection and action around increased access to higher education for disadvantaged students.

"In many communities throughout America, the TRIO Programs are the only programs that help low-income Americans to enter college, graduate and move on to participate more fully in America's economic and social life," Arnold Mitchem, president of the Council for Opportunity in Education.