The Houston Community College System (HCC) and the University of Houston-Downtown (UHD), two urban HSIs, developed this Title V Cooperative Arrangement to partner in addressing common goals to prepare the institutions for a staggering growth in the Hispanic population projected by 2015.  The two institutions hold similar missions; serve the same constituencies-a diverse urban, low-income population-and share a common geography in Houston, Texas, the nation's fourth largest city.

This five-year (2003-2008) project will enable the two institutions to address state mandates to "Close the Gaps" in college participation and achievement for a rapidly expanding population composed primarily of Hispanic residents.  HCC, the largest college system in the Gulf Coast area, enrolls more than 55,000 students annually and transfers more students to UHD than to any other four-year institution.  The planned cooperative project focuses on the need to decrease remedial education for increasing numbers of low-income, first-generation minority students entering college, and to improve their retention, persistence, and transfer.

The activity proposed will foster systemic change by building an active learning community and a sense of collegiality amount teachers and faculties throughout the city.  The project will not only address the needs of the two cooperating institutions but will help prepare students for college by addressing the pressing needs of local public schools-including the Houston Independent School District, the nation's 7th largest-to educate increasing numbers of students in the face of crippling budget cuts.  The proposed model project centers on a new reform in education:  The transformation of teaching and learning in public schools and colleges, based on a growing body of evidence that educational excellence depends on excellence in teaching, regardless of the student's, or the educator's, race socioeconomic status, or background.

The HCC/UHD Faculty Leadership Program combines professional development for public school teachers, counselors, and college faculties with follow-up and shared resources by Faculty Teams of mentors in key disciplines and subjects-mathematics, science, reading, and composition.  The Faculty Teams will offer mentoring for college faculties and teachers, from college counselors to high school counselors, and university faculty to community college faculty.  These new resources and tools for teachers and faculties include greater institutional support to build grant-seeking capacity.  The activity, developed after two years of extensive research and planning meetings by the cooperating institutions, intends to build a model program that will reshape attitudes about education and foster in educators a fundamental change of philosophy about teaching and learning.

HCC will act as the lead institution and fiscal agent for the project.

Appendix: PowerPoint Presentation