Carolina First

Golden LEAF Foundation renews grant supporting Carolina College Advising Corps

The Golden LEAF Foundation has renewed its commitment to the Carolina College Advising Corps for the 2009-2010 academic year, a move that will enable the program to continue serving 10 North Carolina high schools and add two more. Overall, the corps will have 19 advisers serving 40 high schools in 21 counties across North Carolina this school year.

Now entering its third year, the Carolina College Advising Corps – a program based in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at Carolina – helps low-income, first-generation and underrepresented students in North Carolina realize the goal of attending college. One of 13 partnerships in the National College Advising Corps (also headquartered at UNC), the corps places recent Chapel Hill graduates – many of them first-generation college students themselves – as college advisers in low-income high schools across the state.

“We are deeply grateful to the Golden LEAF Foundation for showing such faith in our program,” said Steve Farmer, assistant provost and director of admissions at UNC. “This grant will enable our advisers to keep building a college-going culture in former tobacco-dependent communities.”

Advisers work closely with guidance counselors and other school personnel to create programs that meet the needs of the students in North Carolina high schools. Typically, an adviser works in two high schools, helping students research and apply to a broad range of two- and four-year schools, with the goal of finding the one that fits each individual best.

During the 2008-2009 school year, the Golden LEAF Foundation awarded the advising corps a one-year grant, enabling five advisers to work in 10 high schools: Scotland High School (Scotland County); South Robeson High School (Robeson County); South Caldwell, Caldwell Middle College and Caldwell Early College high schools (Caldwell County); West Caldwell and Hibriten high schools (also Caldwell County); and Warren County, Warren New Tech and Warren Early College high schools (Warren County).

For the 2009-2010 academic year, in addition to continuing to work in these schools, the Golden LEAF Foundation-funded advisers will also work in Edgecombe County at North Edgecombe High School and Tarboro High School. The total grant is $181,250.

“Golden LEAF is proud to help grow the talent, knowledge and skills of our youth,” said Dan Gerlach, Golden LEAF president. “This program offers students the tools to not only get them into college but also helps find the resources needed to pay for it. Raising the level of education will help level the playing field for economic success in our rural communities.”

Along with the Golden LEAF Foundation, program funders include the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, the Reidsville Area Foundation, DavidsonWorks and the Rockingham County Education Foundation.

The North Carolina legislature created the Golden LEAF Foundation in 1999 to administer one-half of North Carolina’s share of the Master Settlement Agreement with cigarette manufacturers in accordance with the court consent decree between North Carolina and the manufacturers. The foundation’s mission is to promote the social welfare of North Carolina’s citizens and to receive and distribute funds for economic impact assistance to economically affected or tobacco-dependent regions of North Carolina.

Aug. 19, 2009

Wilson Library

Links: adviser locator map,http://tinyurl.com/locatormap;

video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4EM67SH3CM&feature=channel_page

Carolina College Advising Corps Web site: http://advisingcorps.org/page/carolina-advising-corps

Development Communications contact: Scott Ragland, (919) 962-0027, scott_ragland@unc.eduThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Carolina College Advising Corps contact: Jennie Cox Bell, (919) 843-7286, jcoxbell@admissions.unc.eduThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it News Services contact: Susan Houston, (919) 962-8415, susan_houston@unc.edu