2012 Innovation of the Year Award Winners Highlight Community College Initiative and Creativity

The League's Innovation of the Year award was initiated to recognize innovations that reflect extraordinary achievement and the spirit of innovation and experimentation in the community college on which the League was founded. The competition provides an opportunity for member colleges to showcase their innovative programs, practices, policies, partnerships, and resources, and to celebrate the dedicated educators who are responsible for such exceptional work.

Award winners are determined through a nomination and selection process at individual member colleges. Selection is based on the League-established criteria of quality, efficiency, cost effectiveness, replication, creativity, and timeliness. The League presents an Innovation of the Year award to each participating college's winning innovation, and winners are offered the opportunity to present at League conferences and to share their stories through League publications. In addition, winners are recognized by their colleges through award ceremonies, press releases, articles, and Web announcements.

This year, the League is pleased to announce that 35 awards were granted outstanding innovations that serve community colleges and their students. Click on the links below to

• Learn about member college innovations that have improved student success, retention, and persistence.
• Find out how institutions are implementing systems for institutional accountability, tracking graduates, and improving online education.
• Read about service learning experiences that are integrating real-world training with public service provision.
• Review what colleges are doing to ensure hands-on, relevant workforce training in simulation labs and similar active learning environments.
• Discover how colleges are reorganizing and combining programs, courses, and curriculum to better serve today's community college students.

To learn more about the Innovation of the Year competition and how your college can participate, visit the Innovation of the Year Award Web page.

2012 Innovation of the Year Award Winners

Anne Arundel Community College
Engaged Learning for the Next Generation Cyber Investigator
Dawn Blanche

Carl Sandburg College
Institutional Accountability Dashboards
Lori Sundberg, Julie Gibb, Steve Norton, Samuel Sudhakar, Connie Thurman, Lisa Blake, Lisa Hanson, Marnie Dugan, Michael Brackett, Christy Pecsi, Benjamin Derry, Phil Jennings, Sara Cree, and Gena Alcorn

Central Community College
Molding Careers to Learn, Earn $, & Live (MCLEL)
B. Hitesman, D. Matson, R. DeWyke, L. Finecy, A. Stenzel, T. Bosak, C. Sanders, D. Rumsey, G. Senff, R. Woehl, R. Utter, M. Consbruck, J. Kroeker, G. Friesen, S. Essink, M. Garretson, B. Bartos, T. Davis, M. Funkey, and L. Cordell 

Community College of Allegheny County
Graduate Tracking System
Bob Kmetz, Pam Nichols, Melanie Porach, Michelle Talbert-Horsey, Jason Lander, Giovanni Garofalo, Kevin Smay, Charles Bostaph, Mary Lou Kennedy, Yvonne Burns, and Renee Clark

Community College of Baltimore County
The Accelerated Mathematics Program (AMP)
K. Duckworth, A. Beiderman, B. Brown, T. Tingling, G. Fiore, and S.K. Abromaitis 

Community College of Philadelphia
Wills For Heroes Service Learning Collaboration
Sharon Thompson, Kathy Smith, David Freeman, David Trevaskis, and Angelica Aguirre 

Delta College
Safe Space Program
Donna Giuliani, Denise Hill, and Elizabeth Ullrich 

Gateway Community and Technical College
ENG 230: The Social Psychology of Harry Potter
Melissa Fry and Susan Santos 

Greenville Technical College
Assessing Computing Literacy
Mary Locke, Mark Krawczyk, and Lenna Young 

Henry Ford Community College
Teaching Biotechnology Through Real-World Projects: Organism Identification Through DNA Analysis
Jolie Stepaniak and Paul Root 

Hillsborough Community College Ybor City Campus
BSC 1011L Virtual Lab Review
Susan Miletta 

Humber ITAL
Visual Storytelling Club
Jennifer Chatsick and Anne Zbitnew 

Indian River State College
Practical Interdisciplinary Exercise (PIE) Program
Mike Brandes, Ted Twitchell, Brenda Rante, James Ooley, Ken Jones, and Larry Lawson 

Institute of Technical Education, Singapore
Medical Devices Interactive Manufacturing Simulator
Leo Chin Sim, Chong Chang Leong, Wendy Sook Wen Wong, Jenessa Xue Qi Thng, and Francis Wei Gee Liang

Isothermal Community College
Isothermal Data Center Institute
Isothermal Community College Data Center Institute Team 

Johnson County Community College
Re-Inventing Outcomes Assessment
Lori Slavin and Brenda Edmonds 

Kirkwood Community College
Energy Savings
Tom Kaldenberg 

Lake-Sumter Community College
Transforming Nursing Education Through Transformational Leadership
Margaret S. Wacker 

Lane Community College
Death to the Red Pen: Screencasting for Individualized Student Feedback
Christina Howard 

Miami Dade College
Single Stop at Miami Dade College (MDC)
Barbara Pryor, Mercy Arenas, Erin Jenkins, Jennifer Kross, Theodore Levitt, Malou C. Harrison, Nate Falkner, and Denise Gomez 

Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College
Demonstrating Mission Based Accountability of Economic Impact
Mary Graham, Jason Pugh, and Lynn Tincher-Ladner 

Monroe Community College
Enough is Enough Campaign
Amy Greer and Rebecca Herzog

Montgomery County Community College
Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
Amit Singh, Suzanne Holloman, and Ayisha Sereni 

Moraine Valley Community College
Development, Design, and Implementation of Arabic 101 Online Course
Maha Sweis-Dababneh 

Portage College
Heavy Equipment Mobile Training Unit
Trent Keough, Stuart Leitch, and the Community and Industry Training Initiatives (CITI) Team 

Queensborough Community College
Workshop Approach to Remedial Mathematics Using Problem Solving
G. Michael Guy, Jonathan Cornick, Robert J. Holt, and Andrew S.H. Russell

Red River College
RRC E-Learning Apprentice Model
Anna Sabramowicz, Colin Antaya, Kathy Davis, Janet Smith, Wesley Zimmer, and Jim Mackey 

Salt Lake Community College
SLCC?s Community Writing Center's Salt Lake Teens Write Program
Elisa Stone, Andrea Malouf, Tiffany Rousculp, Stephanie Maenhardt,  and John McCormick

San Diego Miramar College
Basic Skills and Developmental Education Innovation
Mark Manasse and Daphne Figueroa 

Sinclair Community College
Pioneering Online Science Labs
Marigrace Ryan, Shan Huang, and Vandana Rola 

South Carolina Technical College System
2011-2012 South Carolina Building Operator Certificate Consortium
Jason Douglas, Rufus Perry & Joy Finch, Tim Fulford, and Tom Yeoman 

Southern Alberta Institute of Technology
SIRvival 101: A Pragmatic Approach to Student Evaluations
Shashi Persaud 

Southwest WI Technical College
Document Camera on Steriods - Karyl Nicholson
Karyl Nicholson 

St. Louis Community College
Mental Health First Aid
Joe Worth, Emily Lasek, and Troy Hanson 

York Technical College
The Hive: Partnerships in Experiential Education
Edie Dille