Highlights

The National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE), the nation’s leading organization focused on promoting entrepreneurship through community colleges, has named Vance-Granville Community College (VGCC) as the 2022 “Heather Van Sickle Entrepreneurial College of the Year.” That honor was announced at NACCE’s annual conference in Boston, Massachusetts, where teams from VGCC also won prizes in “pitch” competitions.

In a statement about VGCC’s selection for that honor, NACCE saluted the leadership of President Rachel Desmarais, Ph.D., who has steadily expanded the college’s entrepreneurial initiatives. In 2021, President Desmarais signed NACCE’s Presidents for Entrepreneurship Pledge (PFEP), committing the college to five action steps designed to create economic vitality through entrepreneurship.

In addition to the Drone program, the college has hosted an innovative entrepreneurship youth camp called “Be a ‘Trep” (short for entrepreneur) for area middle school students, opened the VGCC Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center at the college’s South Campus, established a Student Entrepreneurship Club, and offered an Agricultural Entrepreneurship Program.

President Desmarais congratulated the team involved, including Tanya Weary, Sheri Jones, Ken Wilson, Stephanie Tolbert, Alicia Williams and Dr. Jerry Edmonds, along with the entire VGCC faculty and staff for adopting an entrepreneurial mindset.

“We could not be prouder of the VGCC Vanguards for making a big ‘splash’ at the NACCE conference, and for embracing entrepreneurship both inside and outside the classroom,” Dr. Desmarais said. “Entrepreneurship is an important way to promote both student success and our region’s economic development. It is also related to the innovative, outside-the-box thinking that we have incorporated into how we address challenges and how we offer education and training programs for the community.”