HCTC Receives $475,000 James Graham Brown Grant for Success Zone

Hazard Community and Technical College (HCTC) students will soon access all student retention services needed to succeed in a one-stop location on the Hazard Campus, called the Success Zone, thanks to a grant from the James Graham Brown Foundation.

“HCTC’s Success Zone will offer success coaching, tutoring, peer mentoring, and much more in a centralized area for students,” HCTC President Jennifer Lindon said. “With the Success Zone, it will be much easier for students to get help when needed, building confidence, removing anxiety, and minimizing frustration.”

Lindon explained that the Success Zone will be housed on the Hazard Campus in the Stephens Library and is a collaboration between student services and academics. The goal of the Success Zone is to centralize student retention resources, allowing faculty and staff to provide support services in a visible and accessible area. 

“We’re planning renovations to the existing Stephens Library this summer and the HCTC Success Zone will be ready in Fall 2022,” Lindon said. The goal for the Success Zone, Dr. Lindon added, is to increase the number of students completing their courses and returning each semester.  Ensuring students graduate and begin a career is of vital importance.  

“This is all for students and their success is our priority,” she said.

HCTC was awarded more than $475,000 from the James Graham Brown Foundation for the Success Zone, which will pay for added positions such as success coaches and tutors.

“Student success is a priority for our foundation because we believe that equitable educational attainment will increase economic and social mobility for Kentuckians,” Mason B. Rummel, President and CEO of James Graham Brown Foundation, Inc. stated. “We supported this initiative because we know that students succeed at much higher rates when colleges and universities make support services more easily accessible, and when faculty and staff coordinate their efforts to support them.”

The James Graham Brown Foundation was incorporated in 1954 by James Graham Brown, a successful lumberman, horseman and entrepreneur who called Louisville home. He died in 1969 with no heirs, leaving the bulk of his estate to the foundation. Since its incorporation, the foundation has awarded nearly 3,300 grants totaling over $620 million. Each grant is made with the aim of creating a brighter future for people throughout Louisville and Kentucky, thereby elevating the Commonwealth in the eyes of the world. The foundation strives to execute Mr. Brown’s vision of Kentucky as a national leader through philanthropic investments in education and workforce readiness, community and economic prosperity, and quality of life. For more, visit www.jgbf.org.

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