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U.S. Department of Education Title III Grant

Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP)

Reaching the Marginalized Majority: Access and Success for Nontraditional Students

The Strengthening Institutions Program helps higher education programs expand their capacity to serve low-income students by providing funds to improve and strengthen an institution’s academic quality, institutional management, and fiscal stability.

SNU’s proposal contains three initiatives focused on building new Professional Studies curricular programs, developing student services for adult students, and building endowments for undergraduate scholarships. The new programs include Cybersecurity (BS), taking the existing Network Management (BS) to Tulsa, and developing a new Information System (AS) degree.  The grant will also develop and pilot a new Physical Therapist Assistant (AS) degree.  The two associate degree programs are intended to serve as feeders into SNU degree completion programs. The grant provides faculty positions, renovated instructional labs and equipment, and library resources for these new programs.  Student services will be expanded with an early alert system and career services geared toward adult learners. The grant funds provide approximately a quarter of a million dollars to match monies raised by the institution to increase the endowment for undergraduate student scholarships by close to half a million dollars by the end of the grant period.

More information on the Title III program is available here: https://www2.ed.gov/programs/iduestitle3a/index.html 

*NEW* Undergraduate Programs: 

> CyberSecurity (BS) –6 Cohorts launched. The 6th cohort launched in the fall of 2023 (fully online), and the 7th cohort is scheduled for the spring of 2024.

> Information Systems (AS) – The first cohort is scheduled for the spring of 24.

> Physical Therapist Assistant (AS) – The second cohort will start in January of 2024.

Effective October 25, 2022, Southern Nazarene University has been granted Candidate for Accreditation status by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (3030 Potomac Ave., Suite 100, Alexandria, Virginia 22305-3085; phone: 703-706-3245; email: accreditation@apta.org).  If needing to contact the program/institution directly, please call Dr. Loren McElroy, Program Director, at 405.491.6630 or email Lmartin@snu.edu

Candidate for Accreditation is an accreditation status of affiliation with the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education that indicates the program may matriculate students in technical/professional courses.  Achievement of Candidate for Accreditation status does not assure that the program will be granted Initial Accreditation. 

SNU’s Title III Project Team

    • Dr. Aaron Thompson, Project Director
    • Chandler Campbell, Student Support Specialist
    • Dr. Loren McElroy, PTA Specialist/Program Director
    • Dr. Jeffrey Slattery, Computer Science Specialist/Program Director
    • Dr. Leah Spurlock, PTA Clinical Education Coordinator

Grant Office: Royce Brown, Room 115, 4011 N Peniel Avenue, Bethany, OK, 73008

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