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October 8, 2001 N.C. Wesleyan Receives Three NCAA Grants Rocky Mount, N.C.—The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) recently awarded North Carolina Wesleyan College three grants totaling $15,000. Two grants of $5,000 each will support student service projects designed to benefit the Rocky Mount community, and another $5,000 award will fund a leadership conference for Wesleyan’s athletics staff and others. Young people in the Clark and Branch Street area of Rocky Mount and in the city’s House the Children facility for homeless families are the focus of a grant that funds a program called Promote Literacy Among Youth (PLAY). The program will encourage Wesleyan’s student-athletes to work as volunteers to help young people improve their attitudes toward school and develop a desire to read more and improve their reading skills. In turn, Wesleyan’s student-athletes will have an opportunity to grow closer to the community they will serve and to learn first-hand the benefits of mentoring young people. "Men and women from every team on campus will be participating," said John Thompson, director of athletics and men’s basketball coach at Wesleyan. "With what we already have been doing to help students in the pubic schools, this is a logical progression. Our student-athletes have an opportunity to impact these youth in a very significant way." At the start of the project, baseline data will be gathered on participating young people’s reading habits and abilities, as well as their attitudes toward education. Data will also be gathered about student-athletes’ awareness of needs in the Rocky Mount community and about student volunteerism. Ten months after the start of the PLAY program, additional information will be collected. The measurable goals of the volunteers are to improve youth attitudes about education by 20 percent, to double the number of books that youth in the program read, to increase their reading ability by 10 percent, and to increase the student-athletes’ service to the community by 25 percent. When grant funding ends, the PLAY initiative is expected to continue. Volunteer opportunities available through the House the Children project will be extended to all Wesleyan students. Another NCAA grant to Wesleyan will fund a mock trial that will call attention to the dangers of alcohol use and abuse. Student-athletes and other students will write a script for the trial, prepare sets for the play, and participate as actors in a public performance to be presented on the Wesleyan campus next spring. Wesleyan’s third NCAA grant will fund a series of leadership workshops to be held on campus in October for athletics staff and College administrators who oversee athletics. A featured speaker will be Herb Appenzeller, a nationally recognized athletics consultant who is serving the second of a two-year stint as Executive in Residence and Director of the Sports Management Program at Appalachian State University. He is the author of 17 books. Appenzeller is president of Appenzeller and Associates, a sports and athletics consulting firm that produces a newsletter, "From the Gym to the Jury," which focuses on sports law and liability. N.C. Wesleyan is an independent, four-year liberal arts college affiliated with the United Methodist Church. The College offers bachelor’s degrees in 22 majors on the main campus in Rocky Mount. It also offers an Adult Degree Program geared to help working adults finish their bachelor’s degrees in several disciplines on the Rocky Mount campus and at sites in Raleigh, Durham, and Goldsboro. ### |
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on 12/19/05 |
