Montgomery College

Per Montgomery College: Montgomery College (MC) has received a five-year cooperative agreement award from the National Institute of Standards and Technology through its Professional Research Experience Program, (NIST-PREP). The NIST-PREP award, which began April 1, 2023, will provide up to 250 placements annually for MC students at NIST’s laboratories in Gaithersburg, as well as research opportunities for current MC faculty. The new project continues the NIST-PREP project at MC, which has run from 2018 to 2023. The new five-year award provides up to $7,461,117. Students selected for NIST-PREP will have the opportunity to work with research mentors at NIST, and will receive stipends as well as professional development and mentoring. They are eligible to participate in multiple terms, and can be appointed to NIST internships when they transfer to four-year institutions with NIST-PREP awards.

The new program builds upon MC’s first NIST-PREP cooperative agreement award, and adds significant student support, mentoring, and professional development opportunities. MC has received NIST funding since 2012, when 11 students interned at NIST in a pilot program. In 2014, NIST awarded the college\College a NIST Measurement Science and Engineering (MSE) cooperative agreement award that supported over 100 internships. During the first NIST-PREP project from 2018 to 2023, 125 students received a total of 228 internship placements, meaning that many students received more than one appointment. One faculty member also received a research appointment.

Per Montgomery College: Montgomery College will bestow honorary degrees recognizing four outstanding members of the community at its 2023 Commencement exercises. Honorary degrees are the highest honor conferred by the College, awarded to people who have distinguished themselves with extraordinary achievements, made outstanding contributions to MC, or elevated the College in the eyes of the community.

The four degree recipients are: Ms. Kimmy Duong, vice chairman and chief financial officer, Pragmatics, Inc; Ms. Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg, artist; Mr. C. Richard Mattingly, founder, CRM Advisors, LLC; and The Honorable Craig Rice, former Montgomery County Councilmember. Montgomery College’s commencement ceremony will be held Friday, May 19, 2023 at 10 a.m. on the Rockville Campus.

Per Montgomery College: Maryland Governor Wes Moore today announced Dr. Sanjay Rai, Montgomery College’s senior vice president for academic affairs, as acting secretary for the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC). He starts his new role in early May. Dr. Rai has consistently and vigorously advanced innovations that bolster student success in academic, career, technical, and workforce development programs throughout his career. He has worked to remove barriers to education access through the redesign of developmental education, revision of alternate placement policies, and embedding of coaches in classrooms to increase student success.

“Based on his many years of leadership here at Montgomery College, we are confident that Dr. Rai will continue his tradition of educational innovation as Maryland’s secretary of higher education,” Chair of the Board of Trustees Dr. Michael Brintnall said. “He is keenly focused on preparing students for success academically and in the workforce, which thereby contributes to growth for our region’s employers and enriches our communities. We wish Dr. Rai the very best in this exciting role on Gov. Moore’s Cabinet.”

Per Montgomery College:  The Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area which includes Montgomery College released a set of recommendations Tuesday to help focus efforts to reduce gun violence in the United States. The recommendations were developed as part of The 120 Initiative, an effort established by the Consortium in June 2022, and named for the average number of victims who die each day due to suicide or gun violence.

The initiative engaged more than 100 experts in a wide range of areas such as public and mental health, gun violence, polarization, business sector engagement, citizen advocacy, education and technology. The College was represented by Professor of Psychology Andraè L. Brown, Professor of Criminal Justice Sonia Pruitt, and Professor of Political Science and History Karl Smith, and are all named as contributors to the report. Prof. Brown is a speaker at “The120 Initiative Regional Conference on Gun Violence Reduction,” convening today in Washington, DC.