NYCCT: New York State Community Colleges Trustees Association
 Business and Industry Partnership Award!

The award was established in 2000 to give kudos to exemplary business/academic partnerships. The Next Step Program was nominated by the Boards of Trustees at both Westchester Community College and Hudson Valley Community College. An award ceremony was held in October 24, 2003 at their fall conference in Albany.

The Next Step Program is a landmark example of what can be accomplished when businesses, employees, unions, and education work together to stimulate increased training, retraining and educational opportunities to meet the challenges of increasingly complex technologies and tasks.

NSP is a true collaborative effort between the corporation, its worker unions, and a diverse coalition of college partners throughout New York State and New England. Verizon, in partnership with its unions, the community colleges, a private four-year college, and the New York and New England-based Education Departments were able to successfully develop a common curriculum that is consistent across the entire Verizon corporate footprint in New York and New England. Verizon has committed significant financial resources to ensure that the NSP degree program is competency based, learner centered, and contextually focused technologically, as well as grounded in critical thinking, problem solving, and team building skills.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL WHO MADE THIS RECOGNITION POSSIBLE!