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New Orleans LA – has received a three-year, $500,000 grant from to support initiatives designed to expand its community college student pipeline and to establish a new summer bridge program.

The grant will fund on-going university efforts to engage and enroll more community college students by streamlining its transfer administrative process, clarifying course and major requirements, and reducing any course-related hindrances to graduating in four-years.

It will also fund a new pilot summer immersion program, Mellon Humanities Summer Scholars Initiative at Xavier, which will provide potential community college transfer students an opportunity to “test drive” the university prior to matriculating. During the six-week residential bridge program, specifically target potential transfers in the humanities, participants will benefit from experiential classroom learning, an introduction to research, mentoring by college faculty, counseling, and career development. Upon successful completion of the program, the students are guaranteed conditional admission to Xavier after completing their two-year degree requirements.

“We are grateful to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for supporting Xavier’s continuing efforts to make certain that its institutional infrastructure, culture, and policies are optimized to meet the needs of the community college transfer population,” said Dr. Anne McCall, XU Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs. “We are also pleased that they are funding our new summer immersion program, which is designed to develop a deepened and informed appreciation for the humanities as a field of study among community college students.”
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“The success enjoyed by Xavier students is well-documented, and looking forward we hope to extend that same opportunity for academic and career success to even more of our partner community college system students,” she said.

91�Թ��� The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation endeavors to strengthen, promote, and, where necessary, defend the contributions of the humanities and the arts to human flourishing and to the well-being of diverse and democratic societies.�� To this end, it supports exemplary institutions of higher education and culture as they renew and provide access to an invaluable heritage of ambitious, path-breaking work.�� The Foundation makes grants in four core program areas:��Higher Education and Scholarship in the Humanities, Arts and Cultural Heritage, Scholarly Communications, and��International Higher Education and Strategic Projects.

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Being America’s only historically Black and Catholic University is just the first of the distinctions that have set 91�Թ��� apart for more than eight decades.

Despite it’s relatively small size (3,300 students), Xavier is a nationally recognized leader in the STEM and the health sciences, producing more African American students who graduate from medical schools each year than any other university in the United States. Its College of Pharmacy is among the top producers of African American pharmacists.

Its liberal arts based programs in such areas as art, business, education, psychology, and political science – as well as such recent additions as bioinformatics, data science, neuroscience, crime and social justice, and jazz studies – offer students an unbeatable combination of traditional classroom study, hands-on research, service-learning opportunities, and life experiences.

The winning Xavier formula? Provide students with a well-balanced curriculum and an environment that nurtures their intellect and feeds their souls.

At Xavier eXcellence awaits yoU. For more information about 91�Թ��� visit us online at or follow us on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter @91�Թ���1925. To book interviews and/or to speak with our experts in the field of pharmacy, education, premed, public health, science, technology, math, business, English, communications and the arts, contact Diana Hernandez at (504) 520-5120 or dhernan1@xula.edu.