Hudson Valley Community College Wins Two Awards of Excellence from the World Federation of Colleges and Polytechnics

April 25, 2023

Hudson Valley Community College received two prestigious World Federation of Colleges and Polytechnics (WFCP) Awards of Excellence at the organization’s annual World Congress in Montreal on April 25, 2023. The WFCP awards program recognizes outstanding contributions from member institutions and associations in advancing professional and technical education and training for the global economy. The college earned a bronze award for Global Citizenship and a silver award for Strategic Leadership.

The college received a Global Citizenship Award which recognizes the college’s commitment to providing the exemplary strategies and tools to prepare students for global citizenship. Some of the college’s recent initiatives that led to the nomination for this award include the Global Classroom High School program, the relocation of the International Center of the Capital Region and a local chapter of the 100 Black Men organization onto Hudson Valley’s Troy, NY campus, humanitarian efforts in Costa Rica and the Philippines, and more.

The Global Classroom High School program, launched in Costa Rica in 2020, allows high school students outside the United States to take college-level courses online for college credit. The program offers students scholarships to offset college costs, and it has served more than 350 students from 25 countries since its inception. The International Center of the Capital Region (ICCR), a non-profit organization founded in 1956 to promote cultural understanding by welcoming international leaders and newcomers to the Capital Region, was co-located with the college’s Office of Global Initiatives on the college’s Troy, NY campus at no cost to ICCR. The organization has brought dozens of international leaders to campus in the past two years to learn about the college and special topics, meet with students, education leaders and workforce partners. Similarly, the college provided office space on campus to 100 Black Men, an international organization committed to mentoring and developing young people into future leaders by providing mentoring and educational opportunities they may not otherwise have access to.

College officials also traveled to the Philippines in 2019 to the Visayas Region of Samar to provide teacher education and dental hygiene training to a philanthropic group called Support Samar Schools. Since its founding, Support Samar Schools has built seven elementary schools in an impoverished region of the Philippines, where educational opportunities and basic health services are extremely scarce. In addition, the college is working with education leaders in Ghana to explore the development of Technical and Vocational Education and Training programs for both men and women to help to meet the country’s workforce demands.

Hudson Valley also received a Strategic Leadership Award, which recognizes the college’s creation of a STEM High School and Veteran’s Resource and Outreach Center on campus, as well as the building of the Center for Advanced Manufacturing Skills, and more. In 2021, the STEM High School, hosted on campus in partnership with Questar III BOCES, opened as the first New York State Pathways in Technology (P-TECH) and Smart Scholar Early College High School hosted on a community college campus in the Capital Region. It allows students to earn up to 63 college credits – at no cost – while completing high school. The school is open to students across seven counties and 46 school districts looking for pathways to well-paid careers in the fast-growing, in-demand STEM fields of computer information systems, engineering technology, environmental science and protection technology, and health sciences. The same year, the college opened a new Veterans Resource and Outreach Center (VET-ROC) on campus. A focal point for veterans and the military-connected community on campus, the VET-ROC houses the PFC Joseph P. Dwyer Veterans Peer Support Program of Rensselaer County, which offers non-clinical peer-to-peer support for any Rensselaer County veteran and works to help all Capital Region veterans reintegrate into civilian society.

The college opened the Gene F. Haas Center for Advanced Manufacturing Skills (CAMS) facility on campus in 2019. The $14.5 million, 37,000-square-foot facility was designed with industry partners’ input to increase enrollment in its Advanced Manufacturing Technology (A.O.S.) degree program and meet an urgent workforce demand for skilled manufacturing employees in the region. The program is the only one of its kind within 125 miles, has a 100 percent job placement rate, and prepares graduates for careers as CNC machinists, tool makers and industrial technicians, along with marketing, sales, procurement and supervisory jobs.

“Hudson Valley Community College is proud and honored to be recognized for excellence in global citizenship and strategic leadership by the World Federation of Colleges and Polytechnics,” said Hudson Valley Community College President Dr. Roger Ramsammy. “We strive to be as a leader in global education, and to provide innovative, future-focused opportunities for students both at home and around the world. And, as a member of the WFCP Board of Directors representing the United States, it is my personal mission to spread awareness of the benefits that membership in the WFCP can bring to other colleges across the country.”

WFCP is a member-based organization that brings together colleges, polytechnics, university colleges and institutes of professional education from all continents. Members are typically national and regional associations of institutions of applied higher education, individual institutions, NGOs or organizations representing the sector. WFCP is led by the country’s representative body of colleges, institutes or polytechnics. Members collaborate on and share leading-edge education strategies and best practices to increase workforce employability in countries around the world. In June 2022, President Ramsammy was elected to the WFCP Board of Directors.

Hudson Valley has an established history as an institution welcoming international students; each year, the college serves students from an average of more than 35 foreign countries who travel to the Troy campus to pursue higher education. Under President Ramsammy’s leadership, Hudson Valley has also undertaken numerous new global initiatives designed to help create educational opportunities for students from around the world. In 2018, the college completed an ambitious strategic plan that focuses on six core pillars to guide future growth and priorities: Commit to Student Success, Inclusion and Equity; Enhance Academic Excellence; Optimize Enrollment; Encourage Faculty and Staff Excellence; Expand Partnerships and Community Engagement; and Reinvigorate Campus Culture and Infrastructure.

Since then, the college has forged partnerships with educational institutions and leaders in several countries around the world. Notably, the college signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Ministry of Public Education of the Republic of Costa Rica to expand and formalize the college’s educational and training outreach in the country, and has established programs for both teachers and students, including “train the trainer” programs offering free ESL courses for Costa Rican teachers, distance learning for Costa Rican students, and an agreement that allows Costa Rican educators to come to Hudson Valley’s campus for training programs to gain knowledge and skills from the college’s faculty in electric and autonomous vehicle programs, to name a few opportunities.