SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. — BridgeValley Community and Technical College in South Charleston is celebrating a major award for its nationally-acclaimed academic success.
BVCTC and its WIN Academy, which offers programs that align with workforce needs and provides students hands-on experience in various industries was just named semifinalists for the 2024 YASS Prize.
The annual national award recognizes educational organizations that excel in performance, innovation, and academic freedom.
Casey Sacks
BridgeValley President Dr. Casey Sacks said the prize is a huge win for the program and the institution as a whole.
“The YASS Prize is like the Pulitzer Prize for charter schools, and the WIN Academy has been named as semifinalist this year for the YASS Prize, it comes with a $200,000 dollar reward, and we’re just really excited, we beat out thousands of other schools to be able to prove that we’re one of the most excellent schools in the country,” Sacks said.
The $200,000 dollar award that’s part of the YASS Prize goes to further supporting academic growth.
Sacks said the college also has a major meeting coming up this week. She said they will host their annual College Wide Advisory meeting where every single one of their college program advisory boards will meet to give an overall update on how each program is working.
“It’s really important at the college that we work with business and industry to make sure that our programs match their needs,” she said. “So, our program chairs meet really regularly with those folks, but once a year we bring them all together, we have dinner, we do a formal presentation, a sort of status update of what’s going on at the college.”
Sacks said the program boards discuss a variety of topics relating to their progress in working with businesses and industries.
“They make sure to talk to each other about, you know, what are their enrollment goals coming up for the next year, where are they with their strategic plans, are we teaching the the things that they need us to teach so that they can hire our graduates, it’s a good time,” said Sacks.
In addition, Bridge Valley recently announced another successful award of $61,957 they were presented with through the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program, which is part of the federal 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
The grant runs through 2026 and will support the college’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its cybersecurity infrastructure.