January 7, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: January 7, 2009
CONTACT: Kimberly Gormley Megan Hartley
Director, Marketing & Communications OCAN Intern
Office: 614.947.3504, Mobile: 614.668.2954 Office: 614.947.3500
Email: gormleyk@ohiocan.org
Email: ocan.megan@gmail.com
Ohio College Access Network Announces New Board Members
Columbus, Ohio - Ohio College Access Network (OCAN) is honored to announce two new members to its Board of Directors, Dean Thomas J. Lasley II of the University of Dayton and President Roy A. Church of Lorain County Community College (LCCC). OCAN is pleased that these distinguished individuals will further engage in statewide college access by bringing new ideas and leadership to the Board.
OCAN Board Members strive to uphold OCAN’s mission to support college access organizations and uphold the organization’s three goals to provide advocacy, program development, and sustainability for Ohio’s college access programs. Lasley and Church have achieved much during their careers that enable them to advise OCAN. As skilled and committed higher education leaders, both will share important insight about education advocacy, the student transition to public and private post-secondary institutions and more.
Lasley, the current Dean and Joseph Panzer Professor of Education in the School of Education at the University of Dayton, will bring much knowledge to the Board through his additional experience on the Commission for Teaching Success, which examines teacher quality statewide, as well as the Teacher Support and Professional Development Committee of the Commission.
As president, Church has led LCCC through a transformation by introducing comprehensive community higher education centers for local populations to access education from the K-12 level through graduate studies and other like programs. Church will be joining the Board of Directors Advisory Committee.
OCAN Board Chairman Chad Wick, President and CEO of the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, and OCAN President and CEO Reginald Wilkinson are confident in Lasley and Church. "These two new members both have longstanding commitment to education and willingness to work with first generation college students and low-income families. Additionally, they both represent geographic regions of Ohio that are high-targeted areas for college access programs making them ideal additions to better the Board of Directors at OCAN," said Dr. Reginald A. Wilkinson, OCAN President and CEO.
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The Ohio College Access Network (OCAN) was founded in 1999, by KnowledgeWorks Foundation, in collaboration with the Ohio Board of Regents, the Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Business Roundtable. OCAN works to establish college access programs across the state and is the first statewide coordinating body for college access programs in the nation. The goal of the organization is to help more Ohio students pursue postsecondary education through the work of local college access programs, which provide financial aid advising, last dollar grants, career guidance, and other services. Currently, 37 college access programs serve nearly 200 of Ohio's 612 school districts, and 17 private/parochial schools in 46 counties touching nearly 175,000 students annually. For more information visit: www.ohiocan.org.