Innovation Awards

Spring 2015, Shasta College was one of the top five colleges in the state of California to receive a $5 million Award for Innovation in Higher Education for its efforts in providing accelerated processes for high school students to achieve a bachelor’s degree. Since then, Shasta College has received two more awards, making it one of only three colleges in the state to receive all three Innovations Awards! 

The 2015 Innovation Award focused on increasing access and reducing time and cost to obtaining a four-year degree. Shasta College and its community partners created responsive strategies that allow every area high school student - at any achievement level - to accelerate progress toward a bachelor's degree. By combining fee waivers, enrollment policy changes, on-campus programs, concurrent enrollment and dual enrollment opportunities across Shasta, Tehama, and Trinity Counties, Shasta College supports interested high school students in earning transferrable units toward degrees at minimal or no cost and often without having to leave a high school classroom.  Detailed information on the first Innovation Award is available through the following link:

Spring 2017, Shasta College was among the top three colleges in the state to receive a $2 million Award for Innovation in Higher Education.  This award highlights the College's work in redesigning curriculum and instruction, and reducing time to degrees, through two new programs:  Associate Completion in the Evenings (ACE) and Bachelor's through Online and Local Degrees (BOLD). These programs target students with some college courses completed and no degree, as well as low income and first generation students who experience barriers to transitioning to a four-year university.  They serve students matriculating directly out of high school who don't have the opportunity to leave home to attend college, and serve as a bridge for adults with "some college" to progress towards degree completion. Both ACE and BOLD are designed around research-based practices including guided pathways, hybrid learning, degree maps, and cohort support. Detailed information is available through the following link:

The third award in 2018 for $1.5 million supported the expansion of the STEP-UP program. STEP-UP began as a pilot program for incarcerated adults to assist with local jail overcrowding and the need for resources to help transition adult offenders back into the community, as a result of California’s prison realignment legislation. As a pilot, STEP-UP was successful in reducing the recidivism or re-offence rate to a mere 12% for program participants, compared to the state average of 75%. This award helped expand the successful Shasta County pilot program to Tehama and Trinity Counties as well as provided technical assistance and start-up grants to other California Community College’s wanting to start their own “STEP-UP” model.

The Shasta College award plans focus on the following: 

Advancing Existing Innovations

  • Expansion of dual and concurrent enrollment efforts
  • Assistance in providing course materials for dual-enrolled classes
  • Live, interactive video conferencing to rural areas
  • Investigation of the expansion and support for the Gateway to College program
  • Rework curriculum and create guided pathways and degree maps for working adults to obtain their Associate degree in the same timeframe as traditional students 
  • Build and expand pathways for Bachelor's degree completion without leaving the North State

Supporting and Expanding a Culture of Innovation

  • Create a Center for Community College Innovation and Research
  • Provide funding support for innovative ideas that enhance student learning and success

For more in-depth information on any of the innovation grant applications above, contact the Office of Grant Development and/or visit Innovation Mini-Grant Projects to view Shasta College’s continuing efforts in innovation.