VGCC’s Hicks awarded scholarship for research program
Julie Hicks of Oxford, coordinator of institutional research at Vance-Granville Community College, recently completed a program of courses offered by the Data and Decisions Academy, which awarded her a Presidential Scholarship. Hicks was nominated for the scholarship by Dr. Stelfanie Williams, the president of VGCC.
The Florida-based Data and Decisions Academy is a program of the Association for Institutional Research and is dedicated to building capacity in institutional research and data use at two-year colleges. The Academy provides online, self-paced professional development courses designed for busy community college research professionals. These courses build the skills that college staff members need to support data-informed decision making.
Over 450 institutional research professionals from 45 states and from four other countries have completed at least one Data and Decisions Academy course. Hicks completed two courses, “Overview of Survey Design” and “Designing IR Research.”
“I was honored to be chosen by Dr. Williams as the nominee for the Presidential Scholarship,” Hicks said. “The ‘Survey Design’ course took the design of surveys to the next step by providing us with techniques for our institution to obtain effective qualitative data. The ‘Designing IR Research’ course provided principles of effective research design for both quantitative and qualitative data, using focus groups, interviews and surveys to interpret our future planning for VGCC.”
The Data and Decisions Academy, she said, “provided me with an increased knowledge base to collect and manage data, which will assist with our institutional effectiveness and with carrying out VGCC’s mission and vision.”
Hicks joined VGCC in 2014 and previously was on the staff of Duke University. She is a graduate of Peace College (now known as William Peace University), where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology.
Above: Dr. Stelfanie Williams (left), the president of VGCC, and Dr. Ken Lewis (right), the college’s vice president of institutional research and technology, present a certificate of completion from the Data and Decisions Academy to Julie Hicks (center). (VGCC photo)
