NACCE Names Entrepreneurial College & President of the Year

The National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE), the nation’s leading organization focused on promoting entrepreneurship through community colleges, has named San Diego Continuing Education (SDCE) in San Diego, California, as the 2019 Heather Van Sickle Entrepreneurial College of the Year at its 17th Annual Conference, now underway in Newport Beach, California. Also, Paul Dale, Ed.D., president of Paradise Valley Community College (PVCC), in Phoenix, Arizona, has been named NACCE’s 2019 Entrepreneurial President of the Year.

2019 Entrepreneurial College
“I am delighted that San Diego Continuing Education has been selected as the winner of the Heather Van Sickle Entrepreneurial College of the Year Award,” said Rebecca Corbin, Ed.D., president and CEO of NACCE. “This award recognizes a college for embracing the NACCE Presidents for Entrepreneurship Pledge (PFEP), and for its significant entrepreneurial achievements in the local communities it serves.”

 

SDCE is part of the San Diego Community College District, encompassing seven community colleges in the greater San Diego area. It is one of the largest non-credit colleges in California and is committed to student success and community enrichment by providing accessible and innovative quality education and support services to diverse adult learners. Carlos O. Turner Cortez, Ph.D., president of SDCE, has spearheaded the creation of ICOM Academy (Interactive Competency-based Online Microcredentialing Academy), which will launch next fall. ICOM is a fully online educational program that provides adult learners with flexible job training and extensive career placement services.

 

“ICOM is free, fast, and synchronous and provides adult learners highly interactive career education with five career education options in small business entrepreneurship and information technology,” said Turner Cortez. “We designed ICOM exclusively to be interactive and collaborative. It allows for group projects to make the learning experience more dynamic for adults learners in the San Diego area.”

2019 Entrepreneurial President
Paradise Valley Community College President Paul Dale has led the college since 2010, initiating several entrepreneurial and innovative programs that include partnerships with local non-profits and the creation of the college’s Entrepreneurship Center. “Positive social change is one of the major pillars of our college’s mission, and social entrepreneurship aligns with this closely,” said Dale. “Through programs like Fresh Start, a small business development certificate program that helps women transition into the workforce, we’ve experienced positive results over the past several years and want to continue to scale this and other programs and get students even more involved in social entrepreneurship ventures.”

“President Dale has demonstrated a deep commitment and support for entrepreneurship initiatives that have impact across the college and the community,” said Corbin. “He has invested significant time, energy, and resources to foster innovation at PVCC and has infused entrepreneurial thinking across all of the college’s disciplines.”

 

Dale’s leadership and commitment to entrepreneurship are evident in the faculty-initiated Club Z, a student success group that takes on specific initiatives to support the campus as a whole as well as the greater community. “Moving forward, we’d like to build on the work we’ve been doing at Club Z and the Entrepreneurship Center,” he said. “We want to make ourselves more accessible to others, including small businesses in the community, and increase engagement with external partners.”