Sinclair Community College is a place where students can prepare for the next steps in their career journey. Having the support or resources to be successful is one way the Foundation Board can help. Zachary Beck, Chief Development Officer of Sinclar’s Foundation Board, was once a college student at Sinclair 20 years ago. He agrees that the board’s mission statement coincides with that of the college’s Find the need and endeavor to meet it because the board provides education resources to identified students. Beck’s job is all about being able to help students with the support needed to further their education.
In the early 1960s when Sinclair became a public college, the foundation was created to help future students. It’s because of support from students and staff that foundation boards like these have been able to connect students in ways that other foundations may not. When the Foundation first started in 1969, it was funded mostly for charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes.
“The Sinclair Foundation is one of the oldest and largest college foundations in the United States and was founded two years after Sinclair became a public college in the 1960s, makes it one of the oldest community college foundations in the U.S.” Beck said.
The Foundation is more than a place for students to get access to finding a job or career. In fact, for 10 years the Foundation Office has awarded 16,000 recipients’ scholarships worth more than $13 million, which Zachary said is an accolade to be proud of for a community college like Sinclair. Money like that doesn’t always easily come for programs like this.
“Over the past 10 years we have awarded more than $16,000 in scholarships which is almost $13 million. “Last year we awarded a million and a half or almost three thousand students. In a nutshell, we go ahead and raise money for students like yourself and we turn it around and give it out,” Beck said.
By raising this amount of money, the Foundation has given students the ability to make smart work choices. This has allowed students to have a head start in being employed in a career path that meets their qualifications. The same can be said for Zachary. Beck was once a college student back when he first started attending Sinclair in a program formally known as PSCO (now College Credit Plus) while taking general education classes in business education. He obtained a B.S in finance an MBA and a doctorate a few months ago. In addition, he recently transferred credits back to Sinclar and graduated in 2023. He has come full circle with being an alumnus of Sinclair.
“I would define an alumni as a person who is in a class at Sinclair because our programs range from people who are taking one class as part of the community band program all the way to the high school student or a senior citizen who is here for a lifelong learning program and everything in between”, Beck said.
This statement is one of the core testaments to what Sinclair strives for every single student to have the tools and resources to be able to learn and adapt in any career. Sinclair stands out from all the rest because of how student centric the campus is about its relationships with its current students and alumni. That’s how being an alumni can have an impact.
Kyle Mounce
Writer.