Minnesota Community and Technical College and Augsburg College alum receives prestigious TRiO Achievers Award

Posted by on Sunday, January 31, 2010 12:30 - 0 Comments

mctclogoBy Dawn Skelly

The Rev. Rozenia A.H. Fuller has received a 2009 TRiO Achievers Award from the Mid-America Association of Educational Opportunity augsburgProgramPersonnel (MAEOPP). The prestigious award recognizes outstanding former participants in the federal TRiO programs who have made significant civic, community or professional contributions.

Jennifer Brookins-King from Minnesota Community and Technical College (MCTC) nominated the Rev. Fuller for the award because of her personal, educational and professional accomplishments. When Rev. Fuller enrolled at MCTC in 1995, she was a single mother of two who had just moved out of a shelter for battered women and children. She joined MCTC’s Starting Point/Student Support Services TRiO program and excelled in and out of the classroom. While at MCTC, the Rev. Fuller was a mentor, president of student government, a Kopp Presidential Scholar, and a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and the All-USA Community College Academic Team.

After receiving a Liberal Arts degree from MCTC in 1998, she transferred to Augsburg College where she was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar and received the Marina Christensen Justice Award and the Linda Schrempp Alberg Leadership Award. She graduated from Augsburg in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Youth and Family Ministry. In 2005, she received a Master’s of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey, where she was an Acorn Foundation scholar. During her professional career, the Rev. Fuller has served as an associate pastor of pastoral care at Rossmoor Community Church in Monroe Township, N.J., as chaplain for Presbyterian Homes and Services, PHS Senior Living, in Princeton, N.J., as an academic advisor for student support services at Augsburg College, and as a social worker for Another Chance Agency in Minneapolis. She was recently inducted into the 2009 Minneapolis Community and Technical College Hall of Fame and was named the 2009 Augsburg College Pan-Afrikan Student Union’s Alum of the Year.

“At MCTC, I discovered an invaluable TRiO support system,” says the Rev. Fuller. “Whether helping me overcome my math anxiety or budget for bus fare, my TRiO advisors were always accessible and gave me the academic language, courage, confidence and love that I needed to succeed not only as a student but as a single parent. The TRiO program was there for me every step of the way.”

The TRiO programs are federally funded, educational outreach programs designed to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds, including low-income, first-generation college students. There are 68 TRiO programs in Minnesota’s public and private institutions. MCTC has six TRiO programs, more than any other higher education institution in Minnesota.

– Article orginally posted at http://www.minneapolis.edu/documents/pressroom/qtvtyoybit0zterwL1i7Lvrut6.pdf





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