Henry Ford Community College has a 70-year tradition of providing transfer opportunities, career training and other service to Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and southeastern Michigan. The list of accomplishments of students, faculty and staff is long and distinguished. This is a brief listing of our latest achievements.

First-Rate Honors Program

Henry Ford II Honors Graduate Named to USA Today All-USA Academic Team

HFCC Henry Ford II Honors Program graduate Esther Kelley was selected as one of 20 members of the 2006 USA Today All-USA Community College Academic First Team. Kelley was selected from over 1,500 candidates and received a $2,500 scholarship and national publicity in USA Today. This is the second time in three years an HFCC student has been selected for the team.

HFCC Awarded Achieving the Dream Grant

Henry Ford Community College was chosen as one of six Michigan Community Colleges to receive the Achieving the Dream Grant. Achieving the Dream is a multiyear national initiative to help more community college students succeed. The initiative is particularly concerned about student groups that traditionally have faced significant barriers to success. HFCC was awarded the $50,000 grant from the Kresge Foundation and joins 82 institutions in 15 states. The grant will provide HFCC with the opportunity to network and share best practices with colleges across the country and we will now be eligible to apply for implementation grants worth up to $400,000 over a four-year period.

Henry Ford II Honors Student Earns Guistwhite Award

HFCC Henry Ford II Honors student Hannah Kelley was selected as a Guistwhite Scholar of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. Kelley is one of only 20 students to be selected from over 500 applications for this singular honor and the first from HFCC.

Architecture/Construction Technology Program Student Receives Grainger Scholarship

Rola Majed, Architecture/Construction Technology Program student received a $2,000 scholarship from Grainger Tools to cover books and tuition. At the time of graduation, she will also receive $1,000 in tools from Grainger.

Charitable Contributions

HFCC Student Clubs Raise Record Amount of Money for Charity

Team HFCC participated in the Relay for Life 2007 to raise funds for the American Cancer Society to support cancer research and programs, provide support for cancer survivors, and remember those who lost their battle with cancer. More than 75 students participated in the project and learned about leadership, teamwork and community service. The team raised $3,224 this year, and has raised over $13,000 in the last six years.

Dedicated Faculty

Faculty Members Help Establish High School Graduation Standards

HFCC Faculty members Pamela Sayre and Hal Friedman served on the high school social studies standards committee for American History and Geography (Friedman) and World History and Geography (Sayre) from January - August 2007. The committee established the Michigan High School graduation standards for Social Studies.

Excellent Student Newspaper

Mirror News Staff Receives Michigan Community College Press Association Awards

The staff of the Mirror News attended the annual Michigan Community College Press Association (MCCPA) Press Day Conference in Spring 2007. The staff received awards in the following categories: News Story, Personality Profile, Column/Commentary, Sports News Photo, Student-Created Ad, Front Page Design, Inside Page Layout and Overall Design.

Career Training

Industrial Drafting Students Get Hands-On Experience

HFCC Industrial Drafting students James Bogart and Lebree Jones helped to build displays at the Model-T Automotive Heritage Complex (T-Plex) in Detroit. The T-Plex is becoming an interpretive center for the Model-T and early industry and innovation.

Partners in Success

HFCC Partners with Henry Ford Health System and Dearborn Public Schools

Henry Ford Early College was successfully launched in Fall 2007. The program is a collaboration between HFCC, Dearborn Public Schools, and Henry Ford Health System. The Early College is a five-year program designed to prepare students for one of five health careers. At the end of five years, students will receive a high school diploma and significant credit toward an Associate of Applied Science degree in pharmacy technology, physical therapy assistance, radiography, respiratory therapy, or surgical technology. The Early College opened with approximately 40 ninth-graders; a grade will be added in each of the successive four years. During the ninth and tenth grades, students will be enrolled in high school classes, with emphasis on math and science. They will gradually be introduced to dual enrollment college classes, and their schedules in their 12th and 13th years will be almost exclusively HFCC coursework and clinicals.

National Association President

English Language Institute Director is First CC President of College English Association

In April 2007, Ed Demerly, English instructor and co-director of the English Language Institute at HFCC became president of the College English Association. The CEA is a national organization which includes English teachers from community colleges, colleges, and universities all over the United States as well as over a dozen foreign countries. At its last annual conference in New Orleans, more than 400 papers were presented. Mr. Demerly is the CEA’s first president from a community college in the organization’s 68-year history.

Student Research Awards

Student Research Papers Win Honors at LAND Conference

HFCC Honors Program students represented the college well in the 2007 Liberal Arts Network for Development (LAND) Student Conference. LAND is an organization dedicated to promoting the humanities in Michigan's colleges.  First-prize papers are published in the organization's annual journal.  Kelly Beagan, Aline Iovleva, and Jessica Sawyers, were finalists in the biological sciences category for their research papers “Genetically Modified Crops: Growth Rates of GM v. Non-GM Soybeans,” and “Investigation of Genetically Modified Consumer Products”.  Their papers will be presented to the 18th Annual Argonne Symposium for Undergraduates in Science, Engineering and Mathematics. Rania Aoun won first prize in the health sciences category for her paper "Broken Heart Syndrome". Her paper will be included in a laboratory manual Symbiosis.  David Neasz was a finalist in the philosophy category for his paper "Analysis of Individuality in Nietzsche".

Physics Department Honors

Physics Instructor Publishes Work and Chosen to Develop Educational Materials related to European Space Agency Mission

Michael LoPresto, Astronomy and Physics Instructor had two papers published in The Physics Teacher, entitled “A Simplified Theoretical Treatment and Simulated Experimental Calculation of the Roche Limit” (September 2006) and “Experimenting with Guitar Strings” (November 2006). HFCC Astronomy Instructors Michael C. LoPresto and Steven R. Murrell presented a poster entitled “Seven Years and Counting in the Student-Centered Classroom” at the Cosmos in the Classroom-2007 Symposium at Pomona College in Claremont, CA, in August.  Mike LoPresto’s attendance at the symposium was sponsored by an educational grant from the Planck Mission (a satellite that will be launched in 2008 by the European Space Agency to study the cosmic background radiation). LoPresto has been selected as one of six community college instructors in the country to participate in the development of educational materials for teaching cosmology in introductory astronomy based on data that will be gathered by the mission.

Hospitality Program Serves Michigan State Senate

Hospitality Program Hospitality Students Demonstrate Culinary Skills for State Senate

The HFCC Hospitality Program students catered lunch for the Michigan State Senate Luncheon in March 2007. The HFCC Culinary Arts program is nationally accredited through the American Culinary Federation. In addition, HFCC's Hospitality Studies program is accredited by the Educational Foundation of the National Restaurant Association.

International Recognition

Phi Theta Kappa Recognized Internationally

Dr. Nabeel Abraham, HFCC Instructor and the Alpha Xi Mu Chapter of HFCC’s Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society received a special commendation during the Michigan Regional Convention. The commendation recognized the chapter’s successful attainment of goals as presented in the Society’s Five Star Chapter Development Program. The Chapter was awarded the Five Star designation for promoting at least two events in each of the four Hallmarks that the Society is built on, Fellowship, Scholarship, Leadership and Service. This distinction will also be recognized at the international level. Phi Theta Kappa also received a Bronze Pinnacle award for obtaining more than a 10% increase in membership.

The group also placed in the Michigan Regional Competition. They received third place in the Yearbook Competition for documenting their activities for the year and third place in Better World Books Book Drive for collecting books sent to third world countries.