Felician University’s New Apple Technology through Project Felice

Felician University is the recipient of a new, $2.3 million grant that will upgrade and expand the university’s broadband infrastructure, computing resources, and online technologies, to make remote learning fully accessible. The grant will also be used to teach telehealth best practices to cohorts of Felician University students in nursing, and counseling psychology.

Felician will partner with three organizations serving communities that will benefit from the collaboration of telehealth-based services and resources. They are the Franciscan Community Development Center’s Community Based Psychotherapy Center, Care Plus, and Jersey City Medical Center.

This U.S. Department of Commerce grant is part of the Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program and the Biden Administration’s Internet for All initiative. Funding from this grant program aims to expand technology and reliable high-speed internet access across the nation.

Felician University is a Hispanic-serving and Minority-serving institution with undergraduate enrollment that is 39% Hispanic and 59% minority. The university is one of only 12 minority-serving institutions of higher education to receive this grant.

The University leads on the grant are Dr. Deanna Valente, Dean of Academic & Information Technology, Information Systems and Learning & Development, who will serve as project manager; Dr. Daria Waszak, Associate Dean in the School of Nursing; Dr. Dan Mahoney, Director of the Graduate Psychology Program; and Christopher Finch, Assistant Vice President of IT. Dr. Mildrid Mihlon, Acting President & Ms. Elizabeth Burke also played a critical role in the successful award of the grant.

“Project FELICE: Fostering Equity in Learning Through Inclusion, Connectivity, and Engagement” is Felician University’s response to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s call for proposals under the Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program. Felician, located on two campuses in northeastern New Jersey, close to New York City, is a Hispanic-serving institution: 32% of Felician’s students are Hispanic and 59% are minorities. Many are from low-income communities: 53% of undergraduates are Pell-eligible, and 43% are first-generation college students. The university’s anchor community circle includes 100 eligible census tracts in New Jersey (and many others in New York City) in which the estimated median annual household income is not more than 250% of the poverty threshold; the median family income for traditional-age undergraduate students at Felician is $38,804.

Project FELICE has three goals:

1. Close the educational achievement gap for Felician undergraduate students by upgrading and expanding the university’s broadband infrastructure, computing resources, and online technologies to make remote learning fully accessible;
2. Teach telehealth best practices to three cohorts of Felician students—nursing undergraduate and graduate students, counseling psychology graduate students, so that they learn to provide skilled, culturally informed care using remote communications platforms;
3. Partner with three collaborating organizations serving the anchor community—Franciscan Community Development Center’s Community Based Psychotherapy Center, Care Plus, and Jersey City Medical Center to provide professional development in best practices via telehealth for staff, and telehealth-based services and resources for the individuals and families they serve.

Activities include:

• Investing in system-wide infrastructure improvements in broadband capacity and connectivity at Felician University’s two campuses.
• Buying remote-learning equipped iPads for eligible, low-income undergraduates who would not otherwise have reliable computing equipment or WiFi access.
• Establishing a video technology platform that will facilitate remote learning and enable interactive communications between faculty and students across the university.
• Strengthening telehealth training and remote learning resources for nursing students through online patient care simulations focused on medically underserved communities.
• Training graduate students preparing for behavioral health careers in culturally informed best practices in telehealth delivery.
• Offering professional training in best practices via telehealth to anchor community providers.
• Providing telehealth-based psychotherapy to clients in need of counseling support; telehealth-based testing, and assessment, as part of behavioral health graduate students’ clinical experience in the anchor community.
• Providing iPads on a loaner basis to behavioral health clients and families in the anchor community who do not have access to computing resources or broadband.
• Creating an interactive web portal in Spanish and English with resources about behavioral health for anchor community families. Eligible students will be determined through a rubric established by the Project Felice Advisory Board and the Office of Financial Aid to meet the guidelines set forth:

Target Population: A total of 300 eligible Felician undergraduates with demonstrated financial need and demonstrated device/broadband need. (Year 1)

Target Population: A total of 23-28 Felician graduate students enrolled in the Graduate Psychology Programs (MACP and PsyD) Dr. Daniel Mahoney Project Director for Psychology Programs mahoneyd@felician.edu