Imperial Valley College honored by 2023 Aspen Award  

IMPERIAL VALLEY, Calif. (KYMA, KECY) - Back in April, the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program honored two community colleges, one of them being Imperial Valley College (IVC).

IVC along with Amarillo College, a community college in Texas, were both named winners of the 2023 Aspen Prize for their exemplary work during a time of extraordinary challenge.

The two colleges will split a $1 million award.   

“Our goal with the money is to reinvest in our campus to see if we can improve our professional development we want to make sure that we build capacity as far as financial capacity because the Aspen has brought some notoriety and we want to see if that can build into some grant funding opportunities,” said Lennor Johnson, Imperial Valley College Superintendent President. 

The Aspen Awards evaluates five critical areas in community colleges across the country including learning outcomes, student success completion, transfer outcomes, equity, and workforce development.  

Imperial Valley College has seen an increase of 12% in the three-year graduation and transfer rate between the years 2015 and 2019. 

And 60 to 70 percent of local high school graduates enroll at IVC.