Rockland Community College Receives Significant Grant from Veolia to Support Student Research

Rockland Community College (RCC) has announced a new strategic partnership with Veolia. This collaboration will inspire and support science majors at RCC thanks to the establishment of the Veolia Scholars Awards.

With a generous $25,000 grant commitment from Veolia, ten exemplary Science students from RCC will be awarded $2,500 each, a testament to their stellar academic accomplishments. This initiative not only acknowledges their hard work but also significantly aids in their academic journey.

Both Veolia and RCC are ardently dedicated to nurturing future scientists. Their joint mission is to equip students to address the gamut of environmental, conservation, and sustainability challenges that our world faces.

"We are very excited about this new partnership with Rockland Community College," said Chris Graziano, Vice President and General Manager of Veolia's municipal water operation in New York. "Providing scholarships for students is one of the many ways we demonstrate our role as an active and concerned corporate citizen and a world leader in the environmental services industry."

Reinforcing the significance of the grant, Dr. Melanie Rie, RCC’s Dean of the School of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, elaborated, “With the Veolia Scholars Award, half of an entire year of RCC's tuition can be covered. This substantially reduces many of our students' financial constraints, ensuring their educational journey remains uninterrupted. We extend our deepest gratitude to Veolia for embarking on this game-changing collaboration with us."

RCC and Veolia collectively aspire to foster a community of resilient, informed, and skilled scientists. This partnership is but a step in their shared journey towards a sustainable and informed future.

For more information about this partnership, contact Joan Halligan, Executive Director of Development at RCC, at joan.halliganwang@sunyrockland.edu.

About Rockland Community College

Rockland Community College (RCC), located in Suffern New York, provides purpose driven educational opportunities in a supportive, affordable, and accessible environment, empowering individuals to positively transform themselves and their communities. RCC welcomes students from diverse backgrounds who appreciate small class sizes and personal attention from a distinguished, award-winning faculty that includes Fulbright scholars and SUNY Distinguished Professors. Many graduates go on to top universities to further their education on their own or through RCC’s institutional collaborations.

RCC fosters an environment that attracts, recruits, supports, and retains faculty, staff, and students who value diversity. The College promotes a collegial and inclusive environment by recognizing, promoting, embracing, respecting, and celebrating the expansive range and dimensions of cultures, attitudes, ideas, and viewpoints contained within our campus community.

RCC is also proud to provide career training and professional development to adult learners looking to change careers or upgrade their skills through a variety of programs and educational opportunities including workforce training, certifications, and micro credentials. Many of the programs are developed with employers in the community in high demand industry areas to enable graduates to move into a new career upon graduation. More information can be found at sunyrockland.edu.

About Veolia North America:

A subsidiary of Veolia group, Veolia North America (VNA) offers a full spectrum of water, waste and energy management services, including water and wastewater treatment, commercial and hazardous waste collection and disposal, energy consulting and resource recovery. VNA helps commercial, industrial, healthcare, higher education and municipality customers throughout North America. Headquartered in Boston, Mass., Veolia North America has more than 10,000 employees working at more than 350 locations across the continent.

About Veolia Group:

Veolia Group aims to become the benchmark company for ecological transformation. Present on five continents with nearly 213,000 employees, the Group designs and deploys useful, practical solutions for the management of water, waste and energy that are contributing to a radical turnaround of the current situation. Through its three complementary activities, Veolia helps to develop access to resources, to preserve available resources and to renew them. In 2022, the Veolia group provided 111 million inhabitants with drinking water and 97 million with sanitation, produced 44 terawatt hours of energy and recovered 61 million tons of waste. Veolia Environnement (Paris Euronext: VIE) achieved consolidated revenue of 42.885 billion euros in 2022. www.veolia.com.