NMC RECEIVES $3.75 MILLION IN STATE FUNDS FOR HANGAR, PLANES
A critical $3.75 million investment will allow NMC to expand its aviation facilities and help address the nation’s pilot shortage. The funding will be used to renovate and expand NMC’s 47-yearold hangar and purchase additional aircraft, allowing the college to increase its capacity to train more pilots, a need identified in the college’s strategic plan.
“This effort has been more than a year in the making,” says NMC President Dr. Nick Nissley. “We are grateful for the support and advocacy from our state lawmakers, like Senator John Damoose, who was a key champion of this project, as well as support from members of the house including representatives Betsy Coffia and Curt VanderWall. They see the value in investing in NMC to meet the region’s workforce needs.”
NMC must provide a 50 percent match to the state investment, with a total project cost of $5 million for the hangar renovation, shown above, and $2 million for the acquisition of four new, technically advanced aircraft for flight training.
AGREEMENT AIMS TO INCREASE RANKS OF DENTAL ASSISTANTS IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN
NMC and Bay Mills, a tribally controlled Upper Peninsula community college in Brimley, Mich., signed an articulation agreement in February which will allow Bay Mills’ students to transfer to NMC’s dental assistant program after their first year.
One of the key advantages of NMC’s program is students’ ability to earn registered dental assistant (RDA) licensure. In addition to being the northernmost accredited program in the state, NMC has an outstanding pass rate history, exceeding the state of Michigan’s average in both the clinical and written portion of the exams. Since 2019, at least 96 percent of NMC graduates have passed the clinical portion.
Dr. Jessica Rickert, a now-retired Traverse City area dentist who hired NMC graduates in her practice, connected NMC and Bay Mills. Rickert is also the first female Native American dentist in the United States, and remains the only one in Michigan. She now consults with insurer Delta Dental of Michigan and leads Anishinaabe Dental Outreach, the goal of which is to improve dental health in Native communities. In the Upper Peninsula the shortage of dental professionals is especially acute.
“The scarcity of timely dental care is causing serious hardship,” Rickert says. “They have a wonderful program at NMC. Dental assisting is such a great career, and it’s really fulfilling and it’s necessary. Let’s make this happen.” NMC recently invested $52,000 in new equipment for the dental assistant program. It has six fully functioning patient rooms and some of the latest technology, including an intraoral scanner.
U.S. SEN. GARY PETERS, STATE SEN. JOHN DAMOOSE, PRESIDENT NICK NISSLEY, BOARD OF TRUSTEES VICE CHAIR RACHEL JOHNSON, U.S. SEN. DEBBIE STABENOW, STATE REP. JOHN ROTH.
FEDS EARMARK $2.7 MILLION FOR CAMPUS BOILER REPLACEMENT
A green energy infrastructure project would replace NMC’s existing centralized steam power plant and decentralized air handling units with a new distributed geothermal system. The proposed $12 million system would serve six buildings on main campus, have an expected life cycle payback period of 13.3 years, and will reduce site carbon emissions
NEW IT, ESPORTS CERTIFICATES TO BE OFFERED IN JANUARY
Certificates in computer support and cybersecurity specialization and Esports management will debut at NMC in January, offering students several additional paths to employment.
The certificates take one semester and one year to complete, respectively, which aligns with NMC’s strategic goal of offering future-focused education — more classes in shorter formats so students can get jobs faster.
‘We’re giving students the opportunity to have quicker completion,” said Vice President for Educational Services Stephen Siciliano.
Multiple IT careers are among Michigan’s hot 50 jobs with the best prospects through 2030. The Esports certificate builds upon NMC’s success with varsity Esports teams, and puts NMC at the forefront of Esports’ development into an academic discipline.
The certificate is designed to feed into the current business administration associate degree, or a bachelor’s degree in Esports production which Ferris State University launched last fall.
“So many potential students or current students are gamers. This will be a different path for them, to take something they love doing and make it into a career,” said Terri Gustafson, NMC’s Esports director.
NMC entered varsity Esports competition last year with two teams, and expanded to five this year.
▶ Find out more about NMC's Computer Information Technology and Esports programs at nmc.edu/cit and nmc.edu/esports.
RYAN DEERING
SURVEYING INDUSTRY TURNS TO NMC TO BOLSTER WORKFORCE
An aging workforce, lack of awareness of the career opportunities, and demand for surveying skills have created a shortage of surveyors.
Launching a Surveying Technology associate degree in 2019 was NMC’s first response. Now, a new dedicated surveying technology program recruiter funded by an industry donor will tackle that lack of awareness.
Recruiter Ryan Deering is confident that he can attract students, especially because NMC’s program is unique in that it offers instruction for land, marine, and air applications.
Land surveying classes, underwater ROV classes and drone classes are all taught at the Parsons-Stulen Building on NMC’s Aero Park campus. NMC also has a campus harbor and vessel on West Grand Traverse Bay, and access to an airfield in Yuba where students can gain real-world experience in the marine and air applications.
“Everything is combined. It’s woven together nicely,” says Deering, who also teaches welding at NMC. “It’s limitless, what you can do with a surveying degree.”
Industry leader Leica also supplies NMC with close to $1 million in surveying equipment each year for use in the program.
The NMC Fellow award for 2023 has been bestowed on Eugene A. Jenneman and Brad, D.J. and Marty Oleson, all of Traverse City.
EUGENE A. JENNEMAN
Jenneman was the first director of NMC’s Dennos Museum Center. The Olesons — siblings Brad and D.J. and cousin Marty—are the third generation of the family whose financial and volunteer support for NMC spans all eight decades of its existence.
TOP LEFT (CLOCKWISE): BRAD, D.J. AND MARTY OLESON
Appointed as Dennos director before the museum even opened in 1991, Jenneman led the museum until his retirement in 2019. His culminating achievement was a 15,000-square-foot expansion completed in 2017, which nearly doubled the museum’s exhibition space. The new galleries, one of which bears his name, showcase pieces from the permanent collection that he acquired over 30 years, as well as the Dennos’ signature Inuit art collection.
The Oleson trio carried on the NMC Barbecue tradition started in 1956 by their grandparents, Jerry and Frances Oleson, until it concluded in 2020 after raising nearly $2 million for college projects. Marty Oleson is a member of the NMC Foundation Board, appointed in 2010. Brad Oleson was the Oleson family representative on the Barbecue Board for decades, helping to engineer many improvements through the years.
D.J. sits at the helm of Oleson’s Corporation and was recently chair of the Michigan Grocers Association.
His internal leadership with the business helps make it possible for the Oleson legacy to live on as he cheers his sibling Brad and cousin Marty in their community-facing roles.
COLLEGE HAS NEVER BEEN A BETTER DEAL THAN RIGHT NOW.
Beginning with the 2020 program Futures for Frontliners, Michigan has been investing in community colleges like NMC to create a workforce that will propel the state’s economy forward and improve residents’ overall quality of life. In the 2023-24 academic year, NMC expects more students to benefit from state grants than federal grants. You might even call the slate of programs an “MI Bill." Just like the GI Bill did for the World War II generation nationally, Michigan’s college incentive programs are providing life-changing pathways to prosperity now.
Michigan Reconnect is the largest effort in state history to ensure Michiganders who are 25 or older and don’t have a college degree—more than 4.1 million residents—have an opportunity to earn a tuition-free or deeply discounted associate degree or skills certificate.
“The goal here in northern Michigan, the Upper Peninsula and across the state is to meet the growing demand for highly skilled workers,” former state Senator Wayne Schmidt said of the bipartisan legislation in 2021. “Getting a college degree or training certificate will go a long way toward building a stronger regional workforce—which benefits families and communities alike.”
A proposal to give access to even younger students by dropping Reconnect’s age eligibility to 21 was pending in the Michigan Legislature this spring. “We’re hoping it’s a permanent part of our state financial aid infrastructure,” says Sarah Szurpicki, director of Michigan’s office of Sixty by 30. The goal of her office, established in 2019 within the state department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, is that 60 percent of Michigan residents earn a degree or credential by 2030. (It’s now 50.5 percent, up from 43.7 in 2016.)
“Our role at Sixty by 30 is to get them to your door,” Szurpicki says of the partnership between her office and community colleges.
Reconnect is already changing lives—here’s how.
The graduate
Amber Clouse / 32 accounting
AMBER KLOUSE
Search LinkedIn for “accounting jobs, Traverse City” and you’ll get 344 results within 25 miles. Last December, there would have been at least 345—the job that NMC student Amber Clouse filled at Kelly Oil & Gas, five months before she graduated with her associate degree in accounting.
When her sister Janelle, also an NMC accounting graduate, told her about Reconnect, Clouse thought it was too good to be true.
After the cosmetologist learned it was legitimate, however, she wasted no time signing up. “When we were shut down for COVID, I was super unstable,” she says. “I wanted to make a switch and I was always good with numbers.”
Clouse originally planned to get a bookkeeping certificate, but with Reconnect covering costs, decided to go for her degree.
She started in summer 2021 and graduated in May. She works at Kelly three days a week and says her income has risen by about 20 percent. One of her first purchases with her additional income: a new-to-her car. For years, she’d wanted to replace her 2000 Subaru, which had more than 200,000 miles on it. She now drives a 2019 Escape.
“I finally had the stability to do it,” she says. She’ll celebrate her graduation with a vacation to Florida in January. On the itinerary: a “bucket list” item of swimming with manatees. It’s a dream her new income helps make possible.
Clouse advises eligible adults to grab the Reconnect brass ring. “It’s an opportunity that’s once in a lifetime, and you might notget again,” she says.
The current student
Logan Putman / 25 welding
LOGAN PUTMAN
50 Traverse City-area jobs advertised on LinkedIn; 34 on indeed.com
At Traverse City West High School, Putman struggled with motivation. After taking five years to finish, he graduated in 2017 with no desire to go on to college. Then came a string of 11 different jobs, most of them retail. Last summer, Putman decided he wanted to find a job he actually enjoyed.
“My grandma has been coaxing me for a couple years to get more education. I finally took her advice,” says Putman, who long ago dreamed about owning his own welding truck. When he applied to NMC’s welding program in August of 2022, just months shy of his 25th birthday, admissions staff suggested he wait until spring semester, when he’d be eligible for Reconnect. He started January 17, his 25th birthday.
"Don't let dreams just be dreams. Make it your future."
— Logan Putman
Reconnect brought what would have been a four-figure tuition bill down to about $300, for fees and books. This financial windfall means Putman doesn’t have to work while he pursues his welding certificate, which helps him manage the stress and anxiety he’s prone to.
“Definitely having Michigan Reconnect is nice,” he says. “I think schooling is way more important [than work] now.”
Welding instructor Ryan Deering has also been an important part of his success, boosting Putman’s faith in himself when he struggles.
“Know who your support people are and don’t give up. Put your mind to it. Work through the negative,” Putman says. “Don’t let dreams just be dreams. Make it your future.”
The new student
Teagan Knowles / 28
“It was something I wasn’t expecting, and to be handed this kind of opportunity at this time, it’s kind of life-altering,” Traverse City native Teagan Knowles says of the chance to earn her degree.
Although she just started her studies at NMC this spring, Knowles says she’s had “quite an educational journey.” Middle and high school were hard for her, a challenge she now attributes to then-undiagnosed ADHD. She dropped out of Traverse City Central High School to earn her GED in 2012, then later attended college in New York, studying fashion design.
“It wasn’t the right time for me to go to school,” she says. She returned to Michigan and lived downstate. Last fall, she applied to Oakland Community College, thinking about taking a class or two. She found out about the Reconnect scholarship and chose to move back to Traverse City in order to use it at NMC. She’s also saving money by living with her parents.
Now with Reconnect and a Pell grant covering all expenses, plus “a full tool belt” of coping and management techniques for her ADHD, Knowles is eager to return to a classroom for the first time since 2014. She’s keeping her options open in terms of a future career, starting with the basics this summer, like math and English.
“To be able to go back to school and be more confident in my learning skills is really exciting,” she says. “I find myself hungry to learn, almost.”
HOW TO SUCCEED AS AN ADULT STUDENT
Tips from NMC’s Reconnect navigator
MARSHA TOMPKINS
Many more students could be poised to transform their lives through Michigan Reconnect. Statewide, about only 20 percent of the 114,000 people who’ve applied to Reconnect have actually enrolled. (NMC has served about 400.)
The state has hired a corps of 10 navigators to help prospective students become registered students. Marsha Tompkins is NMC’s navigator. Here’s Tompkins’ wisdom, from counseling students mostly in their 30s and 40s,but as old as 72:
Ask for help, whether it’s a support service like child care, or a question about class content. Instructors are the go-to for classroom questions. Navigators can help with everything else. “The higher ed system is fraught with lingo and jargon. The navigator role just kind of clears that all out,” Tompkins said. “It’s a person at their side.”
If you’ve earned credits already, even a long time ago, they’re probably still valid, with the exception of some technical areas, like nursing. “A majority of the time they don’t expire,” Tompkins said.
Once enrolled, make an appointment with an academic adviser and create a plan that will lead to your goal. “Making a plan with an adviser maps it all out so they know what’s ahead.” At NMC, students can make advising appointments online: nmc.edu/advising
The MI Bill, in students and dollars:
* PROPOSED BUT NOT YET APPROVED
SOME OF NMC'S 2023 MICHIGAN RECONNECT GRADUATES
Career-specific tuition programs and school-to-work pipelines are available from the state for future police officers and corrections officers.
Michigan’s high school class of 2023 is the latest group of state investment recipients. With the Michigan Achievement scholarship, in-district high school graduates can save nearly half of full-time regular tuition and fees, up to $2,750 per year at NMC. NMC expects up to 300 students to receive Achievement funding this fall, saving them more than $800,000.
Wesley Richardson / 18
Suttons Bay High School class of 2023
As a dual-enrolled NMC student, Richardson already knew that NMC offered great value. Since he started taking NMC classes in his junior year, he expects to start college this fall with 19 credits under his belt, putting him a giant step closer to his plant science associate degree. He will also pursue a fruit and vegetable crop management certificate through NMC’s partnership with Michigan State University.
“Without FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and the Michigan Achievement scholarship I wouldn’t be able to pay for NMC,” said Richardson, who earlier in high school considered enlisting in the military in order to get the education benefits.
His bosses at Cherry Bay Orchards, where he’s worked summers since eighth grade, urged him to get his degree, however. He’s enjoyed his NMC classes, especially macroeconomics with instructor Amjad Khan.
“They definitely are more challenging,” he said of college classes compared to high school. But challenges, like those found in agriculture, attract him.
Besides Michigan Achievement, Richardson was awarded another $1,000 scholarship, and he said the aid will enable him to live on campus, which he’s looking forward to.
“[It’s] a next step kind of thing, a step to becoming an adult, being more independent.”
Katie Koester / 18
Traverse City Central High School class of 2023
KATIE KOESTER
NMC is the right place at the right price for Katie Koester.
“Being able to stay close to where I’ve grown up makes me feel more comfortable,” Koester says, who will receive the Michigan Achievement scholarship, among others, when she starts this fall.
Koester began living on her own a few months before graduation, so the scholarship has been a crucial part of her educational plan. “I have basically no money,” she says, “so that’s very helpful.” She’s considering biology at NMC and also a study abroad program, but is mostly looking forward to college as a place to figure things out.
“ I’m excited to be a part of NMC and see where life can take me.”
— Katie Koester
“A smaller community is what I was looking for,” said Koester, who works at the Grand Traverse Butterfly and Bug Zoo in the summer.
“I love bugs,” she says. Transferring to an entomology program may be in the future, but for now, she’s happy to have chosen NMC as her next step.
“It’s going to be fun to push myself and see where I can land in the future. I’m excited to be a part of NMC and see where life can take me.” N
College Edge
Any student planning to enter any Michigan college can take advantage of College Edge at NMC this summer. The first free five-week session of math and English courses plus student success activities just got underway. A second session runs July 10-Aug. 11. Students who complete Edge will also earn a $1,000 NMC scholarship.
JIM SCHIFFER didn’t hesitate to go back to school at NMC, even though decades have passed since he earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Michigan. Now a professional engineer with the Grand Traverse County Road Commission, he only needed to attend for about two semesters to be eligible to take the surveyor’s licensing exam. That put him so close to an associate degree that he decided to go for that, too. He’ll complete his coursework this summer.
The license will also complement Schiffer’s consulting business in general civil and structural engineering.
Why surveying? “If you love anything technical, and you love solving problems, and you love being outside,” he says, “ it’s all there.” N
Clockwise from top left, Schiffer's backpack contains:
Folders: Yellow contains materials for thesurveying licensing exam. Blue contains text materials.
Thermos filled with black coffee.
Tan folders: Class handouts and assignments; pens and highlighter. Yellow ruler is architect’s scale, blue is engineer’s scale.
Textbooks for surveying and UAS classes.
Field book: Legal records of his notes on projects. Water-resistant, pocket-sized. Scientific calculator to use on exam. The Swingline stapler dates back to Schiffer’s undergraduate days at U of M, in the 1980s.
Green drawing templates kept inside the field book; flash drive.
Tablet and stylus. Stickers are associated with dirt biking, one of Schiffer’s favorite hobbies.
NMC offers an associate degree and professional development in Surveying Technology.