If a strategic plan is a roadmap, where will NMC Next take the college? Following unanimous approval by NMC’s Board of Trustees Monday, imagine the impact on the Grand Traverse region:
Residents who want to upskill or change careers are reaching their goals faster with accelerated programs, more online options and expanded credential choices. By engaging with hands-on, real-world problem solving, they’re also having a richer experience and becoming independent, self-directed learners, skills they’ll bring into the workforce.
In the most diverse era ever, the college is a model for diversity, equity and inclusion, exemplifying how other regional employers can attract talent and serve customers. Mutually beneficial partnerships, like the ones nursing enjoys with Munson Medical Center, and culinary with the region’s hospitality industry, are visible on multiple campuses. Taxpayers will report even higher levels of satisfaction with “our community’s college.”
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Last month, 2016 NMC graduate Edris Fana expected to see his parents for the first time in eight years, when they were to travel from Kabul, Afghanistan to Traverse City for his wedding to fellow alumna Emma Smith.
Instead, their wedding date, Aug. 15, became the day that Fana’s home country officially fell back to the Taliban, the Islamic military regime that resumed control of Afghanistan amid the final withdrawal of U.S./NATO troops after a 20-year presence.
“Everything just went downhill,” Fana said, adding that his parents have visas to travel to the United States, but cannot get a flight. (Very limited air travel resumed last week.) “To see it fall like this, it’s crazy to think about it.”
As the first international student to lead NMC’s Student Government Association, Fana, now 27, once aspired to apply that experience back home, and work in the government of the fledgling democratic republic.
“That was my all-time goal,” said Fana, who studied aviation. As the SGA president, he spoke at both the 2015 and 2016 commencement ceremonies.
“Coming from a place that I didn’t have the opportunity to practice leadership, or to have any experience of what I was capable of, it was NMC that presented me with opportunities to grow,” Fana told the audience in 2016.
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Over the last few months, in between her nursing shifts in a Kalamazoo hospital’s medical intensive care unit, Karissa Havens followed the worsening COVID-19 epidemic as it swept from China to Europe to the United States.
The Traverse City West High School graduate, who attended NMC from 2013-2014 before transferring to Western Michigan University for her nursing degree, knew she had the skills to help both patients and overwhelmed hospitals in COVID-19 hot spots. She felt called to go where they were desperately needed.
Next week, she is. Havens, 24, has accepted a six-week traveling nurse position in a COVID-19 ICU unit at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. She was able to find a job within two days of deciding to leave Kalamazoo.
“I am completely humbled by this opportunity and ready to give everything I can to help fight this terrible virus,” Havens posted on Facebook announcing her move.
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A near-record number of NMC students will study abroad in five countries this spring, gaining experiences to help them succeed in an increasingly global society.
Seventy students are registered to travel to Iceland, Ireland, Spain, England and Brazil. The previous high was 73 in 2015. Between 60-65 students have traveled each of the last three years, ranking NMC the No. 1 community college in Michigan for short-term study abroad, and usually in the top 25 nationally.
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Globetrotting 2006 GLCI Grad Finds Home In Southeast Asian Hotel Kitchens
Nexus Summer 2019 From Our Kitchens Feature
Hospitality has been part of Dustin Baxter’s life since high school, when he worked for his parents at Pippins Restaurant in Boyne City. He’s combined that background, a talent for pastry and a love of travel into an international career, working in three states and four countries. He says learning new cultures and adding his own style to unique ingredients (like 27 varieties of pineapple in Thailand) is his favorite part of working abroad. He offers a refreshing summertime dessert with ingredients native to Thailand but available in the U.S.
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Experiencing others’ needs leaves instructor thankful, reflective
By Brandon Everest
NMC Social Sciences instructor
Empathy is both a deeply sown human trait and a cultivable skill. It is both a necessary condition of social life and akin to a muscle, something that must be worked to remain fit and healthy. This is especially the case in a culture like ours, which prizes individuality and individualism. With that in mind, my colleagues Lisa Blackford and Melissa Sprenkle and I worked with organizations to create events and activities that, we hoped, would pull on students’ native tendencies and strengthen them. To highlight National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, we encouraged students to participate in three activities: the SNAP Challenge; the NMCAA SleepOut for Warmth; and a Walk for Health & Housing. We believed this would provide them with a deeper connection to the issues we would research and study this semester in our sociology, social work and communications classes.
The groceries sociology instructor Brandon Everest and his wife Mika Wilson-Everest bought with the $58 SNAP budget allotted the two of them for one week.
The SNAP Challenge asks participants to live for a week on the average SNAP benefit of $29. SNAP, America’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, provides food support to low-income citizens. In taking the challenge, we joined the 20-25% of SNAP recipients who eat exclusively from these benefits. For the Nov. 4 SleepOut, we joined community leaders sleeping outside to raise funds for Northwest Michigan Community Action Agency’s Utilities Shut off Prevention Fund. Last winter, this fund paid out $1.6 million keep more than 1,500 Northern Michigan families warm. We imagined, if only for one night, what it might be like to be out in the cold. For the Walk for Health & Housing, we joined Ryan Hannon, Goodwill Street Outreach Coordinator, on a guided tour of TC’s downtown. Stopping at various sites, we tried to see through the eyes of unhoused people and gain insight to their challenges in our community.
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