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.
Read More
Indonesian Institute Enlists NMC For Coral Reef Study
Marine Tech, Drones, Water Studies Integrated In Mapping Project
Nexus Spring 2019 Cover Feature
Ryan Mater prepares to launch an NMC drone in Indonesia’s Bunaken National ParkHiking through dense tropical jungle on an Indonesian island last May, NMC student Ryan Mater thought longingly of a project he and his marine technology classmates had left unfinished in a college classroom.
It was a hybrid drone, capable of taking off from and landing on water, and then dropping a submersible payload, like a camera. It would have been ideal for the work that had brought Mater and 11 fellow students to Indonesia: Conducting a study on the health of the coral reef system in a national park by integrating their expertise in marine technology, aerial mapping, water quality testing and data collection.
But the classroom was 9,000 miles, 34 hours of travel and three customs inspections away. When they’d chosen their equipment, they’d decided the hybrid was too bulky and too untested to justify shipping. Now Mater and the rest of the NMC team would have to find another way to tackle the task, one they had only a week to complete.
“We had to alter our game plan,” said Mater, 20, who led the group’s Unmanned Aerial Systems unit.
Read More
NMC’s aviation program will get a lofty showcase before a national audience this summer when a pair of student pilots fly across North America in the Air Race Classic, the oldest air race of its kind, and exclusively for female pilots.
Ninety years after legendary aviator Amelia Earhart made cross-country racing popular, Team Hawk Owls — Hannah Beard of Interlochen (left) and Jessi Martin of Maple City (right) — will take off from Jackson, Tenn. on June 18 in an NMC Cessna. The 2,500 mile trip is a race against the clock broken into nine legs. They expect to land in Welland, Ontario, by June 21.
“It’s going to be marathon,” Martin, 43, said.
“Sunrise to sunset flying,” agreed Beard, 23.
Entering the Air Race Classic is the latest example of how women at NMC are making significant strides in what has long been a male-dominated field. While only four percent of U.S. airline pilots are female, nearly 20 percent of current NMC aviation students are now women. The college is now home to a chapter of Women in Aviation International, which allows them to network and support each other.
Read More
On Wednesday, May 18, 2016 NMC’s Unmanned Aerial Systems program in partnership with Michigan State University kicked off our research project at the Northwest Michigan Horticulture Research Center in Leelanau County.
.
Our UAS & Cherry Leaf Spot project is an exciting collaboration between NMC and MSU through which weekly imagery will be collected using unmanned aircraft. Students enrolled in the NMC/MSU Fruit and Vegetable Crop Management program will analyze the data each week as a means to determine how Cherry Leaf Spot (a fungal pathogen) can be better managed by cherry growers.
Read More
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.
Read More
“This is the opening ceremony where we met our students for the first time. Several students prepared dances and songs for us!” (pictured second in from right in front row)
Amanda Ufer is originally from Traverse City, MI. She graduated in the spring of 2015 from NMC with an Associates Degree in Science and Arts and transferred to Calvin College to study Math and Spanish, ultimately for secondary education.
I grew up in Traverse City along with my three sisters and always dreamed of traveling the world some day. I didn’t expect that I would visit three different countries before I turned 20! I spent 3 weeks learning Spanish in Costa Rica with my best friend and a long week in Jamaica with my senior class. By the time second semester of my first year at NMC rolled around I was itching for another trip somewhere. I heard about US-Brazil Connect (USBC) and thought it sounded interesting, but I wasn’t an English major or even an education major. I didn’t feel confident that I would have time to work with students online before, and after, the month in Brazil so I passed it up. The following school year Jim Bensley came into one of my classes to inform us about a study abroad trip and I couldn’t help myself from researching the trips to find one. I found the USBC trip again and had since changed my major from medicine to education.
So I decided I would somehow raise the money and make it a reality.
Read More
Alex Bondar and her team, “the Batatas.”
Alex Bondar will be a junior at Western Michigan University in the fall of 2015 and currently works at the NMC Student Life Office. She earned her associate’s degree from NMC in general studies and hopes to receive a degree from Western in education with a focus in English.
I grew up in a small town near the thumb of Michigan – Armada, with a population of less than 2,000 people, mainly white and mainly Christian. My only experiences in life were from Armada: you know everyone you see every day, that any trip outside of town was a brand new adventure, and that the idea of traveling the world is an almost impossible feat. Never did I ever think I would move to Traverse City a year after I graduated. But, after my first year of community college and at 19 years old, I moved 4 hours north to the Cherry Capital.
Enter Student Life, the first job I got when I moved to TC. It was a great way to get to know people since many students enter our office every day. Across the hall is the International Services and Service Learning Office, where Jim Bensley works. Because of our free coffee, many more than just students entered our office. Jim was one of those people. I got to know him and what he does, and that’s when I first heard the word: Brazil.
Read More
Randy Webster
Randy Webster
Randy is a student in the Freshwater Studies program at Northwestern Michigan College. He has been the recipient of several scholarships: Adopt-A-Student, the Global Opportunity Fund, the Science/Math Honors Merit Scholarship, and the Jensen-Lena C Scholarship.
Randy visits a waterfall near the Arenal volcano.
Randy has many reasons to celebrate summer. One of them is his successful completion of the Freshwater Studies Internship with an international, interdisciplinary team of students and faculty from Northwestern Michigan College in the United States, and EARTH University in Costa Rica. An accomplished chef with 40 years of experience, Randy is broadening his professional outlook, exploring a new career in water. We are very pleased to feature his internship story.
Read More
Recent Comments