Last week, the Navajo County Community College Governing Board met and heard from Arizona State University Director of Rural Partnerships Kurt Palmer. Palmer was there to discuss a prospective partnership between Arizona State University and Northland Pioneer College.
In Palmers presentation, he outlined the program called Two Plus Two. “I work for the Mary Lou Fulton Teacher’s College at ASU. My entire job is working with community college partners to deliver some of the programs that the teacher’s college has to offer. Otherwise, in some of these places, residents are left with a choice to leave and pay high dollar for university classes or stay in their communities and go without.”
Two Plus Two, according to Palmer, is a program that creates a route for people who would like to become teachers to stay in their communities. “People can do the first two years of a bachelor’s degree with their community college. At the end of that Associates of Arts degree, through the partnership, they are set up just right to finish the second part with the teacher’s college at ASU.”
That does not mean a transfer to the Tempe campus, Palmer explained. “We are going to work from the ground up to build this program for what it needs to be here. These are not online programs, they are in person programs. We do plan to use some technology to tie the campuses together so that students have access in their community. We also hope to hire faculty to travel amongst the communities to deliver the quality of education that you can’t get unless you go to Tempe in almost every other degree the university offers.”
Palmer also mentioned more of the accessibility of the courses. “One of the great things about this program is that through our rural partnership, we are able to offer a reduced tuition. Rather than paying about $11,000 a year, we are able to offer it at about 60 percent of the cost for the same degree. We are also able to offer a tuition waiver for their last two years for those who qualify. This creates a route for more of the right people to become the teachers their communities need.”
The timeline on the Two Plus Two program is not yet set in stone. “We can’t give an exact date, but our goal is to try and build a cohort for the fall semester of 2020. In the university world, that is a very quick turn around on an idea. We have figured out how to do it. This is a priority for us.”
Northland Pioneer College President Mark Vest congratulated 11 students from NPC campuses who were nominated to join the All Arizona Academic Team. To qualify, students must maintain at least a 3.5 grade point average and be in good standing in their four-year degree pursuit as well as show volunteer and leadership skills. Those selected to the team will receive a tuition waiver from the Arizona Board of Regents of up to 60 credits to complete their bachelor’s degrees at a state public university. Local students nominated by NPC from the Holbrook campus were Jeffrey Hamilton and Thomas Parada; from Snowflake, Samuel Rosales II and Tabitha Adams; from Winslow, Kaylen Benito and Paige Murray.
In other business, the governing board:
* Approved the purchase of two 2019 Dodge minivans to replace fleet vehicles with high mileage. The purchase will be made through the only vendor to bid, Tempe Chrysler Jeep Dodge in the amount of $54,668 for both vehicles.
* Approved the purchase of a Programmable Logic Controller Training System from Klein Education Systems in the amount of $53,368 for use in NPC’s Career and Technical Education programs. Funding for the purchase comes from the Carl Perkins Grant.
* Approved an agreement with the City of Show Low and the towns of Snowflake and Taylor for their first responder agencies to continue to use NPC transmission towers for their equipment. This agreement also adds network security to the NPC network.
* Heard the financial report for the period of July 1 – Oct. 31 from Vice President of Administrative Services Maderia Ellison. “We have received our first quarterly payment for state appropriations and our additional one-time rural funding payment of $444,600,” she noted.
* Heard a report from NPC’s Friends and Family wherein Director Betsy Ann Wilson noted scholarship donations in the amounts of $5,000 for kids’ college and $15,000 for general scholarships from Navajo County resident Marilyn Chen. Applications for fall semester scholarships will open in March.
* Heard a presentation on a proposed partnership from Expect More Arizona. The organization raises awareness of the importance of early childhood education. The governing board was asked to consider partnering with the organization by adding their name to the list of partners. No cost to the college would be accrued. No action was taken at this time.
* Approved budget development assumptions and guidelines for fiscal year 2020-2021 which includes calendars and assumed revenues and expenditures.
* Heard an update on construction at the Northeast Arizona Training Center in Taylor. A request for release of funds to begin the designing of the master plan will be asked of the governing board at the Jan. 21 meeting.
* Heard a report from the Strategic Planning and Accreditation Steering Committee wherein the board was thanked for their participation in a successful visit from the Higher Learning Committee (HLC) last month. The HLC will determine the college’s accreditation status in their full report due later in 2020.
The next meeting of the Navajo County Community College Governing Board will be at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, in the Tiponi Community Center, located at 2251 E. Navajo Blvd.
