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In an ongoing effort to reach out to the communities of Navajo and Apache counties, Northland Pioneer College (NPC) President Mark Vest along with NPC Friends and Family Executive Director Betsyann Wilson, spoke to the Navajo County Board of Supervisors on Feb. 26, sharing the latest accomplishments as well as building plans for the next three to five years.
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Vest shared that in the late 1980s the college developed a new master plan for all their facilities. NPC receives no capital construction funds from the state, so until the early 2000s, any money for new construction or building upgrades came from a secondary tax and from money set aside from the operational budget.
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“In the early 2000s, our district governing board decided that they did not want to subject taxpayers to the secondary tax any longer,” continued Vest. “If the college was going to do any construction of facilities from that point forward, we were going to take it slow and only do the construction when we had enough money in the building fund.”
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Though these decisions have significantly slowed down the building process, Vest feels that it has made the process much more sustainable and fiscally responsible with no debt to service.
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As a result over the last 20 years, NPC has built an entirely new campus in Holbrook, a new science building in Winslow, the performing arts center in Snowflake as well as new facilities at the Hopi Center in Polacca and the Whiteriver center. With one small construction project still outstanding in Winslow, the NPC governing board recently authorized $20 million to finish the last major piece of the plan at the Show Low campus.
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“We plan to build a new general education building in the center of the Show Low campus first,” shared Vest. “Then we will do the reconstruction work on the current general education building that will be turned into the Allied Health building. In the wooded area on the southeast corner of the campus, we plan to build a skills center similar to the one in Holbrook, which would house the welding, automotive and metal arts programs as well as give space for expansion for things like construction and other programs. The good news is, it is all paid for. The taxpayers have already paid for these buildings and it is time they benefit from them.”
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Vest went on to say, “NPC has a number of requests from businesses and other entities wanting us to expand our nursing program, but we cannot because we simply do not have the space. With the completion of the Show Low campus in the next three to five years, NPC is looking to roll out new Allied Health programs in both Show Low and Winslow that would include surgical nursing and massage therapy.
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In her presentation, Wilson noted that NPC is the second largest community college district in the nation. “This is almost incomprehensible that one community college district can serve such a large and sparsely populated area,” said Wilson. “We serve about 7,000 students annually and the open admission policy means that a prospective student doesn’t have to apply to become a student but anyone can take classes at NPC.”
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NPC tuition and fees average $1,776 per year based on 12 credits at $74 per credit, enabling a student to realize a savings of up to $21,248 in tuition alone for the first two years of a degree. Add that to the student to faculty ratio of 14 students to one teacher, and the community college becomes “a wonderful starting place to make students more successful,” stated Wilson.
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With the push for dual enrollment in the area high schools, along with Northern Arizona Vocational Institute of Technology (NAVIT) programs and more recently, the Technology to Advance Learning Outcomes at Northland (TALON), NPC continues to give graduating students more options for higher education.
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As Wilson explained, “The dual enrollment college classes are taught by high school instructors in the high school setting who are also certified to teach at the community college level.” With the introduction of TALON, which was funded five years ago through a federal education grant, an instructor in Show Low can be accessed by students in Shonto, Ganado and even as far away as Red Mesa.
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“This is powerful because these students lack nothing in ability and talent, but they can’t take classes for college credit because their high school have difficulty attracting and retaining instructors who are certified,” said Wilson, who went on to note that research shows that high school students who take as few as seven credits, like biology, lab and English classes while still in high school, are up to 50 percent more likely to complete a college program.
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From a summer kids’ college for kids ages six to 14 to corporate training, NPC is working to bring the best to the communities of northern Arizona. “I will put our faculty up against any college in the nation,” concluded Wilson. “Community college instructors care about the outcomes of their students. They don’t just care that their students pass, they want them to be successful.”
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