During the Navajo County Community College Governing Board last week, the board heard a presentation by Renell Heister, the Project Director of the Title III TALON grant on building relationships with area high schools.
Heister began by saying, “NPC (Northland Pioneer College) has been a great tool for high school counselors and students. We are committed to continuing that for them because we offer quality education at a lower tuition rate.”
Some of the things the college does to foster its relationships with high schools were discussed. First, “From a student services perspective, we do a lot to partner with our high schools. We have an amazing recruiting department. We visit high schools regularly, once a semester if not twice. That means every high school in Navajo and Apache counties. We try to be visible so that the students know that NPC cares about their education. We are always available to answer student questions including financial aid and scholarship information.”
Heister also mentioned the fact that she and her High School Programs team spend a lot of time meeting with district superintendents and principals. “We like to let them know that we are here for their students and for them as well.”
She continued, “Instructionally, we serve our schools by offering dual enrollment and TALON classes. We also just implemented a program in partnership with Arizona State University that will allow those interested in a teaching career to obtain their bachelor’s degree through NPC and then finish their education through ASU (Arizona State University) without leaving the NPC campus.”
The governing board also heard a presentation from Ann Hess, a representative of the Arizona Community College Communicators Committee. The AC4, as it is commonly referred to, is focused on marketing community colleges to the public as well as to state legislators.
“Arizona community colleges serve over 300,000 students, which is more than the three state universities combined,” Hess said. “That is an important statistic when we go in front of the legislature for funding and attention for the 10 community college districts in our state.”
The group is also taking the lead on a new social media campaign aimed at recruiting students to community colleges and offering support for those who have questions. They can be found on Facebook using @AzCommColleges and on their website, www.arizona communitycolleges.org.
In other business, the governing board:
* Heard the financial report for the month of January in which Vice President of Administrative Services Maderia Ellison explained that the district is in solid financial standing at 50 percent of the fiscal year passed. “We are on target with our expenditures as well as our revenues from taxes and our state appropriations.”
* Approved a marketing budget increase for fiscal year 2019-2020 and allocation for fiscal year 2020-2021. Previously, the governing board capped the marketing budget dedicated to the NPC website at $40,000, the increase will bring the new cap to $80,000 to continue improvement and sustain the quality of www.npc.edu by Last Call Media.
* Approved a request for purchase of 88 desktop computers, 20 laptop docking stations, 10 27-inch monitors, 20 micro desktop personal computers and 125 Elitebook laptop computers from CDW*G in the amount of $258,408 to replace faculty, staff and classroom computers as part of a lifecycle replacement plan.
* Approved a request for purchase for nine Cisco Telepresence endpoints for model classrooms from National IPA Technology Solutions Education in the amount of $209,025 as part of a lifecycle replacement plan.
* Approved a request for purchase for 18 Cisco Telepresence endpoints with SmartNet support and maintenance for each for CCP and audio classrooms from CDW*G in the amount of $418,054 as part of a lifecycle replacement plan.
* Approved the submission of a proposal to the Arizona Department of Education to continue provision of adult basic education services for 2021-2024. The amount proposed will be $650,000 with NPC providing a 25 percent match.
* Approved intergovernmental agreements between the community college district and 12 area high schools to enter in to a cost sharing consortium allowing the continuation of the TALON (Technology to Advance Learning Outcomes at Northland) program at said high schools.
* Approved a review of policies 1402 through 1470 outlining student admissions.
* Held a discussion with no action on the increase of tuition and fees for NPC. The current proposal is to increase the credit hour cost from $77 to $79 for the 2020-2021 school year. The discussion will be on the agenda for the next meeting as well.
* Directed NPC President Mark Vest to add a salary description to the Human Resources Director position. The change will increase the salary to a supervisory amount. The exact amount was undisclosed.
The next meeting of the Navajo County Community College Governing Board will be at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, March 24, in the Tipani Community Center, located at 2251 E. Navajo Blvd.
