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| Dr. Priscilla Bell |
Some love Christmas, others, birthdays. For those of us in education, the best time of the year is August, when students and faculty return!
This being my first fall term at North Idaho College, I’m filled with more excitement and enthusiasm than usual — and that is a lot.
As I told faculty and staff at our traditional back-to-school meeting recently, it is an honor to be here. In my few months here, I have seen firsthand what a strong college it is, with a quality faculty and staff as its cornerstone.
That assembly was my chance to share my beliefs on where we need to take NIC. Here are some of those beliefs.
NIC will prosper only by better serving our students and region. More students, of all interests and demographics, deserve our current programs and services. We also must develop new programs that our communities need.
We must do things in creative and flexible ways. This means change, and that is never easy. But our choice is to move ahead or decline. NIC, and the region, are too good and too interdependent to slip, so change we will.
The rewards for growth are multiple. A region that already has a generally high regard for NIC will embrace us even more. Educating more students will enhance the quantity of a quality workforce in our region — and remember, academic transfer students are or will be part of the workforce, too.
On a pragmatic level, the North Idaho population is growing, and we ought to grow alongside it. With our state funding now determined by enrollment, we have a very practical reason to educate more students. And tuition and fee revenue from a growing student body provides needed resources as well.
I have supreme confidence in the talent, commitment and creativity of our faculty and staff to enable growth while retaining the quality and commitment to students that has historically been amongst NIC’s greatest strengths.
Soon we begin an exercise crucial to shaping our future: strategic planning. I am absolutely committed to a comprehensive, inclusive exercise that will guide NIC for years to come. It is my top priority for 2007-08.
Strategic planning will enlist not only students, faculty and staff, but community members. It will be data driven and involve measurable goals. The plan will be a “living document,” allowing for revision as our environment changes.
The plan will be the basis for how and where we allocate our resources, human and fiscal. It must emphasize NIC’s need to be responsive to the region’s workforce training, academic transfer, professional-technical, Adult Basic Ed, and continuing education and community service needs.
While professional-technical education has received the bulk of public attention lately, and we can and must do better, the importance of our academic transfer programs will not be forgotten. Those programs comprise the bulk of our for-credit enrollment for a reason. Student choice must be respected.
A lot that I talked about, and that you just read, involves the big-picture and long-term view. But NIC will not sit idle as we develop a strategic vision and plan.
One critical project involves hiring our next vice president for instruction. NIC needs a person whose skills, background and vision match the enormous potential of North Idaho. Stay tuned.
We’ll continue to build and strengthen partnerships with our friends at places like Kootenai Health, the Manufacturer’s Consortium, area schools, other higher educational institutions, businesses, local and state government — the list goes on.
As those of you who have met me probably sensed, I’m an exuberant person by nature. But with all of the good things happening at NIC, and all of the potential before us, how could anyone not be?
Priscilla Bell is President of North Idaho College. She can be reached by writing her at North Idaho College, 1000 W. Garden Ave., Coeur d’Alene, ID. 83814.
Jayne Marie Russell wrote on Oct 31, 2007 8:50 AM: