New trustees on the block

Nine days after being elected to North Idaho College's board of trustees, newcomers Greg McKenzie and Micheal Barnes were flooded with information on their roles and future actions.

After an intense election cycle, the NIC board found itself with two freshman members, including Kootenai County Republican Central Committee endorsed McKenzie, who beat incumbent Dr. Joe Dunlap for NIC Zone 4, and Barnes for Zone 5.

During a special meeting of the board Wednesday evening, current members and NIC administration welcomed the trustees with a very brief but dense, SparkNotes version of what to expect in the coming months. The board members, Ken Howard, Todd Banducci, and Christie Wood, were joined by NIC President Dr. Rick MacLennan, Vice President for Instruction Lita Burns, Vice President for Finance and Business Affairs Chris Martin, outgoing board member Dunlap, and about 18 other viewers in the special meeting.

In their new positions, McKenzie and Barnes will play a part in setting policy for NIC and making decisions for the institution's betterment, MacLennan said. These abilities will come into play in varying situations, the president noted, including NIC's role in the Idaho Community College Conservation — an organization that unites the state's four two-year institutions — that presents issues and solutions to the Legislature for aid.

MacLennan said one of the issues on the table is moving forward with the Meyer Health & Sciences Building expansion budget and design.

"We've significantly expanded our health and workforce programs by putting a lot of pressure on courses that feed into those occupations," MacLennan said. "That's where Meyer Health comes in working earnestly to solve that."

Though this had intended to come before the board earlier as an action item, discussions were halted due to pandemic and election uncertainty, the president said. Martin said the project has been in the works for about two years. It's already finished the design and received remits making it essentially shovel-ready. If approved, Martin said NIC looks at a spring developer bid-date with a tentative opening in fall 2022.

Part of the project's need stems from lab room classes' overwhelming popularity for health and natural science-related courses, like anatomy, physiology, and chemistry. The original Meyer Health & Science Building completed construction in the fall of 2005 when the United States experienced what Burns called an "extreme nursing crisis." Subsequently, the state of Idaho requested an increase in nursing programs from education institutions.

"We've more than doubled capacity in our nursing programs and, as with all health professional programs, comes to the high dependency on natural science program knowledge to build on to produce successful practices," Burns said. "The competition of this program has increased, and we have significant interest lists of people trying and vying to get in."

The competition has gotten to a point where science students cannot register for courses, as Burns said, with waitlists to get into pre-requisite and required programs. That forces students to enroll in Spokane-based or online institutions, she said.

"If we have any hope of increasing the number of graduates from our nursing and health programs, we have to get rid of the bottleneck students are experiencing," Burns said. "Health care is one of the largest industries in our area, and we have to be able to supply them with a workforce to do what they do for our community."

McKenzie was particularly interested in NIC's advisory councils, created for all the college's 40-plus programs. Specifically, the new member asked about the recent closure of NIC's aerospace program in August. McKenzie, a research engineer with a bachelor's degree from Cal Poly in aerospace engineering and master's in acoustics from Penn State, asked to be provided a list of members affected by the closure but did not say why.

The board of trustees will meet for its monthly meeting next Wednesday to discuss status updates, action items including the swearing-in of new officers, information on NIC's Head Start policies, accepting the institution's recent audit, and reports from constituents, staff, and students.