Your future, our focus
The Northwest College Board of Trustees received the preliminary results Monday, Oct. 12, from a series of community focus groups, which included a Half-day Community Future Summit last month that revealed emerging themes for the College to potentially focus efforts toward in future transformation.
More than 120 community members, including elected officials, faculty, staff, former employees, students, alumni and donors participated in the focus groups and the Half-day Future Summit in August and September 2020. Participants discussed challenges facing higher education and what transformational strategies NWC could focus on going forward.
The top five takeaways from the community discussions include:
This first phase of this college transformation initiative, organized by Northwest College in partnership with higher education consultants CampusWorks, was designed to educate stakeholders on the challenges the college is facing, engage community members in dialogue about possible solutions and focus on the development of strategic options based on this feedback.
An advisory committee composed of NWC faculty and staff is processing the community input and developing strategic options for the administration to consider and for the Board of Trustees to decide upon at a future meeting.
Development and consideration of these strategic options is the first step in a multi-phased project; the Board of Trustees voted Monday to continue the project into phases two and three.
Future phases will include feasibility testing and market research, as well as resource assessment and an eventual road map for operationalizing whichever strategic option the Board votes to implement.
The College anticipates that the research and planning process will be complete in spring 2021. Additional invitations and calls for community participation will be sought in the coming months.
Questions and comments can be directed to NWC Communications and Marketing Director Carey Miller at 307-754-6114 or Carey.Miller@nwc.edu.