It’s a busy fall semester at Northwestern Michigan College (NMC), with 205 more student registrations and an 8.2 percent increase in contact hours compared to one year ago. Amidst that growth – NMC’s seventh consecutive semester of climbing enrollment – the institution is looking to continue the momentum with a new strategic plan. NMC trustees got an early look at that plan Monday evening, and it largely stays the course set by the recently-completed NMC Next plan, with some 80 percent carryover of goals and intentions.

Beyond significant increases in key programs – NMC reported earlier this month that its recently-expanded aviation program had seen a 66 percent enrollment uptick this fall – the college is also seeing growth in categories like student retention (up 1.9 percent) and dual-enrollment and/or early-college students (up 13 percent). The college’s on-campus housing offerings are at 97 percent capacity for the fall semester and netted more than $250,000 in revenue for NMC over the summer, according to a report prepared for Monday’s meeting.

The growth comes as NMC is already eyeing the future. A month ago, trustees heard a final report on NMC Next, the college’s 2022-25 strategic plan. When developing that plan four years ago, NMC spent hired Florida-based CampusWorks Inc. This time around, the college is undertaking the strategic planning process in-house, with Jason Slade, NMC’s vice president for strategic initiatives, taking the lead.

Slade was on hand Monday to present an in-progress version of the new plan, which will guide the college’s direction from 2026 to 2029. Per Slade, the new planning process is still in its first phase, “strategy development and refinement.” That phase has given the general outline of the core strategies that will serve as the pillars of the plan. Stage 2, slated for October and November, will see the development of more specific objectives under each pillar. Stage 3, scheduled for November and December, will focus on further refinement, while Stage 4 will culminate in the Board of Trustees approving and adopting the plan before the end of 2025.

While he included a memo outlining the shape of the plan in Monday’s meeting packet, Slade told trustees at the outset that the memo – which was dated September 15 – was already “super out of date.”

“I think that just shows you how quickly this plan is moving,” Slade said. “So, I’ll give you a good rundown, but if I was presenting this next week, I’d probably share with you something completely different, and in two weeks, probably something different than that.”

Still, Slade said that key elements are beginning to solidify, including the strategic goals that will serve as pillars. Last time around, the plan was built around five big-picture strategies: future-focused education, student engagement and success, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), community partnerships and engagement, and institutional distinction and sustainability. This time, Slade said, the strategic plan steering committee decided to structure the plan around three strategic categories to allow for more focus and effect.

Those strategies mirror components of NMC Next. The first goal is once again around future-focused education, and calls for positioning NMC “as Michigan’s most innovative community college by expanding the use of emerging technologies, experiential learning, and industry partnerships.” By emphasizing such “leading-edge programs and real-world learning experiences,” the memo reasons, NMC will be well-positioned to “prepare students for the future of work and global impact.”

The second strategy, titled “student engagement, success, and enrollment,” sets the goal of redefining lifelong learning “by creating accessible, flexible, and stackable education pathways.” NMC will aim to “meet learners where they are, providing clear, high-value credentials that drive career success and economic mobility.”

The final pillar, “vibrancy and belonging,” not only replaces the DEI section from the NMC Next plan, but also factors in broader college transformation initiatives like last year’s campus master plan. “By strategically implementing our master plan and upcoming campus transformations to create an engaging experience, fostering a culture of belonging, and investing in our employees to become an employer of choice, we will solidify NMC's role as an essential educational and economic anchor for the region,” this section reads.

Per Slade’s memo, these big-picture goals “will be supported by a set of [strategic drivers] that are still in development.” Those include embedding NMC's brand ethos – defined as “innovation, collaboration, and impact” – into every aspect of the college; striving to “be the community’s college” through measures like community partnerships and redoubled efforts to “foster economic and workforce development”; sustaining NMC’s “long-term vitality and growth”; and prioritizing “the holistic well-being, success, and continuous development of every student and employee.”

Slade told trustees that one of the biggest aims is to “make sure that we have goals that bring together everybody in the NMC community.” With NMC Next, he said, there was some feedback that the some aspects of the plan were too siloed across different departments or stakeholders. Eliminating that siloing this time around will be a top priority, Slade said.

To that point, Board Chair Laura Oblinger asked Slade how the NMC Foundation – the college’s fundraising arm – would be more dialed in with this new plan than it was with NMC Next.

“We want the foundation to be tied in tightly with this strategic plan,” Slade promised. “So, let’s say we’re working on a new program; maybe it’s beyond-visual-line-of-sight for drone operations. We know the only way that’s going to be successful is to have support from the foundation. And so, built directly into the plan will be working with [the foundation] so they can see exactly what we’re working on, where our needs are, and how the foundation fits in with that.”