North Central Michigan College
Greater than 60% of North Central Michigan College’s (NCMC) students require coursework in remedial math, English or both. An even greater proportion of the college’s part-time students are academically underprepared.
NCMC has created interventions to promote student success, particularly among the college’s developmental student population. The college continues to scale the following interventions:
- Advising: Mandatory advising for students in developmental courses.
- Reading Apprenticeship: Leverages the subject matter expertise of faculty members to help enhance the reading comprehension and met-cognitive awareness skills of students.
- Professional Development for adjunct faculty.
- Mandatory Student Success Course for students in developmental courses.
- Learning Communities: Linking courses to create Learning Communities.
- “Academic Policies Workgroup” and “Developmental Taskforce”: Created Scholars List to recognize the academic achievements of part-time students.
North Central Michigan College is located in northwestern Michigan, in a premier resort area with a declining industrial base. The college’s main campus is in Petoskey, with branch campuses in Gaylord, East Jordan and Cheboygan. NCMC enrolls nearly 3,000 full- and part-time students. Of these undergraduates, 20% were students of color and 51% received Pell grants in Fall 2010.
The college focuses initiatives on student success, including the Native American Mentor Program, which recruits Native Americans to NCMC and provides support for success, and the Developmental Education Strategy, which continues to improve placement testing.
The college offers curriculum in the liberal arts, sciences, math and vocational education leading to associates degrees, certificates and certificates of development. NCMC’s career programs include business, nursing, criminal justice, early childhood education, legal assistance, office administration, computer information systems, and networking.
The Achieving the Dream Model
Achieving the Dream community colleges commit to our Student-Centered Model of Institutional Improvement. Based on four principles, the model frames the overall work of helping more students, particularly low- income students and students of color, stay in school and earn a college certificate or degree.
Each college approaches the work differently, but Achieving the Dream’s five-step process provides practical guidelines for keeping the focus where it belongs and building momentum over time. Throughout the process, Achieving the Dream coaches offer customized support and help each college’s core team implement data-informed programs and policies that build long-term, institution-wide commitment to student success.
