Overview

Serving a large rural region that includes parts of Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois, Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC) offers an entire region access to higher education on two campuses and six satellite sites based out of community centers and high schools. Just over half of NICC’s students enroll in technical education programs, ranging from nursing to the John Deere tractor mechanics program. The college has developed deep, historic connections to local industry, responding to employers ranging from small businesses that need graduates with specialized welding skills to large dairy producers that require workers trained in new ways of running farms. In recent years, the college has grown from its roots as a technically-focused institution to serve the full range of community college missions and student types, including those seeking to transfer. Through this transition, NICC has maintained a remarkable commitment to every student’s success, which manifests in very strong tutoring and counseling programs—including dedicated support for disabled students.

‘Retention is everyone’s business’

Ashley Aylsworth, 20, just couldn’t get traction at her first community college. The financial aid office didn’t process her forms for months, and she couldn’t get them to tell her why. Struggling with anatomy and physiology, she e-mailed her professor several times for helpand never got a response. The college didn’t follow through on her request to change her major.

So Aylsworth decided to enroll at NICC in Calmar, Iowa, instead. The day after she called the school, she had a long phone conference with an advisor, Katie Phillips. The day after that, the pair met in person for 90 minutes. Phillips helped Aylsworth figure out the right major for her—early childhood education—and mapped out, on paper, two years’ worth of courses. Registration and financial aid employees in different offices called each other to figure out everything Aylsworth needed to get started right away.

It became immediately clear, Aylsworth said, that at NICC, “people are going to help me. I’m going to get somewhere.” That she feels that way isn’t an accident. The college has made it a top priority to ensure that its 7,000 students feel supported. “Student retention is everyone’s business,” said NICC president Liang Chee Wee.

When surveys revealed students dropped out in their first term after getting inadequate information to make wise decisions about majors and course selection, the intake process was changed. Now, new students have three contacts with the school—a phone call from admissions and at least two phone or face-to-face meetings with an advisor—before they can register. They must speak with an advisor again before each semester and before dropping classes, which can have repercussions they might not be aware of, such as a loss of financial aid.

Counselors have been trained in holistic advising, understanding not just students’ academic needs but emotional, cultural, and practical ones as well. Faculty members, too, are told to learn more about the people they teach. Dave Lawstuen, a dairy technology instructor, said, “From day one, if you want to retain that student, and if you want that student to succeed, you need to know that student’s story, and you need to engage them early on.”

A system of academic supports

That attention to students as individuals carries through to the school’s tight safety net of academic supports. NICC’s three-year graduation rate, 34 percent, exceeds the 24 percent average for U.S. community colleges, with particularly strong outcomes for students who begin in developmental classes. They’re helped in large part at the Learning Center on each of NICC’s two campuses, where students can go for tutoring in any subject. The tutoring is done primarily by credentialed teachers, with backup from peer tutors. The school contracts with an online firm to provide tutoring when the Learning Centers are closed.

Nursing student Patty Price, 45, started coming to the Learning Center for anatomy and physiology study groups run by Carolyn Heying, a sort of rock star on the Calmar campus for her ability to explain just about anything in the health sciences. Now, Price comes nearly daily, seeing Heying for nursing, another tutor for algebra, and a third for writing.

At one point Price failed a class and had to write a remediation plan with the help of her dean, listing the online tutorials and other interventions she would use to get back on track. Price’s experience is not atypical. NICC developed a seven-week training course to help students navigate distance learning—since the course became a prerequisite, the gap between success in online courses and their face-to-face analogs has nearly disappeared. Some technical program courses now have a basic skills co-teacher, an approach that electronic technology instructors say has improved their course success rates.

A rich array of accommodations that can be accessed without stigma ensures that students with disabilities feel comfortable at NICC and have an equitable shot at success. Disability specialists don’t just provide technological tools, they oversee support groups and mentoring programs and teach students to advocate for themselves with their professors.

The dedication to each student extends into the classroom. Kurt, a general education student with a reading and writing disability, gets overly frustrated when he’s trying to write and can’t spell a word, so the school provides him a note-taker. When Kurt’s note-taker was not in his anatomy class one day, the teacher made up notes for him and even highlighted the top things he needed to know. The disability specialist on the Calmar campus always tells him, “You can come to us, Kurt,” he said. “In high school,” Kurt noted, “I couldn’t go to anyone.” 

Retraining the region

He’s not a student, but Gary Gooder also believes that NICC is vested in his success. Gooder runs Alum-Line, an Iowa company that builds trailers and other metal products. Because he hires so many NICC graduates, welding instructors began training students with the specific type of aluminum Alum-Line uses, which the company provided. On Gooder’s suggestion, they beefed up instruction in math and blueprint reading. NICC instructors test and certify his employees at his facility, and they have provided training to workers at other companies in customer service, employment law, and office computing.

“In a company like ours, I can’t have a full-time person just standing there training people,” Gooder said. “The college will customize a program to fit what’s really needed in our business.” And what’s really needed throughout northeast Iowa. Across two campuses and six community centers, the college educates 35,000 people annually through its training program, some of whom follow up with credit courses and eventually degrees. Even NICC’s GED students are encouraged to continue their education on the path toward good-paying jobs—each is offered a free college-level class after finishing the GED.

In partnership with local business, community, and education leaders, the college opened an autobody and welding training center in the back of a high school in Cresco. At a wing of a wellness center in Waucun, NICC offers nursing and other courses. A new science and technology center in Olwein provides classes and state-of-the-art labs. These programs and others are open to high school students too, 2,400 of whom took NICC courses for credit in 2011.

“The college is just a huge part of our community,” Gooder said. In a region that has suffered several waves of manufacturing layoffs, NICC plays a vital role, one amplified by an intentional and pervasive focus on student needs.