Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
JIM LORENSON, college president, sits before the Fall 2017 enrollment presentation. While the numbers are not all good, with enrollment down 5.7 percent over Fall 2016, the school is ahead of its peers and performing well as its graduates have nothing but glowing things to say about their time on campus.
By IAN MINIELLY
Ironwood - Miranda Lawver and Kim Zeckovich presented the enrollment report on Tuesday afternoon during the board meeting at GCC. While enrollment for Fall 2017 is down 5.7 percent over Fall 2016 numbers, across the state numbers at community colleges are down, according to Jim Lorenson, president.
Lawver showed the trend line for GCC is still trending up, it is just 2016 was an exceptional year so when comparing enrollment year over year it was a huge jump from 2015 and is a small decrease from 2016's high enrollment for this year. Overall the headcount is down 63 students and 572 credit hours.
One of the issues Lawver pointed out and Lorenson expanded upon is the state's requirement for dual enrollment students is set in Lansing and not necessarily indicative of future success on a college campus. Dual enrolled students are those students still in high school taking college courses which helps the colleges and provides less expensive college options for the students at the same time as a win win.
Tim Kolesar, member of the board, jumped in and said, "It bothers me they are unable to take advantage of the program because of what the state sets up. Kids are losing opportunities because someone in Lansing says they do not make the cut."
One of the areas where Gogebic Community College is exceeding the standard and out pacing their peers is in student retention. GCC returned 56.4 percent of its first year students, whereas the state average is only 48.5 percent. This fits in with the end of year survey results the students filled out after graduation last year.
Almost 100 percent of the students achieved their goals on the campus of GCC. One hundred percent of students were very satisfied with their time on campus and 98 percent said they would recommend GCC to someone else. The school also learned 59 percent of the students graduating last year were already working in their field, before graduating, so GCC is making its mark as an enhancement to the community and state.
In other news, the college's volleyball team was introduced to the board, along with their coach, Aaron Bender. The members of the team said where they are from and what their majors are and their future plans. The Yon twins from Wakefield, both second year players on the team, played a trick on the board by posing as their other sister and no one caught on due to their close proximity in appearance.
Jeanne Graham informed the board the week of October 16-20 would be dedicated to celebrating the schools 85 years in existence. The chosen week is the eighth week of the school year and five days long.
-On the 16th there will be hot dogs and brats and people are encouraged to come to the school and tell their stories about how GCC impacted their lives
-On the 17th the school is planning some kind of running event. Graham posited they may put on an 85 yard dash, but they had not made up their minds yet.
-On the 18th the school will offer free cup cakes on and off campus
-On the 19th the school is hosting its foundation banquet, so they will include the celebration with the banquet, and
-On the 20th the school will host a build your own sundae event.
The October meeting was moved up one week to the 24th to accommodate Halloween and the school is working with their lawyers regarding First Amendment and protest issues that are playing out across the country.
