Page 25 - November report 2023

NEBRASKA INDIAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE SITE VISIT (2)
NICC has approximately 625 students enrolled in courses as of Fall 2023. This is the highest total student population in its 50 years of existence (initiated in 1973 and formally recognized in 1979). The composition can be broken into roughly equal thirds: degree seeking, dual enrollment at an area high school and those just taking selective courses. The upsurge in enrollment was attributed to the attraction of the first offering of a bachelor’s degree, in this case a BA in business, and the greater shift to distance learning following redesign during and after the pandemic. At present, the College has 84 Business degree seeking students, 61 of which are in their first 2 years. Of the 84, 18 presently have GPA of 2.0 or better.
Dean Price expressed appreciation for the JSF annual meeting in Scottsdale discussing its added value of the exchanges between representatives of the participating institutions. This year, NICC will be sending Business Faculty member Taria Wolfe as its representative.
We had the opportunity to tour the campus, which is very small, and were impressed with the buildings constructed over the last few years. The institution is almost 100% online, synchronous or Internet course work for students, therefore, there were very few students on campus. We did have a chance to visit the Earth Lodge, which was recently built on the campus. It is an awe-inspiring cultural feature of the campus.
We had lunch with the Dean at the new high school cafeteria and visited with locals about JSF.
Since we were in the area, we took the opportunity to do a cold call on the Little Priest Community College, 12 miles from Nebraska Indian Community College. We had a lovely visit with two of the representatives from the college, VP of Finance & Operations, Mark Vasina and VP of Teaching & Learning, Loretta Broberg, who were very interested in the possibility of engaging in a relationship in the future; the school may have potential. John followed up by email with Mark and Loretta, and he provided additional information regarding JSF.
Page 23 HORIZONS