Tag: Board of Trustees

Surrendering to Mediocrity

mdt1960Leave a comment

Call me a disgruntled worker—I’m OK with it. The unhappiness with my workplace hasn’t come about because I thought I was screwed over, or because I’m just plain old and nothing makes me happy any longer—neither is true, except that I am just plain old.

I’m disgruntled because I’ve finally grown tired of our institution’s determined march toward mediocrity. This includes a willingness to do nothing, or at least do nothing that has any imagination, nothing that is bold, nothing that is earth-shaking or nothing that even smacks of daring. And I’ll lay this banner of mediocrity and ineptitude almost entirely on our Board of Trustees and their milque-toast leadership.

Of course, what I’m specifically talking about is changing the name to Yellowstone College. As most folk know on campus (and beyond to some extent), I am the broken record that keeps on reminding people of the need for a name change whenever there is talk of how to promote the college and get it more exposure. I’ve sat through several meetings where such discussions come up, and everything under the sun is discussed at length except a name change.

Northwest College—a school in northwest Wyoming about 70 miles from the border of Yellowstone National Park (that’s the mandatory tagline that goes with our name so people know where the hell we are)—is a place where we love to tout how different we are from other junior colleges, yet when it comes down to planning (or lack of) we tend to defer to what everyone else is doing. We talk about being unique, but the only thing truly unique about Northwest College is its location—something we’ve never had any control over to begin with. If Northwest College were in Paducah, Iowa, it would be just another, average community college with some obscure, innocuous, generic, and sadly forgettable name. But, instead we are located at the doorstep of Yellowstone National Park with an obscure, innocuous, generic, and sadly forgettable name.

To my knowledge, the talk of a name change—from Northwest College to Yellowstone College—became serious in October of 2018 (four years ago) when former college president Stefani Hicswa sent me a brief email that simply and only said, “I heard a rumor you are promoting Yellowstone College. Tell me more…”

From that time on, the idea of a name change has been seriously kicked around, but mostly just kicked down the road for another time. Four years have passed and no decision has been made—to change the name or not change the name. As an old friend of mine once said, “They don’t know whether to shit or steal third.”

The name-change continues to be a no-brainer and yet the Board of Trustees continues to treat it like a complex problem—overthinking it and giving way to much consideration to the “old guard” who prefers mediocrity and the status quo of pounding a square peg into a round hole.

Over coffee a friend pointed out to me that placing all the blame on the Board of Trustees might not be warranted in saying, “A leader can not be successful without the support of a bold board, an open-minded community, a faculty willing to do things differently & students hungry to consume the product.” He went on to say that our failure to react is not unique to our local community either, that as a society we need to redefine today’s successes in saying, “We cannot re-create our past successes we need to create new ones based on the realities of today & tomorrow.”

Meanwhile the school’s enrollment is flat and remains way below its numbers from say, fifteen years ago. A couple resident halls remain closed and the faculty numbers and programs of study are significantly less. Further, the competition for prospective students in the future grows more intense.

After 31 years, I’m over it and it’s time to move on if I can. Again, call me a disgruntled worker. That said, NWC has paid me fairly and I have tried to rise up to my net worth. We are square, period. And when the time comes for me to go, no goodbye party, social, gathering, etc. is needed—nor wanted. I’ll leave as quietly as I arrived, insuring I don’t disturb this sleepy community of mediocrity.

NWC’s Trapper Village West as a Recruitment Tool

DeanF1949Leave a comment
Northwest College’s Trapper Village West is one mile from the main campus.

I attended the Northwest College Board of Trustees meeting on March 9 and listened to some well-reasoned and passionate presentations on the future of the college. The College’s plan to sell Trapper Village West (TVW) housing was indeed compelling, both from the standpoint of the presenters’ comments and the Board’s lack of response—probably not the most productive forum for a good two-way back-and-forth. That said, in defense of the facility, I have a few observations to add to the fray in this local hot topic.

I think a re-orientation approach to TVW would be well worth entertaining. Rather than looking at it from the view point of what advantages a sale would bring, I think perhaps the advantages of keeping the housing would be a reasonable focus. Once upon a time, Northwest College experimented with themed-housing. The results were inconclusive. But, back in that day my son lived in a learning community called the Art House and remembers that experience as his best-spent time in college. He cited common interests and a stimulating environment as worthy supplements to his formal learning experiences in the classrooms. I don’t know why these themed houses went away, but I assume cost to the student was a factor, along with some vague and/or unnecessary qualifying criteria.

I did some looking around on the internet to see how this concept exists at other institutions and found some thought-provoking information. I know that Northwest is different from other colleges in many ways but the two commonalities our school has with the others are substantial residential housing and contemporary student interests and concerns. Perhaps we could expand our view of what types of existing subgroups on our campus might find theme houses attractive.

I know that the student athletes at Northwest would jump at the chance to live together, and that is surely a common theme. But consider some others: science majors, gender neutral, women’s studies, international students, or students from the same town or region, etc. A common interest might be enough to recruit students for this opportunity, especially if there are financial incentives included. I don’t know what price point would work but I think an empty housing unit by comparison is good enough to consider discounting the cost.

So, at a bare minimum this effort might serve to buffer the maintenance costs of Trapper Village, and on the upside, it just might lead to a new and powerful recruiting tool, especially if it were presented as another cost-saving option to potential students offered by a school that’s already known for its low attending price.