While remaining committed to the trade programs that built the school, Nashua Community College is adapting to changing student demands, which includes an increased focus on liberal arts and creating pathways to higher degrees. Nashua Community College (NCC) is investing millions and forging new partnerships with other colleges and universities to make it happen.
Partnerships with Granite State College, the online College for America designed by Southern NH University, manufacturers and the state’s four-year colleges offer many different paths for students to earn an associate’s or bachelor’s degree.
The college has been tending these paths through investments in infrastructure and programs. In 2010, NCC opened the $9.3 million Judd Gregg Hall, which houses a nursing simulation suite, high-tech auditorium and science laboratories. Two years later, the institution unveiled a $2 million, 17,000-square-foot expansion of the automotive laboratory, which mirrors the service stations in high-end dealerships.
And in 2013, in response to employers needing to train more skilled workers, NCC renovated a 5,000-square-foot manufacturing laboratory with sophisticated gear, including 3D printers and Prototrack CNC/manual lathes. NCC President Lucille Jordan says the school was able to expand the facility and the program, as well as hire lab assistants, with $1.6 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training initiative (TAACT).
Still its largest percentage of students—35 percent—are liberal arts majors, and nearly half of those students, 42 percent, transfer to a four-year degree program. The school now has more than 2,200 students—754 full-time and 1,468 part-time, a population size that’s held steady during the last five years. The college offers 30 associate’s degrees and 21 certificate programs.
Competency-Based Education
Using federal funds, NCC expects to strengthen its relationship with local area manufacturers to design an associate’s degree modeled on the competency-based College For America (CFA), which was developed by Southern NH University in Manchester.
The fully accredited CFA, which launched in 2013, partners with employers to educate its workers without courses or grades. Rather than earning credits based on the number of hours spent in class, students demonstrate what they know through a series of self-paced progressive tasks. Much of the learning is online, and many of the projects are workplace-related, such as developing budgets, creating marketing plans or writing memos. Students move from one learning module to the next or continue to submit a task until they master it. While the modules are self-directed, students can work with personal coaches via phone or email.
Up until now, CFA hasn’t created learning modules for manufacturing. But over the next 18 months, CFA will serve as a consultant to NCC to craft the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation by Design (AMID) program. The idea is to take CFA’s nontraditional academic pathway for a general studies associate’s degree and translate it for a manufacturing curriculum.
The AMID program is targeted for older students who need to upgrade their skills to advance their careers, according to Teresa Smith Trainor of TST & Associates, the interim project director for the grant-sponsored AMID. Many of these students have had little or no college experience. She says most students haven’t taken a math or writing class in 25 years and may struggle, for example, with remedial coursework.
“This particular population is at much higher risk for not staying in school,” she says, which is why the program is assigning what she calls “student navigators,” one for every 75 students. They will help students not only connect to tutors, but access special services, such as childcare, transportation or career counselors.
Nashua Community College is consulting with College for America in preparation for a fall 2015 launch. Trainor expects an enrollment of 350 NCC students by 2018. NCC hasn’t announced tuition fees for the program, but advocates of the competency-based approach say it’s generally cheaper and faster. At the College for America, students can earn an associate’s degree for $2,500 a year.
Careers in Manufacturing
Manufacturing students may not encompass the largest segment of the student body, but the school has invested heavily in hands-on learning to serve the growing need for skilled workers.
Jordan emphasizes that the enhanced manufacturing program doesn’t produce employees for the stereotypical manufacturing jobs. Instead, NCC’s curriculum trains for mid-level technicians, who need an in-depth understanding of math and physics to run the machines. These skills aren’t “for the push-button [jobs],” underscores Jordan. “Those jobs aren’t coming back to New Hampshire.”
One business working with this program is GE Aviation in Hooksett. About 300 of the 750 employed at GE Aviation’s Hooksett plant machine specialty parts for aircraft engines. Plant Manager Doug Folsom says the average age of a machinist is 53, and many are retiring by age 62. Folsom says he expects that during the next nine years, GE Aviation will lose more than half of its employees. And he’s not seeing a plethora of young job hunters stepping in to fill the gap.
That’s why this global provider of aerospace engines is taking a proactive approach to recruiting by building employee skills from the ground up. Working with NCC’s existing precision manufacturing curriculum and simulated laboratories, the company launched a hybrid internship and academic program this past fall.
Folsom had hoped for at least eight students from NCC’s first-year machine tool technology class, but his requirement of a minimum 3.0 GPA as well as other requirements narrowed the field to four. “That was a little disappointing, but we didn’t want to lower the bar,” he says.
Jordan acknowledges that math is a barrier for many manufacturing students, in particular the incumbent or dislocated workers. Through the TAACT 3 grant, NCC will offer an online math course allowing students to work at their own pace. She says some students will need only two weeks to get through the remedial math, others may need eight.
Folsom expects the program to grow as more high school graduates become aware of the apprenticeship and its income potential. He says the average starting pay at GE Aviation is between $25 and $30 per hour, and with overtime, these students can easily earn up to $60,000 annually. “My ultimate vision is that we may get some students who otherwise would plan to go to a four-year bachelor degree program and see Nashua Community College and the opportunity to come work at GE [Aviation] as a really great alternative,” says Folsom.
One student exemplifying that trajectory is Ryan Remillard, a 31-year-old former tank mechanic with the Marine Corps and current part-time security guard who has a six-month-old daughter. He says the “practicality of making the parts and learning the machines” is accomplished at school, “and when I get home, I have time for my family.”
He spends every Friday as a GE Aviation intern making discs for turbine engines. Remillard says having access to such an apprenticeship and getting a foot in the door at GE made his investment in Nashua Community College worthwhile.
GE Aviation interns attend lab and lectures Monday through Thursday and get paid as employees at GE Aviation on Fridays. In between academic years, they work full-time at the company in the summer and then come back full time towards the end of the program, when they design their major projects onsite.
Matt Roy, another student in the GE Aviation program, is a 2011 graduate of Nashua High North. He began his education in mechanical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, but like Remillard, didn’t want to risk another semester of hefty tuition fees on an academic track to which he didn’t feel committed. The 20-year-old sees a future in machining at GE Aviation, where he hopes to climb the management ranks and eventually pursue a four-year degree using GE Aviation’s tuition reimbursement benefit. As the program expands with more students, the upshot is that manufacturers beyond GE Aviation can train workers for the advanced skills they seek. And younger employees get well-paying jobs without excessive college debt. Or, as Remillard sees it, “I want to make a decent amount of money out of something I enjoy.”
This spring, NCC will receive another $2.5 million in TAACT funding, which will be allocated over the next four years, to renovate the manufacturing lab again and build what is called a “fab-lab,” which Jordan says will provide incubator space where inventors can make use of the technology and brainstorm with others. In other words, it’s a virtual if-you-can-dream-it-we-can-build-it laboratory.
She envisions businesses or community members coming in to engineer and design prototypes in the fab-lab using, for example, laser cutters to make 2D and 3D models, or mills to manufacture circuit boards and precision pieces. The grant is part of the $474.5 million of funding the Obama administration is providing to community colleges nationally to expand training for unemployed or displaced workers.
The Growth of Liberal Arts
President Jordan says that although Nashua Community College has built its reputation from its early years in the 1970s as a vocational school for auto mechanics or machinists, its highest enrollments are now among the liberal arts majors.
NCC continues to offer an alternative for high school graduates who don’t have the grades or desire to get into a four-year college. But that describes only a small portion of its applicant pool. Liberal arts students actually account for the largest percent.
Increasingly, NCC welcomes many students who are accepted to good colleges but in the final hours realize their financial aid packages fall short by at least $10,000, says Jordan. “Many of them are very talented and successful,” she says, adding that community college starts to lose its stigma when parents recognize NCC has a separate honors track with smaller classes and, among liberal arts students, a 41.2 percent transfer rate to four-year bachelor’s programs. The college built a new dining hall and athletic building in 2008 to create a more traditional campus.
When a high school graduate’s family debates the merits of a two-year versus a four-year college, finances dominate the conversation. While the average annual tuition and fees of $6,736 at the community college pale in comparison to the in-state four-year university average of $14,665, Jordan says those costs prevent many Granite State high school graduates from attending either form of institution. In fact, the Granite State, along with Vermont, has the highest in-state tuition and fees in the country for both public four-year and public two-year higher education institutions.
But the stakes of not attending college are also high. According to a 2013 Gallup poll, up to 96 percent of Americans realize it’s critical to have more than a high school degree to get ahead in the workforce. Yet, only 26 percent think that higher education is affordable for most people.
With state support on the decline, the barriers to higher education often seem insurmountable. To soften the sticker shock, NCC and the other six community colleges froze tuition for the 2013-14 academic year and is lowering tuition for 2014-2015. Financial advisors also work with students to help them qualify for financial aid. At NCC, at least half the student body receives federally funded loans, and about a third accept Pell grants, which don’t require repayment.
NCC is also making the transfer to a four-year college more affordable by allowing Granite State College (GSC), which serves mostly adults, to maintain a small portable building on NCC grounds for classes and an office for a GSC academic advisor within NCC’s main building. While Granite State College has its own classrooms, its students still get to enjoy campus life and access to the library, fitness center, lounge and open spaces.
GSC, which offers slightly more than half of its undergraduate and graduate courses online, also has co-location sites at Great Bay Community College in Rochester and Manchester Community College.
The hope is that Granite State College can eventually build a permanent space for classrooms and offices, says Jordan. And, she adds, that will compel more students to progress to bachelor’s degrees without having to leave familiar surroundings.
New Programs, New Alternatives
In the fall, NCC expects its enrollment to grow by 5 percent, especially with the addition of several programs. Within the atrium of the health and wellness center, more renovations are underway, as the culinary arts and hospitality/restaurant management labs expand.
Previously, at least 500 high school graduates in the southern tier were crossing the border to pursue a culinary or hospitality education at nearby institutions, Jordan says. Now they can consider an associate’s degree closer to home with the potential to transfer to the four-year programs at Southern NH University or the University of NH, she says.
Chef-owner Michael Buckley says it’s never easy filling positions in his five NH restaurants. Job hunters range from those looking for an ephemeral stint assisting in the kitchen to those wanting to sharpen skills under watchful eyes. He’d like to see more of the latter.
Buckley sits on the NCC advisory board, is helping to redesign the kitchen, regularly meets with students, and will take on at least three interns this summer. He says NCC is filling a niche for young students who want a more affordable option to the conventional full-time college route and are likely working while also taking courses that relate to the food services or the lodging industry.
Another advisory board member, Tim Hogan, general manager of the Crowne Plaza in Nashua, says with the hotel industry injecting the second largest stream of tax revenue into the state, he’d like to promote more career incentives for native talent. “They [the students] don’t have to go off to school in Rhode Island or New York. They can stay and hopefully become assimilated to one of the establishments here,” he says.
Criminal Justice Program Launched
In response to demand from students interested in law enforcement careers, NCC is launching a criminal justice certificate. David Dinwoodie, the program’s coordinator, says the course is in its early stages with 15 students, but he expects it to grow rapidly, especially as it expands to an associate’s degree by the fall. He expects there will be at least 15 new criminal justice students this fall in addition to the 15 current students.
Nashua Police Department Deputy Chief Andrew J. Lavoie, an advisory board member, emphasizes that the curriculum covers a range of topics. It introduces young people to correctional systems, ethics in public service, writing, social services and psychology. It’s also a good program for professionals already in the field who need to earn continuing education credits. Liberal arts, computer technology, writing and public speaking are all essential elements.
“It’s a starting point before you move on to a higher degree,” says Lavoie.
This article appeared in the May print edition of Business NH magazine and may not be reprinted, scanned or copied without express permission of the magazine. It also appeared on the www.BusinessNHmagazine.com website.