Building Bigger, Better, and Brighter Community Colleges

Local colleges prioritizing aviation, healthcare, technology, and connected campus life with new master plans

By Art Bukowski | Aug. 24, 2024

Exciting and impactful changes are planned at two of northwest Michigan’s largest centers of higher education.

While it will take years for the full scope of these plans to come to fruition, students will begin noticing changes in the 2024-25 school year as leaders at Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) in Traverse City and North Central Michigan College (NCMC) in Petoskey dive into ambitious plans to change the way they do business.

Northwestern Michigan College

While NMC’s board of trustees in June approved an expansive master plan that outlines many major and minor changes over the next decade (more on that later), students this fall will see construction begin on new facilities designed to expand the popular aviation program and help address an anticipated national shortage in airline pilots.

Crews are expected to break ground in October on a renovation and expansion of the college’s nearly 50-year-old aviation hangar on the Aero Park campus. NMC Aviation Director Alex Bloye says the $14 million project will also include the purchase of up to six new training planes and the transformation of the hangar into a new student aviation center.

“We’ve seen historic demand for this program in recent years, and that’s resulted in a wait list,” Bloye says. “We see an opportunity to serve more students as well as serve our current students in updated facilities with more efficient and effective modern training.”

More than a third of existing commercial airline pilots are expected to retire by 2035, Bloye says, and current graduates enjoy a 100 percent job placement rate. With “ever-growing demand,” the college is eager to get as many students trained as possible, Bloye says. Additional aircraft and space could allow the current aviation student population of around 130 to grow to 170 or more.

The aviation project is part of a master plan that also includes significant changes to other NMC operations. Among the biggest goals are more student housing, more “vibrancy” on NMC’s main campus, and relocation of university partners from the disconnected University Center off Cass Road to the main campus.

The first of these major moves is scheduled to occur as soon as the 2025 school year with the migration of several NMC departments and its four University Center partners (Central Michigan, Davenport, Ferris State, and Grand Valley State universities) to the main campus’ Osterlin Hall. There, they’ll continue their function of offering programming that allows local students to obtain degrees from those institutions.

NMC spokesperson Cari Noga says students and faculty seek the “hustle and bustle” of a main campus environment, something sorely lacking at the University Center. This is all part of an effort to bring more energy and activity to the main campus.

“We have seen with our newest building on our front street campus, the Timothy J. Nelson Innovation Center, how having a hub really enlivens campus. That building houses our cafeteria, our library, classrooms, individual study spaces, meeting rooms, and it’s so exciting to be in there,” she says. “We really want to extend that feeling, that sense of energy.”

Other elements of the master plan have a heavy focus on housing, with hundreds of new rooms planned across a series of renovations, expansions, and new builds between now and 2031.

The price tag for all of this (and much more) is substantial. Estimated at between $164 and $235 million, the master plan comes with a considerable fundraising lift. Following a six-month national search, NMC recently hired its first Chief Advancement Officer, Dino Hernandez, to help with these efforts.

“It was a nice one-two [punch], completing the plan and then bringing Dino on board,” Noga says.

North Central Michigan College

Up in Petoskey, NCMC recently broke ground on a $20 million initiative set to “redefine healthcare, manufacturing, and skilled trades education.” The Career and Technical Education Enhancement (CATEE) project is designed to boost the college’s ability to provide education in these in-demand fields.

“We have for 60-plus years been really solid in transfer education, with a tremendous strength in nursing and health sciences. But we want to do more, particularly in that second area,” NCMC President David Finley says. “And this is aimed precisely at doing that, as well as making a sincere push into the tech and trades.”

The first phase includes renovation and expansion of the Health Education and Science Center. A 7,200-square-foot addition will provide advanced classroom, clinical, simulation, and lab spaces for programs that have outgrown their current facilities. This expansion is projected to introduce an additional 150 healthcare professionals into the workforce each year.

“Previously, we could use mock hospital rooms or classrooms, but not at the same time,” Finley says. “This really gives us much needed elbow room to do much more.”

Finley is particularly excited about setting students up for in-demand jobs that pay well.

“There’s a projection of a 33 percent increase in healthcare jobs over the next decade. Many folks choose to retire in our area, so our population is aging, and those folks are going to want and need healthcare,” he says. “So these are outstanding opportunities for students with fire in their belly, that want to have not just a job, but a career.”

Phase two of the project, set to begin in early 2025, includes the razing of the college’s 59-year-old Technology Building and transforming it into an expanded, state-of-the-art technology center (pictured, rendering). NCMC hopes to use this new facility to address the growing need for tech professionals by training an estimated 200 individuals annually in disciplines including robotics, engineering, welding, and computer-aided drafting and design.

This component will not only help students attain high-paying jobs, Finley says, but it will also provide a boost to the local economy.

“We’re in the social mobility business, opening doors for individuals that want to climb higher in their life or their career,” Finley says. “But secondly, talent development also provides economic development for our communities. Providing talent to work for manufacturers and work in the skilled trades will take this entire northern Michigan region even higher.”

The CATEE project is scheduled to be completed by fall of 2026.

“We’re so proud of what’s happening all across campus,” Finley says. “This is really going to take North Central Michigan College to the next level.”