Squeezed By Popularity With A Rapidly Rising Enrollment And Expanded Curriculum, Nic Is Not Your Father’S Junior College

It’s morning, and exhaust is heavy in the air at the center of North Idaho College’s campus.

Blue parking permits hang from the rearview mirrors of the cars that roll steadily onto campus, snatching up the remaining spots.

“It used to be if you came to campus at 8 a.m., you’d get a good spot. Now you’d better get here at 7 a.m.,” said Virginia Johnson, an English instructor and division chairwoman who began with the college 33 years ago.

When she started, the college’s entire faculty could meet in the same room. Now that’s hard to do with her 80-person department, she said.

Signs of NIC’s growth are sprouting throughout the region - in Sandpoint, where the college just opened its first satellite site; in Post Falls, where the college just completed an 8,800-square-foot expansion of its work-force training center; and in North Idaho high schools, where increasing numbers of college classes are taught using videoconferencing.

But growth is most obvious on the main campus, where new faculty are constantly being hired to teach more and more courses, classroom space is sparse and more classes are held before 8 a.m. and after 4 p.m.

“The growth projections for this area are phenomenal. If we’re going to keep pace, we’re going to have real challenges,” said Jerry Gee, vice president for instruction.

“That’s the scary part, but that’s the fun part. I’d wager today that 10 years from today, we’ll be twice as big.”

That would mean 8,000 students on a campus big enough for 6,000, according to a recent consultant’s study of the college’s 47 acres by Lake Coeur d’Alene. NIC’s enrollment is just below 4,000 students.

Gee said he’s not just thinking big - he’s abiding by the mission laid out by the college at its inception in 1933: Provide access to an affordable, quality education for North Idaho students. NIC has no selective admission process. It aims to accept and provide for every student who wants an education.

That means the 27-year-old mother of two who never graduated from high school and wants her GED. It also means the laid-off Silver Valley miner who needs retraining. And high school graduates who want to save money by knocking off the first two years of school at a community college close to home.

In some ways, NIC is the two-year school behaving like a four-year school. Between 85 and 90 percent of students are working toward bachelor’s degrees, rather than professional/technical degrees.

That’s much higher than normal, said Kent Phillippe, senior research associate for the American Association of Community Colleges. Nationwide, he said, between one-quarter and one-third of community college students transfer to four-year schools. The rest are shooting for associate’s degrees or retraining for the work force.

NIC administrators say the difference exists because that’s what the community demands. Because this region lacks a dominant industry, such as Seattle’s software industry, students here tend to focus on achieving a bachelor’s degree to broaden their options.

With its ivy-covered buildings and pine-lined boulevards, a college beach and offices overlooking the Spokane River, NIC resembles a private liberal arts school more than a community college.

It has an alumni association with 120 members and a nonprofit foundation worth $7 million. It serves as the cultural center of North Idaho, playing host to diversity symposiums, an annual art festival, and musical performances and lectures throughout the year.

“This is not a normal community college,” said David Lindsay, vice president of student services, describing the average community college as a “remodeled industrial park.”

But in other ways, NIC is typical. It offers technical courses in automotive technology and welding, continuing education classes in computers and creative writing, and it has a thriving GED program with 645 graduates last year.

About 60 percent of NIC’s students come from Kootenai County. Since 1990, the county’s population has grown almost 60 percent. In response, NIC’s enrollment has shot up more than 30 percent, going from 2,960 students in 1990 to 3,943 in 1999.

Also contributing to the enrollment spurt is rising tuition at four-year schools.

At just $1,218 per year in tuition and fees, the college is the least expensive in the Inland Northwest. The low cost and quality of the education has kept some of North Idaho’s brightest students in the area.

Derrick Palmiter, who was a valedictorian at Kootenai High School in Harrison last year, started at NIC in the fall. Although he was offered a $15,000 scholarship to the University of Puget Sound in Seattle, it wasn’t enough. A full year there would have cost more than $20,000.

“The first few years of college you’re just going to be taking core classes anyway,” Palmiter said. “I can get that here in Coeur d’Alene.’

NIC’s fastest-growing program is computer information technology. Three people graduated from the program in 1997; up to 60 graduates are expected next year. The program recently doubled the number of instructors - from two to four - and expanded into classrooms four times the size of its previous space. Graduates of the program go into lucrative careers as network technicians or Internet webmasters, at companies such as Boise-based Micron Technologies Inc.

NIC is changing to meet the demands placed on it by growth.

The college has expanded the times classes are offered. It has purchased land near the main campus and is hoping to buy more. It has made plans to build more classroom buildings and is seeking the funding to do so. Top priority is a new allied health building, costing more than $11 million.

Starting this month, the college is offering class schedules that extend for an entire year, as opposed to just one semester, allowing students to plan further in advance. Also, beginning this fall, students can take the majority of classes needed for an associate’s degree in the evening.

Within a year, Gee said, the college also hopes to offer all those courses on Friday nights and Saturdays, so people can finish degree requirements completely during weekends.

The college is also expanding how it provides education. In the fall of 1998, it began offering classes over the Internet, starting with 11 courses. By the following semester, there were 14. Next fall, the college expects to offer 31 Internet classes, providing all the courses needed for an associate’s degree.

“I probably could fill as many Internet classes as I could put out there, but we don’t have the teachers to do it,” said Candace Wheeler, the college’s director of distance education.

The college also began offering interactive videoconferencing classes in 1998. That means classes are beamed to remote locations via telephone lines, allowing students to take them in communities such as Sandpoint, Bonners Ferry and St. Maries. Students can take courses at five regional hospitals and at 10 North Idaho high schools. In the spring of 1999, 11 courses were offered. That number has grown to 28. Enrollment has grown faster, from 54 students in 1999 to 155 today, a 187 percent increase.

“I’m supportive of it because in a rural state such as ours, if you don’t reach out, there are students who cannot be served,” said Tony Stewart, a political science instructor who teaches videoconferencing courses. The only challenge, Stewart said, is bringing the students at the remote sites into the classroom dialogue.

“This campus has a limited acreage. We’ve just about reached capacity. These kinds of programs also expand the campus so everybody doesn’t have to come to the same location with the physical limits we have here,” Stewart said.

Also, the college’s first satellite site, in downtown Sandpoint, recently opened. It offers on-site registration, admissions, classes and a computer lab. College administrators say that’s a sign of things to come.

“There’s a new urgency to have a physical presence from NIC in communities like Kellogg, Wallace and Sandpoint,” said Steve Schenk, vice president for college relations and development. “There’s a growing recognition that education is key to economic development.”

NIC has also invested in its work force training center in Post Falls, which opened in 1995 and last year served almost 10,000 students in its 30,000 square feet. The college just completed a $570,000, 8,800-square-foot expansion of the center. The facility also acts as the Riverbend Professional/Technical Academy, offering courses to high school students during the day.

The work force training center offers short-term courses for professionals who need to improve their skills, continuing education for community members who want to learn things like Chinese cooking, and tailor-made training programs for businesses, if, for example, everyone in a company needs to learn a new computer program.

“Everybody is recognizing that if they want to get anywhere in life, they better get out there and improve their skills,” said Robert Ketchum, assistant vice president for instruction.

There is plenty of land at the work force training center in Post Falls, but not so on the main campus. The college recently acquired 3 acres to bring its total there to 47.

“There is a point of capacity and we are quickly reaching that,” said Michael Burke, president of the college. “I think it begs the question: Do we need a third site?”

The answer to that question in the long term, Burke said, is “probably.”

A recent master plan done for the college by consultants showed that the capacity of the main campus is 6,000 students. It suggested the college look for land to buy to create a sister campus. One possible location is the Rathdrum Prairie.

As the college grows, some worry it will lose the characteristics that made it successful in the first place, what Lindsay, the student services vice president, calls the “recipe for success.”

That recipe’s key ingredient is a student-to-faculty ratio of 17-to-1.

“My electronics teacher really enjoys teaching,” said Dan Miller, a 19-year-old freshman majoring in electronics. “He’ll always be there to answer questions and he explains everything really well.”

“My economics teacher, she knew my name and she has a whole bunch of classes,” said Jesi Henderson, a 19-year-old pre-engineering student from Blanchard. Henderson started at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, but transferred to NIC for its size, cost and quality.

“It’s a lot more hands-on,” Henderson said of NIC. “It’s a lot easier to get help because it’s not so big.”

Those comments don’t surprise faculty members. Johnson, the English instructor and division chairwoman, says instructors take the college’s mission seriously, stressing student success, teaching excellence and lifelong learning.

“There’s something really nourishing about this place,” Johnson said. “It makes them (students) feel they’ve succeeded here.”

Graphic: Is NIC keeping up?