None of the five candidates for Northwest College board present at a Thursday night forum said they were happy with the low enrollment at the college, but differences shown through in opinions on the causes of low enrollment and whether the board is on the right track to solve the problem.

Challengers Emily Hart, Denise Laursen and Mallory Riley answered questions alongside incumbents Carolyn Danko and Dusty Spomer in front of roughly 30 people in the Fagerberg Building on the college campus.

While there were some sharp differences of opinion — the incumbents said the board is on the right track while challengers generally disagreed — candidates also displayed how connected many of them are. Danko, for instance, recalled having Laursen as a home economic student while teaching in the Powell school district, where Laursen now works as a longtime CTE teacher. Laursen helped teach a PHS class that won a national Blue Ribbon award — Riley, now a deputy county attorney, was a member of that class. 

All noted their deep ties to Powell and to the school.

Small business owner and former health care administrator Hart, like Riley and Laursen, is a NWC grads. Spomer, a military veteran and engineer, is going for his third four-year term on the board, Danko her fifth. 

Questions came from the college and wider community, from faculty, staff and some in the audience.

While there were a number of questions, a couple encapsulated some of the main differences between the candidates. 

What are your motivations for running?

Laursen was one of a number of candidates to say her primary reason for running was in response to the decline in enrollment in the college over the last decade. 

“I want to get our numbers back up because I know what a wonderful school it is,” she said. “We’ve got to make sure we’re meeting the needs of our community. To me, there’s been a period where the community felt like they were being shoved away from the college. And I don’t see that anymore. I see a lot more of the community saying, ‘we’re still here. We want to help what can we do to help you out’ and as a community member that’s been here long enough to see the whole process, I want to make sure that this college stays here.”

Riley likewise said she was running first and foremost on trying to be part of the solution to stop declining enrollment.

“According to the community college commission, we’re down 43% in full time enrollment FTEs,” she said. “And that is an extreme driver of the money that we get from the state of Wyoming and we’re down 43% from the last 10 years according to the Wyoming Community College Commission. The nearest college was Western [Wyoming Community College] at 35.9%. So let’s call it 36%. That means that we’re still lagging behind by 7%. 

“If that doesn’t terrify the rest of you, I don’t know what I can do to make it more clear that we need to take some kind of action.”

Spomer said his primary goals for running were to carry out the goals made in the college’s new strategic plan and to assist with overseeing the new student center construction as a way to maximize his expertise in project management.

“We have brought together this transformational process which I think we can all be very proud of,” he said. “It’s culminating in a strategic plan that I think is the right fit for the institution. It’s something that I think will help guide all of this from the board, staff, faculty administration. 

“This college is the fifth largest employer in the county. We have an economic impact of around $90 million and we don’t think that that’s core to this community. We really need to think about that because we’re here as an institution for students who are also critical to the future.”

Danko said she’s enjoyed her four terms on the board and wants to bring that as well as her decades of teaching experience to bear for a fifth term. She also addressed the issue with low enrollment but said the college is working on stemming the effect of the nationwide issue. 

“We’re providing CDL, we’re providing training for plumbers and electricians, we have large equipment operators that can practice on our wonderful computerized models,” she said. Danko added that the increase in high school students taking college classes through NWC at their schools or the college, while helpful for the community, can also keep enrollment lower as students can finish most of an associates degree while in high school, thus allowing them to jump straight to a four year college.

“But we are offering all of this in our community and our college is very definitely looking at the trades. So we’re working on it.”

Hart said that, as both a traditional and later a nontraditional college student herself, it was vital to look at the changing nature of college and the students who attend. 

“We want to continuously foster a positive relationship between Northwest and the community of Powell,” she said. “And it’s providing support to Northwest College as we navigate these barriers — enrollment trends, what is everyone’s as well as my perceptions of community college. Does it look the same as it did 15 years ago? How do we need to evolve in that? 

“And my number one point that I really want to focus on is the evolution of Northwest College to quickly and qualitatively get these individuals into working programs and then to get them back out into the workforce as soon as possible.”

Do you believe the college is adequately funded?

Riley again cited her 10-year enrollment numbers to say that while she couldn’t say for sure based on not having all the info, that NWC might be funded properly.

“I highly doubt that the state of Wyoming has actually cut 43% of our funding,” she said, noting that operational costs rarely go down, but usually stay stable or go up. ”Our additional funding comes from FTEs and our FTEs are low. So our funding is low. So with that in mind, I need to know exactly the numbers that are coming in from the State of Wyoming and how it correlates to our lowering percentage and FTE aren’t adequately funded. We might actually be based on the number of students we have. Are we using our money wisely? I don’t believe so.”

Spomer said the budgets, including the operating budget, are down in the last five years. But he also pointed to other ways the college can increase funding. 

“We’ve got to broaden our capture area for the college,” he said. “We need to get more of our resident base and students in the door. But we’ve got to reimagine where that revenue stream is going to come from in the future. This national trend is real …. But you’ve also heard me say that that’s not an excuse, whatever any organization that’s impacted by external controls, you’ve got to decide what you’re going to do about that to affect your future.”

Danko said she does not believe the college is adequately funded based on state reimbursement lagging behind expenses. She said that leads to increases in fees being the main way the college can adjust to rising costs. 

“We are still stuck in this pattern and we had a big decrease in our funding,” she said. “We have lost I believe 72 positions. When you lose a class, you don’t just lose the teacher. You lose the 20 students that didn’t register for that class. You lose the custodian who takes care of the buildings. You lose the cafeteria money when the kids ate in the cafeteria.”

Hart said as the college doesn’t have control over how much funding it receives from the state, the key is to focus on what can be done locally to raise funds. 

“I am not convinced that our resources are being allocated correctly,” she said. “I don’t think it’s done spitefully, I don’t think it’s done with any [ill] intent. I think it’s truly because we’re just coming out of a pandemic. And when you look at variation, a pandemic is a lot of variation. So we just don’t know. We just don’t know a lot of things. In addition to that, It’s really important to look at the changes … Now we need to start looking at how do we reallocate the resources that we have?”

Laursen said she doesn’t think the college is adequately funded, pointing to her experience of getting pay increases at the high school level while at the same time the college is having to lay off professors. 

“As a community member that bothered me a lot,” she said. “We’ve got to make sure that kids get and adults get the education that they want. Now, how do we do that? Again, I’m big on business and industry. We really need to start to have the communication occurring between business and industry. And I’m seeing that occurring at other junior colleges or community colleges in our state.”