On Oct. 12, the Northwest College Board of Trustees received the preliminary results from a series of community focus groups, which revealed emerging themes for the college to potentially focus on in future transformation. 

More than 120 community members — including elected officials, faculty, staff, former employees, students, alumni and donors — participated in the focus groups and the Half-day Community Future Summit in August and September. Participants discussed challenges facing higher education and what transformational strategies NWC could focus on going forward. 

The results listed five top takeaways from the discussions: renaming the college; redesigning academic programs to be more flexible; building partnerships that support the region’s workforce needs; building opportunities for students to apply their learning in the real-world; and enhancing the awareness and visibility of Northwest’s current offerings.

The aim of rebranding is to distinguish the college from many others across the country. The preliminary report noted two groups during the discussion who argued for the name to be changed to Yellowstone College.

For programmatic changes, the group participants suggested the college improve its trades offerings and create more of a connection between liberal arts courses and workforce needs.

The groups also wanted to see more partnerships with industries, such as hospitality and healthcare.

To satisfy the need for more real-world learning, the participants suggested more internships and other experience-based learning opportunities for NWC students. To enhance the college’s visibility, the participants suggested building more partnerships with high schools, while branding the college’s unique assets, such as Yellowstone National Park and Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

This first phase of this college transformation initiative, organized by Northwest College in partnership with higher education consultants CampusWorks, was designed to educate stakeholders on the challenges the college is facing, engage community members in dialogue about possible solutions and focus on the development of strategic options based on this feedback. 

An advisory committee composed of NWC faculty and staff is processing the community input and developing strategic options for the administration to consider and for the board of trustees to decide upon at a future meeting.

Development and consideration of these strategic options is the first step in a multi-phased project; the board of trustees voted on Oct. 12 to continue the project into phases two and three. 

Future phases will include feasibility testing and market research, as well as resource assessment and an eventual road map for operationalizing whichever strategic option the board votes to implement. 

The college anticipates that the research and planning process will be complete in spring 2021. Additional invitations and calls for community participation will be sought in the coming months. 

Questions and comments can be directed to NWC Communications and Marketing Director Carey Miller at 307-754-6114 or Carey.Miller@nwc.edu.