New Trustee Appointed to Board
Haverhill resident Mary Ellen Daly O’Brien was welcomed as the newest member to the Northern Essex Community College Board of Trustees. A registered nurse, who is currently case manager at Merrimack Valley Hospital in Haverhill, Daly O’Brien says she is delighted to be have been appointed to the board by Gov. Deval Patrick.

A member of the Haverhill City Council, she said she feels lucky to be able to serve her community in yet another way.

Workforce Development is Focus of Educational Report
Bill Heinemann, vice president of academic affairs, said the educational report would take a departure from reporting on NECC’s credit classes and instead highlight NECC non-credit activities especially workforce development and community relations under the recently appointed director George Moriarty.

Moriarty said more and more, as the economy demands, community colleges are taking on a workforce development (WFD) role. Northern Essex regularly works with local employers to identify their particular workforce needs. For example A. W. Chesterton in Groveland approached NECC for assistance in supplying sales training while another company is looking for direction in developing technical writing skills for their employees.

In response to industry needs WFD collaborated with Middlesex Community College, North Shore Community College, three vocational technical high schools, the one-stop career centers, and Workforce Investment Boards from four regions to develop an advanced manufacturing program. This cross-regional partnership wrote a half-million dollar proposal that has been submitted to the Commonwealth Corporation for funding under the Workforce Competitiveness Trust Fund.

In addition, certain noncredit programs, said Moriarty, are also enjoying a surge in interest such as the noncredit Auto CAD program which attracts nearly 1300 participants a year.

Other programs continue to grow. Moriarty says personal enrichment courses draw another 1,100 students a semester. WFD also oversees the Life Long Learning Program and the College of Older Learners, two robust educational programs for older students.

Beginning this summer WFD will take over the STEM College for Kids program, a summer camp for children that focuses on science, technology, engineering, and math programming.

“We make sure these courses are integrated with the rest of the college,” Moriarty said, “We work closely with academic affairs to build a pathway from the noncredit to credit.”

WFD primary goal is to increase revenue while delivering high quality services, he said.

Report on FY14 Changes Could Mean Cuts for NECC
NECC President Lane Glenn reported on the FY 14 state budget explaining that the state’s Department of Higher Education has introduced a new formula for allocating funds which factors in the cost of operation, enrollment (including noncredit), and performance. This formula, he said, was to give community colleges that have been underfunded a chance to “catch-up”. If approved as is, it could have a negative impact on NECC’s budget. The final determination, he said, “will play out over the next few weeks.” He will continue to keep the Board apprised of the outcome.

Strategic Plan Progresses Further
As Goal Three, academic support services, of the strategic plan is implemented using a new software program titled Degree Works, students now have access to a multi-year course plan. The college, in turn, hopes to extract information from this program and use it to help select and schedule future courses.
In an effort to continue to promote a “culture of learning” at NECC, the college is piloting a new individualized professional development plan with the President’s cabinet.

New IT Certificate Approved
The trustees approved a new program for a computer security certificate. This one-year program is intended for individuals with previous Information Technology (IT) college-level experience or equivalent IT work experience who wish to upgrade their computer skills in security technologies. Security is one of the fastest growing and in demand areas in the IT area.

Employees Receive Appointments
Rebecca Rose was appointed assistant professor of developmental math and Analuz Garcia was appointed coordinator of student activities and engagement. Jeannine Patturelli was appointed academic counselor in the Career, Planning and Advising Center (CPAC)and Cesar Gonzalez Tellez web developer for the Marketing and Communications department.

Habib Maagoul was appointed program coordinator of mathematics.

NECC Librarian to go on Sabbatical
Gail Stuart, assistant librarian in the Bentley Library on the Haverhill campus, was given a half-year sabbatical for the fall of 2013. She will explore interrelated activities that will improve her and NECC students’ information literacy skills. In addition to completing course work at the University of Rhode Island, she will serve as the information literacy skill coach for the faculty, and she will explore the potential of a student help desk to answer questions about information technology.