·
The Lac Courte Oreilles
Ojibwa Community College recently received eight years of continued
accreditation. The on-site
evaluation team recommended LCOOCC continue its accreditation with NCA until
2005-06.
· The Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community College has an open enrollment policy. This policy gives students who would not otherwise have the opportunity to pursue a higher education the chance to realize their potential. Open enrollment gives under-served students an opportunity for self-improvement as well as 9reparation for success at four-year universities and colleges. LCOOCC's faculty and staff take extra measures to assist in student success through services provided and the sense of community upon which the college was built. Students are not only able to enroll in classes receive academic advising, and gain financial aid assistance, but, they are also connected to tribal soci.31 service agencies, medical and dental clinics and other social services as well. The staff in student services believes in working one-on-one with individuals. Student services at the college include admissions, registration, recruitment, retention, student records, orientation, financial aid, AODA referrals, student transportation, some networking with agencies (JTPA, JOBS, etc.), co-curricular activities, High School Equivalency Diploma (HSED) preparation and testing, suggested placement academic advisement, academic/personal counseling tutoring, the student association and cultural events. While the traditional student services are offered at the college, the uniqueness of the additional services, speaks volumes about the staffs commitment. As an example, when a student misses the college shuttle, th3 bus driver immediately lets student service staff know. The staff will take measures to discover the reasons for absence and ensure support for the student. At times, this may even include a home visit with the intent of facilitating the student's return to college. Other unique counseling programs and services have been developed to assist students in dealing with difficult issues, including high rates of alcohol abuse and domestic violence. The college has on-staff personnel with a Masters of Social Work (MSW) and a CDC (Chemical Dependency Counselor) certification. Several activities assist student services staff in evaluating the effectiveness of their services, including random student surveys and exit interviews with those who are leaving the college. Faculty serve as advisors and are, therefore, able to connect systematically with students outside of regular classroom activities. The student services offered at the college support the personal, social, and educational needs of students and serves as a conduit between the student and their community.
· LCOOCC has established cooperative working relationships in the development of curriculum through the establishment of articulation agreements with several university baccalaureate degree programs. Six 2+2 options are offered in awarding the Associate of Arts, Associate of Science, and Associate of Applied Science degrees. Agencies that have cooperative relationships with LCOOCC programs include the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, NASA, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, Administration for Native Americans, the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Service, Wisconsin - Extension, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, LCO Conservation, the Master Gardeners Program, Trade Unions, the LCO Development Corp., the LCO Housing Authority, the LCO k-12 School System, and the LCO Health Clinic. The college reaches out, through its educational programs, to both Indian and non-Indian populations in the region, thus providing chances for advancement to all who can benefit.
Students who complete their Associate Degrees at LCOOCC with a requisite grade-point average are guaranteed junior status at the receiving institution, with all the genen3l education requirements satisfied, where their are established 2+2 agreements. Chemical Dependency Counseling, Human Services, and Liberal Arts am 2+2 programs articulated with the University of Wisconsin - Superior. The University of Wisconsin - La Crosse has partnered with LCOOCC to prepare Science students, through 2+2 programming, for pursuing degrees in allied health, biology, or chemistry. Agriculture and Natural Resources Management is a 2+2 program articulated with the University of Wisconsin- River Falls. Significant resources for this program include a 220-acre farm near the main campus and tribal holdings including a cranberry bog, wild rice beds, and a fish hatchery. The Nursing Program consists largely of general education and science courses required in the first two years of the four-year BSN curriculum at the University of Wisconsin -Eau Claire. LCOOCC classrooms have been set-up with medical equipment to construct a workplace experience before students do their clinical practicum.
Many of the articulated 2+2 programs take advantage of interactive television, bringing to LCOOCC professional courses originating at partner schools. This helps students meet professors and other students in their cognate group before matriculation to the four-year institution.
· The college responds to the educational needs of other reservations in the region, students pursuing their GED/HSED, and tribal secondary students wishing to pursue concurrent college credit. The college provides outreach programming to the reservations of Bad River, Red Cliff, and St. Croix. Typical offerings include adult basic education, remedial developmental education, various general education courses, business programming, Secretarial Science, Chemical Dependency Counseling, Liberal Arts and Native American Studies. The college is also a state certified GED/HSED testing site. LCOOCC allows students pursuing their GED/HSED to enroll in limited freshman level college courses, earning credits concurrently. The college is also working with area high schools to explore opportunities for those students to earn concurrent college credit through Youth Options and Youth Apprenticeship programs.
Other regularly offered programs designed for students from elementary to
college-level include the following:
a. Pre-College Program's in cooperation with UW-Madison and UWC-Barron.
b. The College provides the School-to-Work training site for LCO K-12 faculty.
c. Students in LCOOCC's American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) are mentors for area high school students.
d. The College offers Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction required courses in Native American Studies.
e. LCOOCC hosts an annual Career Fair and an annual Jobs Fair that is attended by area high schools.
f. The College hosts two school board meetings a year for the local public school district.
g. LCOOCC hosts a joint K-12 and College inservice at the beginning of the academic year to design and implement collaborative projects.
h. The College participates in Native American Awareness Week activities in the local public school district.
i. LCOOCC provides instruction and training in "Project Wild" for area teachers creating lab activities in science.
j. The College is pursuing through Wisconsin's Work-Based Learning, Youth Options and Youth Apprenticeship programming.
· The college recently revised/reinvented its Academic Assessment Plan. NCA has accepted this Academic Assessment Plan developed through the collaborative efforts of LCOOCC's constituents. This plan documents learning outcomes as well as sets standards for the review of LCOOCC educational programming necessary to keep current in higher education The college has a program review process that contributes to its continual academic improvement focus The 1998-1999 academic year brought revisions and modification to the Business programs, Native American Studies, Liberal Arts, Nursing, and Medical Assistant Degrees. The current academic year will see the completion of the Science, Agriculture and Natural Resources Management, Chemical Dependency Counseling, and Human Services degree assessment plans. The review and evaluation processes include the following criteria: the program is consistent with the College's mission and purposes; a continuing need for the program exists (enrollment, advisory panel input, job market, trends affecting their field at the national, state, and local levels with implications for their programs); expected outcomes and objectives are clearly defined; evidence of student academic achievement is shown through multiple assessment tools; the faculty are appropriately qualified and are evaluated as to their teaching effectiveness; and the curriculum is up to date and meets internal review standards as well as approval of external certifying/regulatory bodies.
·
The college has established
a technological infrastructure. Connectivity to the Internet has been
established through two T1 lines (one provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs
and the other through a fiber-optic network of which the college is a member).
The college's web site is on-line at www.lco-college.edu.
Through AIIHEC
(American Indian
Higher Education Consortium)
work is being done to bring a virtual library to all accredited tribal colleges.
This is of special significance to students at LCOOCC's outreach sites as well
as to the virtual/on-line college. All administration, faculty, staff, and a few
instructional classrooms have full Internet access.
Although student access to networked computers is limited by the
availability of the instructional labs outside of scheduled class time.
(Instructional lab computers have been made possible by successfully securing
private foundation funding.) The college also delivers and receives classes via
interactive television. During the fall 1999 semester, LCOOCC delivered
Introduction to Tribal Cultures,
Dendrology, and co-delivered History
of American Indian Art with Northwest Indian College in Bellingham, WA.
Currently the college is delivering Introduction
to Forestry, and Native American
Literature. These technological tools can begin to reduce the
"isolation factor" associated with being located in a rural pat of
northern Wisconsin. Distance
learning technologies are also of critical importance in the cost-effective and
adequate delivery of courses to the college's outreach sites.
·
LCOOCC faculty are
academically qualified and extremely dedicated to the college mission. As
written in the NCA team report of April 1998,
'”They
feel their work makes a tremendous
difference in their students' lives, building hope for a better
future. Across the board, the faculty displayed an almost ‘missionary' zeal to
improve and expand opportunities for enriched lives of people on the LCO
reservation and in the surrounding region.”
Of the 52 full
and part-time faculty, two hold Doctorate degrees while two hold their
candidacy, 16 are Master degreed, 25 hold their Bachelor Degree. The remaining 7
faculty teach primarily in the Native American Studies Department and are
qualified by their knowledge of Ojibwa culture, language, protocol, and
traditions. Lc;OOCC administrators and professional staff members also
teach courses each year. All certificate and degree offerings are staffed by at
least one full-time instructor, thus assuring oversight of programs.
All full-time faculty and administrators have desktop computers in their offices. Adjunct faculty have access to a single networked work station in the faculty lounge. As expressed in response to a recent faculty development questionnaire, LCQOCC's faculty are committed to utilizing technology and Internet resources across the curriculum. This is considered to be an imperative in an age where more than one-half of all new jobs are related to information technologies. All faculty have had some involvement in in-services designed to teach the basics of using web-based search engines and e-mail. Some faculty have also pursued professional growth by learning the latest software and instructional technology through self-study, additional professional development workshops, and personally funded training sessions.
· The college has a strong leadership team of administrators. Their backgrounds are academically diverse with advanced degrees in educational administration, environmental science and policy, business, accounting, social work, Psychology, technology, Native American Studies, mass communications, vocational education, zoology, agriculture, English, and more. The administrative team has accepted the challenge to create new methods of teaching and learning in tribal higher education, keeping with their mission to "provide opportunities for individual self-improvement in a rapidly changing technological world, " by using leading edge technologies and bringing new levels of access and new capabilities to individuals.
·
All administrators and
full-time faculty have desktop PC's with network access to the Internet and
email. In 1997, a Technology
Committee was chosen from college employees with demonstrated expertise in
computer-based technology. They
developed the plan for the infrastructure of the college's current network. The
college employs a Director of Technology, a half-time technician, and a Virtual
College Director who is a network and satellite specialist.
Students have
access to three computer labs. The business classroom (12 stations), the
computer science classroom (16 stations), and the TRIO program (6 stations); all
are networked, allowing Internet access and web-based email accounts to
students. The LCOOCC library offers the public five workstations with Internet
access. The college's outreach sites have although limited in their capabilities
access to computer laboratories through each tribe's Higher Education
Departments These labs range in size from 3 to 7 workstations utilizing
computers with 486 or low-end Pentium processors. LCOOOC has written
Memorandum's of Agreement for instructional space at each of these outreach
facilities.
· Institutional analysis is taken seriously and strategic/continuous improvement planning has been implemented to identify the successes and failures, strengths and weaknesses defining this dynamic educational environment. The past eighteen years at Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community College have been a time of steady growth, infrastructure building, and new program development. These activities have been grounded in the Mission and Purposes of LCOOCC. With the eight-year accreditation of the College in 1998, the Institution is positioned to make decisions and goals that will have long-range impact on its evolution. With the college's maturation comes solidification of current functions as well as documented, researched activities promoting its, and the community's future development.
· Despite being an under-funded institution, responsible fiscal practices have kept the college financially stable. Although the college depends upon the Bureau of Indian \ffairs for 65-70% of its annual budget, it has managed to build a significant "soft money" funding base by virtue of other federal, state and foundation grants. An institutional endowment fund is being built (with a provision for access after reaching $10 million), that is just under $880,000.
· In terms of the college's physical resources, it has a well-planned main campus, composed of mostly modern facilities, which are neatly kept and safe. The entire complex has been built debt-free. Expansion has been accomplished with conservative use of resources. The college itself did much of the planning, as well as actual construction by the students and staff in the building trades programs. No financing has been required to date, as the college has expended its own cash reserves to fund expansion and renovation projects.
· The College has received state accreditation in their Medical Assistant programming. In the spring of 1999, the College was awarded accreditation through the American Medical Assistant Association (AMAA). This rigorous program in the Allied Health field provides for Native students to serve in the areas clinics and hospitals. This accomplishment by the College, faculty and its students has set precedence in the type and quality of education provided by LCOOCC, helping to strengthen its reputation in the communities it serves.
·
The College has recently
received a grant through NASA and the Packard Foundation, for developing a
Renewable Energy, Sustainable Development Institute. This opportunity
provides the institution with funding to develop curriculum for environmental
purposes relevant to Native American issues in being care-takers of their Mother
Earth. The College's GIS
(Geographic Information Systems) capabilities, as well as current Agriculture
and Natural Resources programming will help support this initiative in its
growth.
· LCOOCC holds a grant with the Administration of Native Americans (ANA) to provide an Ojibwa Language Restoration and Preservation program. The College has taken the initiative to help facilitate the restoration of the Native Ojibwa Language. This undertaking provides for a supportive avenue in helping revitalize the Native American culture that has been diminished through years of assimilation practices. Through learning one's own language, and the cultural relevancy related to holding Native traditions and protocols, students are provided with positive rather than negative feedback, as had been practiced in the past.