InfoSec: Using public Wi-Fi
Be wary of using a public Wi-Fi. If you access one, it is best to use a VPN like Nord, Proton or other secure VPN!
Fraudsters will often set up a Wi-Fi hotspot of their own and disguise it as genuine public Wi-Fi.
New books at the NMC Library
To find these selections and many other new titles, see the NMC library catalog.
Kudos!
Kudos to Kristy McDonald, Amy Burns Bailey, and Lindsey Dickinson for finding funds to support the free professional headshot event for NMC students and employees. This was a great opportunity for students to have a professional picture for their email, LinkedIn profile, resume and other professional endeavors!
Kudos to Chad Schenkelberger, Esther Nance and the Hawk Owl Café team! A big congratulations to Chad, Esther and the entire team at the Hawk Owl Cafe. The offerings in the last month have been thoughtful and well-made. A few favorites: Black History Month soul food, Lenten Friday cod sandwich, Italian wedding soup, lamb gyro and the Holi celebration chicken and vegetable shawarma. Thank you for organizing a collaborative team, who is ready with a smile and great service. Your variety of dishes are inclusive and honor all types of cuisines.
Kudos to Tracy Welch and Amy Burns Bailey! Tracy and Amy brought in Chaim Shapiro who was an excellent presenter and very knowledgeable on LinkedIn and how to fully utilize the platform’s capabilities. The presenter helped me grow my knowledge base personally and professionally. I am very thankful for the presentations. Kudos to them both.
Kudos to Carl Rocheleau and the UAV department. Carl gave a great unexpected tour to a group of Beaver Island students in town for the FIRST robotics competition. These students were excited to see the technology and drones deployed in our program.
Kudos to Tracy Welch and Amy Burns Bailey on a great training session for LinkedIn users. The training was well attended by students and faculty/staff. Thank you.
Kudos to the Student Success Center Team for planning and offering a series of very successful events as part of the “Mid-semester Reset” for students. Leadership from our coaches, Student Ambassadors, and Residence Life staff made events such as study bunnies, zen gardening and succulent planting, self-care workshops, sip and paint, and guided meditation all possible. The week was rounded out with root beer floats and several days of welcoming McKinley the therapy dog to the Testing Center to help students calm their nerves before exams. A special thanks to coaches for engaging students at events, Katy Knight for her organization and planning, and Katie Sommer-Ford for logistics support. This was a great team effort by all with a direct positive impact on our students.
Experts suggest maintaining an “attitude of gratitude” increases positivity for yourself and for others. Please encourage your colleagues by submitting a KUDOS. Let them know you appreciate their hard work and are thinking of them!
Welcome our newest hires
These employees recently started working at the college. Let’s welcome them to the NMC community!
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- Nicholas Gates – Custodian
- Joshua Shivley – Adjunct Flight Instructor
- Brittany Ambrosius – Adjunct Surgical Technology Instructor
- Lisa VonReichbauer – Director of Admissions
- Luis Qian, Student Employee – Enrollment Services Office Assistant
- John Rose – Adjunct Culinary Arts Instructor
Internal promotion
Lisa Eiden was recently promoted into a new role and is now the Director of Student Financial Services. Congratulations, Lisa!
Emergency Management: Active Shooter
An Active Shooter is an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area; in most cases, active shooters use firearms(s) and there is no pattern or method to their selection of victims. (more…)
NMC partnership aims to increase regional dental workforce
NMC and Bay Mills Community College, near Sault Ste. Marie, are helping bring dental care to the underserved UP. In February, NMC and Bay Mills, a tribally-controlled community college, signed an articulation agreement that will allow Bay Mills’ students to transfer to NMC’s dental assistant program after their first year. NMC’s yearlong dental assistant curriculum allows them to sit for the state exam to become a registered dental assistant (RDA). NMC Dental Assistant Director Beckie Wooters will make a recruiting visit to Bay Mills on April 17.
Who’s been a Hawk Owl Helper or Hero for you? Let us know at publicrelations@nmc.edu!
Media mentions for March 20, 2023
The following college events and stories have appeared in the media recently. We want to share your media involvement too. Please send information about your NMC-related interview or appearance to publicrelations@nmc.edu. If possible, please include a link to the piece and information about where and when it was used.
Please note access to some stories may be limited by paywalls set up by the media outlet. This includes the Traverse City Record-Eagle, which limits free clicks to five per month. You may also read Record-Eagle articles in the print edition at the NMC Library.
Travel bookings on the rise
Record-Eagle, March 19
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InfoSec: Password security!
Here’s how to create a long but memorable password: use four random words that you can remember. Don’t forget to throw in some numbers and special characters to increase complexity.
Remember — the longer, the better!
Honors & Leadership Convocation nominations
This year we embarked on reimagining Honors Convocation after many scholarships were restructured. This change led us to think critically about the purpose for Honors Convocation: to celebrate students’ academic achievement and outstanding accomplishments. Last year, we debuted another event to recognize students with our first ever Student Leadership Luncheon. This event focused on the work student groups do on campus and our amazing student leaders. We saw an opportunity to combine and elevate the profile of both events to celebrate students’ work inside and outside of the classroom with this year’s Honors & Leadership Convocation on May 5.
We are asking for your assistance nominating the Student Leader of the Year, Student Group Recognition and Adult Student of the Year, which we have decided to bring back as recognition and not a scholarship.
All nominations are due by March 24. We recognize this is a tight deadline; please know that we have worked diligently to be able to continue to offer an event recognizing our students this year on a shorter time frame and under unique circumstances.
Faculty: To streamline the process, your department chair and office manager have the link to nominate a student for academic area awards. Please connect with them for additional information!
We are grateful to everyone who helped reimagine this year’s event and look forward to the celebration. Thank you for all you do to support NMC and our students!
Safeguarding sensitive data while working remotely
Since the Covid-19 pandemic swept the country, you may have noticed the line between home and the office is much more transparent. Personal laptops that were once used to watch cat videos and organize photos from a vacation (that now seems all-too-long-ago) are also being used to run sensitive reports and hold important meetings.
Ensuring that sensitive data doesn’t find a way to “leak” out of our closely-monitored network is a high priority for NMC. While there are many measures in place to ensure the confidentiality of data, such as using a VPN and enforcing special email quarantine policies, you are still our best defense against an information security incident or data privacy law violation whether you are working from home or on campus!
So, even though you can pet your dog, make a sandwich, wear your pajamas, AND process a FOAPAL, when you access data from NMC systems on your home network, treat the process the same way you would as if you were on campus! This means:
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- Use Workspace to save files to the NMC network drives (S:, Q:, J:, and N:)
- Use Google Drive or Google Drive for Desktop
- DO NOT permanently save files to your personal desktop or “C” drive, which is the local storage on your computer.
- If something happens to these files the recovery process is not guaranteed and NMC is not responsible for devices that are not our own.
- Because of this, you risk exposing sensitive information by saving files on a network outside of our control.
🚨 👉Special care must be taken with Banner data on your home machine. While working remotely, you may temporarily download it to your machine but once you are finished working on it for the day, save it to a network or Google Drive and ERASE all of the data from your machine. The data that you work with in Banner is classified and protected by FERPA regulations and therefore cannot be saved to a personal computer.
So remember, whether on campus or remote, save your data and files to the appropriate locations. For remote access users, this means utilizing Workspace to access our Network Drives such as S:, Q:, J:, N:, and using Google Drive/Google Drive for Desktop for other NMC-related file management.
For more information on using Workspace see the Workspace Tip Sheet
For more information on using Google Drive see the Google Drive Tip Sheet
For more information on Google Drive for Desktop see the Google Drive for Desktop Tip Sheet
Board of Trustees regular meeting
The NMC Board of Trustees will hold its regular monthly meeting Monday, March 20 at 5:30 p.m. in the Hagerty Center on NMC’s, Great Lakes Campus. More information is available here.
For more information, please contact the President’s office at (231) 995-1010.
Spring 2023 Quick Bytes classes
Join Alison Thornton at an upcoming Quick Bytes class to learn about technology available to employees at NMC. Each class is one hour, full of information and includes time for questions.
Google Slides
Tuesday, March 21, 12-1 p.m.
This multi-purpose tool in Google Applications allows you to create great presentations, blogs, interactive notebooks and more!
Register
Google Arts & Culture
Thursday, April 6, 12-1 p.m.
Bring culture into your classroom with Google Arts & Culture. It’s a great tool for writing prompts, art history, historical figures, DEI understanding and culture. View images from the world’s museum in interesting and enlightening features.
Register
Mastering Gmail and Google Calendar
Tuesday, April 11, 12-1 p.m.
Learn how to use multiple calendars, duplicate events, configure settings and apply labels and filters. This course will help make your communication and scheduling easier!
Register
Canva Basics
Thursday, April 20, 12-1 p.m.
Canva is a graphic layout program for flyers, newsletters, infographics, mind maps, and more. With thousands of templates, Canva is a great resource for design.
Register
Canva Advanced
Thursday, Apr 27, 12-1 p.m.
Canva has new and exciting potential! This advanced class will cover topics such as as frames, color palettes and filters. The new Canva presentations feature will also be covered.
Register
Is there a specific topic that you’d like to see featured in an upcoming Quick Bytes class that you don’t see listed above? Email athornton@nmc.edu.
Celebrating Women’s History Month at the NMC library
Notice the Libby
tag next to a title? This means the book is available as an eBook and can be found on the Libby app. All audiobooks can be accessed through Libby. Haven’t set up your Libby account yet? Follow these easy instructions!
books available to request from MeLCat!
NMC staff organizes event series to help minimize students’ stress during midterms
Thanks to the Student Success team for organizing Mid-Semester Reset, an event series that will help students relax and recharge so that they can power through the second half of the semester. Events are planned Monday through Friday in the Timothy J. Nelson Innovation Center. See the schedule here.
Who’s been a Hawk Owl Helper or Hero for you? Let us know at publicrelations@nmc.edu!
Media mentions for March 13, 2023
The following college events and stories have appeared in the media recently. We want to share your media involvement too. Please send information about your NMC-related interview or appearance to publicrelations@nmc.edu. If possible, please include a link to the piece and information about where and when it was used.
Please note access to some stories may be limited by paywalls set up by the media outlet. This includes the Traverse City Record-Eagle, which limits free clicks to five per month. You may also read Record-Eagle articles in the print edition at the NMC Library.
Cheers: To IAF for Academic World Quest
Record-Eagle, March 12
(more…)
Feeding America mobile food pantry
The NMC Food Pantry is partnering with Feeding America to host a mobile food pantry once a month this semester. Upcoming dates include Tuesday, March 21 and Tuesday, April 18 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Maple Lot on NMC’s Main Campus. Mobile pantries are like farmers’ markets on wheels—delivering a variety of fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy products and baked goods. Anyone who needs access to healthy food is welcome to stop by. Food will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis in a drive-thru format.
Kudos!
Kudos to CJ Schneider and Marcus Bennett for keeping the Fitness Center in North Hall staffed and open for longer hours for NMC students and employees. The Fitness Center is a great way to reduce stress and stay healthy physically and mentally.
Kudos to Brady Corcoran, David Chown, Patrick Niemisto & the rest of the Audio Tech students, faculty and staff for their vibrant presence on our campus and in our community! Watching Audio tech put on shows, bring performers to campus, connect with the community and create a safe space for students who are passionate about producing/performing music is experiential learning at its finest. We are so lucky to have this amazing team on our main campus, and to experience the talent that the faculty bring and that they share with our students. Sound Bytes, Great Lakes Folk Festival, Talent Show, Gala to Give, Earth Day, Pride Carnival and more—you guys are here for your college community and we appreciate everything you do! Bravo!
Kudos to Katie Sommer-Ford & Lisa Baldyga! With more than 75 employers and nearly 200 student and community and student job seekers, the 17th annual NMC Career & Employment fair was a huge success. Katie Sommer-Ford planned, organized, and executed this event that engaged business and community partners from around the region. Employers have given incredibly positive feedback saying, “this was the best fair yet for student engagement.” Several faculty from our academic areas were instrumental in getting students to the fair and partnered with businesses. Kudos also to Lisa Baldyga, NMC’s employment readiness specialist, who gave multiple class presentations, tabled in the TJNIC leading up to the fair to offer resources and preparation for students, and met one-on-one to review resumes. This was an incredible collaborative effort with strong benefits for our students, community and regional partners.
Kudos to Gail Kurowski, Jeremy Heinlein, Carly McCall, Tracy Welch & Landon DeHeer! Thank you to those that volunteered to help us the day of the Career Fair with setting up and running the event. Your efforts and the energy you bring to the room makes our attendees and employers feel welcome and have a positive experience. We appreciate that you took time out of your busy day to come help us!
Kudos to Alex Bloye, Nick Nissley & Troy Kierczynski for their recent funding approval from the State of Michigan. Kudos especially to the behind the scenes work to educate our representatives about NMC’s Aviation program. Congratulations!
Kudos to Elizabeth Sonnabend for working closely with 20Fathoms’ staff to create a vital learning experience for anyone wanting to launch a new business. Business Essentials will run this April-June. It is a 9-week program to help individuals launch their business. Designed especially for tech-based businesses, participants will attend weekly virtual classes, meet experts and mentors, access valuable resources, learn alongside peers and attend optional in-person networking events. This course is hosted by 20Fathoms in partnership with Northwestern Michigan College and with support from Hagerty.
Experts suggest maintaining an “attitude of gratitude” increases positivity for yourself and for others. Please encourage your colleagues by submitting a KUDOS. Let them know you appreciate their hard work and are thinking of them!