Great Lakes Maritime Academy cadets Nate Lammers and Matt O’Donnell were honored last night at a special commencement ceremony to celebrate the first two bachelor’s degrees ever awarded by a Michigan community college.
Lammers and O’Donnell earned their Bachelor of Science in Maritime Technology from NMC.
Pictured, from left: State Representative Wayne Schmidt, NMC President Timothy J. Nelson, Matt O’Donnell, Nate Lammers, Great Lakes Maritime Academy Superintendent Jerry Achenbach and State Representative Greg MacMaster.
Authorization for community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees in the areas of cement technology, culinary arts, energy production technology and maritime technology was granted when Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed House Bill 4466 into law in December 2012.
NMC, home to the Great Lakes Maritime Academy, one of only six maritime academies in the nation, then began the process to apply for accreditation to offer the maritime technology bachelor’s degree. The college hosted a focus visit by the Higher Learning Commission in August 2013. Focus visits are part of the accreditation process and are conducted to assure that colleges have the necessary curriculum in place and support services necessary to offer courses at a new degree level.
Official notice was received by NMC in November that the Higher Learning Commission’s Institutional Actions Council approved the college’s request to offer the Bachelor of Science degree in Maritime Technology.
“It is fitting that the first community college in Michigan, founded more than 60 years ago, is also the first to offer a bachelor’s degree,” said NMC President Timothy J. Nelson. “The awarding of these degrees is the culmination of a lot of hard work–by our legislators to make community college baccalaureate authorization possible, by the Michigan Community College Association for their work to keep the effort moving forward, by our faculty and staff to make sure we had everything in place to achieve accreditation, and most of all–these students. Our bachelor’s degree commencement is a fitting honor to these cadets, who have put in the hard work to complete the requirements to be the first-ever bachelor’s degree recipients from Northwestern Michigan College.”