Lobdell’s: A Teaching Restaurant to be closed for spring semester

Jan 7, 2021 | Intercom, Student News

TRAVERSE CITY — Northwestern Michigan College today announced that it has canceled the spring opening of Lobdell’s: A Teaching Restaurant due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Great Lakes Culinary Institute Executive Director Les Eckert said the cancellation is due to current statewide restaurant restrictions and ongoing concerns for the safety of students, faculty, staff and guests as cases in northwest Michigan continue to climb.

“We are saddened to lose this semester at Lobdell’s, but know that this is the right decision, consistent with NMC’s overarching goal of keeping students and employees safe,” Eckert said. “I am so proud of the way the college community has found new ways to meet the needs of our learners during the pandemic. We remain dedicated to their success, even if we need to make adjustments along the way to keep everyone safe.” 

By order of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, restaurants in the state have been closed for indoor service since Nov. 18, 2020. That closure has been extended twice, on Dec. 7 and again on Dec. 18. The uncertainty of future extensions and the fact that Lobdell’s operates as a class made it impractical to open.

Located on NMC’s Great Lakes Campus just east of downtown Traverse City, Lobdell’s offers culinary students a comprehensive, hands-on experience in running a restaurant, from menu planning to preparation to service. It typically offers lunch service three days per week in the fall and spring semesters. In the summer it functions as a bakery cafe, serving coffee and pastries three mornings per week.

“As of now, we look forward to being fully operational for Cafe Lobdell’s in the summer and Lobdell’s lunches in the fall,” Eckert said. “We can’t wait to bring our student chefs and community together again over a shared love of great food!”

Release date: January 7, 2021

For more information:

Diana Fairbanks
Executive Director, NMC Public Relations, Marketing & Communications
(231) 995-1019
dfairbanks@nmc.edu

Lobdell’s: A Teaching Restaurant to be closed for spring semester

Jan 7, 2021 | Intercom, Student News

TRAVERSE CITY — Northwestern Michigan College today announced that it has canceled the spring opening of Lobdell’s: A Teaching Restaurant due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Great Lakes Culinary Institute Executive Director Les Eckert said the cancellation is due to current statewide restaurant restrictions and ongoing concerns for the safety of students, faculty, staff and guests as cases in northwest Michigan continue to climb.

“We are saddened to lose this semester at Lobdell’s, but know that this is the right decision, consistent with NMC’s overarching goal of keeping students and employees safe,” Eckert said. “I am so proud of the way the college community has found new ways to meet the needs of our learners during the pandemic. We remain dedicated to their success, even if we need to make adjustments along the way to keep everyone safe.” 

By order of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, restaurants in the state have been closed for indoor service since Nov. 18, 2020. That closure has been extended twice, on Dec. 7 and again on Dec. 18. The uncertainty of future extensions and the fact that Lobdell’s operates as a class made it impractical to open.

Located on NMC’s Great Lakes Campus just east of downtown Traverse City, Lobdell’s offers culinary students a comprehensive, hands-on experience in running a restaurant, from menu planning to preparation to service. It typically offers lunch service three days per week in the fall and spring semesters. In the summer it functions as a bakery cafe, serving coffee and pastries three mornings per week.

“As of now, we look forward to being fully operational for Cafe Lobdell’s in the summer and Lobdell’s lunches in the fall,” Eckert said. “We can’t wait to bring our student chefs and community together again over a shared love of great food!”

Release date: January 7, 2021

For more information:

Diana Fairbanks
Executive Director, NMC Public Relations, Marketing & Communications
(231) 995-1019
dfairbanks@nmc.edu

Success Story: Tami Putney is Chief Nursing Officer at Munson

Jan 6, 2021 | Intercom, Student News

January 6, 2021

An NMC nursing alumna is among the northern Michigan healthcare leaders guiding the region’s response to COVID-19 as the pandemic enters the hopeful stage of vaccination.

Last August, Tami Putney, a 2002 graduate of NMC’s associate degree in nursing program, became Chief Nursing Officer and vice president of patient care services at Munson Medical Center. She also serves as chief of operations for the hospital’s Incident Command team responding to COVID-19. Working through a pandemic has been a life-changing, humbling experience, she said.

“What I’ve seen is this (Munson) team come together like you can’t even imagine,” she said. The Traverse City hospital, the largest in northern Michigan, has had to adjust its model of care and become flexible and nimble in order to fulfill its duty to the community amid a pandemic.

“It’s so important for us to get it right. It’s so important for us to help each other,” Putney said. It was at NMC where lessons like respect for others, self-discipline and the value of diversity were instilled.

“Their expectations were very high. They do a great job of helping students realize their potential,” Putney said of NMC’s nursing instructors.

In addition, NMC taught a holistic approach to health care that includes patient families. That’s been important during COVID, which has changed normal visiting procedures.

“The family structure is stressed,” Putney said. “(We are) nursing patients back to health, but never forgetting about the families along the way.”

The circle of care then widens from families to the broader community, who may still need surgery or cancer treatment or labor and delivery services.

“We still want to serve the community,” Putney said. “We want to continue all normal operations, but we have this whole other unexpected population we have to care for.”

That has led to the creation of multidisciplinary teams and staff working in areas outside their usual assignments, like obstetric nurses serving as PPE buddies, ensuring that personal protective equipment is donned and discarded correctly.

After NMC Putney earned both a BSN and an MSN from Ferris State University in 2013 and 2016, respectively, and then her nurse executive certification in 2018. She worked as a bedside nurse for several years before transferring to clinical informatics at Munson from 2011 to 2014.

“That’s bridging the gap between the technology world and bedside care delivery,” she said, including transitioning the hospital from paper to electronic health records. “That was kind of groundbreaking work for the time.”

At Munson Putney said the vaccine rollout has been smooth. As of Tuesday, 5,371 staff, physicians and contract workers had received their first shot of the two-shot series. That’s 50 percent of those eligible at Munson in the tier that the state of Michigan has designated as first priority: health care workers and long-term care facility residents.

Putney has received the first shot herself, but only did so after she made sure all the bedside nurses and staff had an opportunity to schedule theirs.

“We can’t run the hospital and serve the community without those folks at the hospital,” she said.

When it comes time for the general public to be vaccinated, Putney said Munson expects to announce partnerships with area pharmacies to distribute the vaccine. Munson, NMC and the Grand Traverse County Health Department are all part of Grand Traverse County’s Joint Operations Center coordinating a community-wide response.

Current NMC nursing students may also join the COVID front lines to help with vaccination. Nursing Director Amy Jones said the department is working with the Grand Traverse County Health Department to allow students to participate in administration of the vaccine.

“It will be a benefit for both the community and our students,” Jones said.

Spring Semester starts January 11, as planned

Dec 22, 2020 | Intercom, Student News

TRAVERSE CITY — We look forward to starting the spring semester with you Monday, Jan. 11, 2021 as scheduled. Recently Governor Whitmer announced some changes to the start date for universities, but that does not apply to community colleges, like NMC. Your courses will be delivered as planned.

New this year, the college will be closed for the holiday break from December 24, 2020–January 3, 2021. During that time, there are many virtual tools available to help you prepare for the upcoming semester like this registration checklist.

Also, as you plan your semester, remember Spring Break has been canceled this year, but classes end a week early with April 26 the last day. We are also working on commencement planning and will keep you updated as this progresses.

We hope you have a safe and restful holiday break. We look forward to having you as part of our NMC community in 2021!

Release date: December 22, 2020

For more information:

Diana Fairbanks
Executive Director, NMC Public Relations, Marketing & Communications
(231) 995-1019
dfairbanks@nmc.edu

Spring Semester starts January 11, as planned

Dec 22, 2020 | Intercom, Student News

TRAVERSE CITY — We look forward to starting the spring semester with you Monday, Jan. 11, 2021 as scheduled. Recently Governor Whitmer announced some changes to the start date for universities, but that does not apply to community colleges, like NMC. Your courses will be delivered as planned.

New this year, the college will be closed for the holiday break from December 24, 2020–January 3, 2021. During that time, there are many virtual tools available to help you prepare for the upcoming semester like this registration checklist.

Also, as you plan your semester, remember Spring Break has been canceled this year, but classes end a week early with April 26 the last day. We are also working on commencement planning and will keep you updated as this progresses.

We hope you have a safe and restful holiday break. We look forward to having you as part of our NMC community in 2021!

Release date: December 22, 2020

For more information:

Diana Fairbanks
Executive Director, NMC Public Relations, Marketing & Communications
(231) 995-1019
dfairbanks@nmc.edu

Success Story: From dropout to Dean’s List

Dec 16, 2020 | Intercom, Student News

December 16, 2020

Pamela and Mason SilvaAsk NMC student Pamela Silva what she wants for Christmas, and the 56-year-old Traverse City resident will likely say she already has everything she could want: her children and grandchildren, good health, a job, and a 4.0 grade point average.

Her NMC instructors will say Silva’s greatest gift is what she shares willingly: the grit and perseverance that allowed her to prevail over real-world challenges.

“I feel so blessed that I get to go to school, that I get to learn, that I get to do what I enjoy,” said Silva, a one-time high school dropout. Since then, she’s navigated single parenthood, losing a kidney, cancer and a career change.

Nicole Fewins, Silva’s business math instructor, says her contributions to student forums enriched the class with value that a textbook or lecture can’t provide.

“It really makes a difference,” Fewins said.

Becca Richardson, who taught Silva for two semesters, said her maturity in the classroom— always prepared and putting forth her best effort — was welcome.

“She always made the class environment an optimal environment,” Richardson said. “She gave the other students a good example to follow.”

It was a turnaround for Silva, too, who belatedly earned her high school diploma in 1987 and briefly attended NMC in the early 1990s, but didn’t complete her degree.

“I felt like I didn’t need a Plan B,” said Silva, who then earned a good salary in retail management, and had worked hard to build back her credit and financial security after her health issues.

“When I had cancer, financially it took me under. I fell between every crack that there was,” Silva said.

But the job required constant travel between the 27 stores she managed and she found life in a corporation stressful. She changed careers, going to cosmetology school and taking over her mother’s hair salon, PS Perfect Styles. She became a grandmother. The best was yet to come, however.

Cancer had eliminated the possibility of siblings for Silva’s only daughter. Yet she became a mother again in 2015, when she adopted her step-grandson Mason.

“I was never able to have more children, and I always wanted more,” she said. She took the salon down to “extreme part-time” to focus on raising Mason. But the lesson from decades ago had stuck with her, and in fall 2019 as her son began kindergarten, she enrolled at NMC to finish what she started.

“I have this whole second chance to do it all over again,” Silva said. “It’s definitely what drives me.”

She chose accounting, a stable, good-paying, sit-down job, as one she could do as she grows older.

“Having such a young child, I had to rethink retirement and what I will be able to continue doing,” she said.

They had one normal semester before the coronavirus pandemic hit. Mason’s school went virtual. Silva considered whether she should stop out again, but decided to stick with it. Now she supervises six-year-old Mason’s online classes during the day while nannying for a two-year-old. Evenings she works in her salon. Nights and weekends are for her own classes, and NMC’s online options are key.

“I am able to fit my studies into my schedule, not fit my schedule into my studies. That’s very important for a single working parent,” she said. “I am certain that the work I am doing now will improve my son and my future.”

Success Story: From dropout to Dean’s List

Dec 16, 2020 | Intercom, Student News

December 16, 2020

Pamela and Mason SilvaAsk NMC student Pamela Silva what she wants for Christmas, and the 56-year-old Traverse City resident will likely say she already has everything she could want: her children and grandchildren, good health, a job, and a 4.0 grade point average.

Her NMC instructors will say Silva’s greatest gift is what she shares willingly: the grit and perseverance that allowed her to prevail over real-world challenges.

“I feel so blessed that I get to go to school, that I get to learn, that I get to do what I enjoy,” said Silva, a one-time high school dropout. Since then, she’s navigated single parenthood, losing a kidney, cancer and a career change.

Nicole Fewins, Silva’s business math instructor, says her contributions to student forums enriched the class with value that a textbook or lecture can’t provide.

“It really makes a difference,” Fewins said.

Becca Richardson, who taught Silva for two semesters, said her maturity in the classroom— always prepared and putting forth her best effort — was welcome.

“She always made the class environment an optimal environment,” Richardson said. “She gave the other students a good example to follow.”

It was a turnaround for Silva, too, who belatedly earned her high school diploma in 1987 and briefly attended NMC in the early 1990s, but didn’t complete her degree.

“I felt like I didn’t need a Plan B,” said Silva, who then earned a good salary in retail management, and had worked hard to build back her credit and financial security after her health issues.

“When I had cancer, financially it took me under. I fell between every crack that there was,” Silva said.

But the job required constant travel between the 27 stores she managed and she found life in a corporation stressful. She changed careers, going to cosmetology school and taking over her mother’s hair salon, PS Perfect Styles. She became a grandmother. The best was yet to come, however.

Cancer had eliminated the possibility of siblings for Silva’s only daughter. Yet she became a mother again in 2015, when she adopted her step-grandson Mason.

“I was never able to have more children, and I always wanted more,” she said. She took the salon down to “extreme part-time” to focus on raising Mason. But the lesson from decades ago had stuck with her, and in fall 2019 as her son began kindergarten, she enrolled at NMC to finish what she started.

“I have this whole second chance to do it all over again,” Silva said. “It’s definitely what drives me.”

She chose accounting, a stable, good-paying, sit-down job, as one she could do as she grows older.

“Having such a young child, I had to rethink retirement and what I will be able to continue doing,” she said.

They had one normal semester before the coronavirus pandemic hit. Mason’s school went virtual. Silva considered whether she should stop out again, but decided to stick with it. Now she supervises six-year-old Mason’s online classes during the day while nannying for a two-year-old. Evenings she works in her salon. Nights and weekends are for her own classes, and NMC’s online options are key.

“I am able to fit my studies into my schedule, not fit my schedule into my studies. That’s very important for a single working parent,” she said. “I am certain that the work I am doing now will improve my son and my future.”