GCC offers president post to McNulty

By Bryan Hellios

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Ironwood — The Gogebic Community College’s Board of Trustees approved a contract to hire George McNulty as the college’s new president Tuesday.

The college was negotiating with Stacy Young to take over the position, however, college officals said she withdrew her name from consideration.

McNulty is currently the vice president of student affairs at Colby Community College in Colby, Kan. and previously served as interim director of financial assistance Western Nevada College in Carson City. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy in educational leadership and a Master of Arts in counseling and educational psychology from the University of Nevada-Reno; a Bachelors of Arts in physical education from California State University-Chico; and Associate of Science and Associate of Arts from Feather River College in Quincy, Calif.

The board is hopeful McNulty signs the contract and is looking forward to him starting on July 1.

Assessment Coordinator/English Faculty member Nicole Ellet-Peterson presented the board with an update on the steps needed to improve the assessment of instructors and programs. The goal of assessment is not to “just check off” the boxes for the Higher Learning Commission, Ellet-Peterson said, it is a continual process that requires “building a culture of assessment.”

Assessment begins with measuring student performance and then the results are brought together so the data can be analyzed, she said.

“What your looking for in the cycle of assessment is not measuring individual students, but measuring yourself as an instructor,” Ellet-Peterson said.

Once this is done, the data can be used to uncover strengths and weakness to improve teaching, she added.

One problem Ellet-Peterson brought up is the English assessments were not standardized and results can not be accurately measured.

“It’s very difficult to assess from a team of outsiders when you have just a wide variety of products,” she said.

She said they now have a standardized assignment which will allow for a more universal assessment so results can more accurately measured.

Dean of Instruction Ryon List said enrollment at the college is down because the economy is doing well and the population of the area is decreasing. He said when the economy is good, people have jobs and they’re not going back to school to get retrained.

To attract students, the college put the residence hall on campus, brought in baseball and softball to make the college “more of a destination,” he added.

“We are trying to reach out at a farther length, trying to get outside of our typical enrollment areas and trying to grab students and bring them on to campus,” List said.

In other action, the board approved:

—Continuing the contract with North County Cleaning services for the Copper County Center in Houghton.

—The purchase of a property at 250 Midland Ave., Ironwood with funds from the Gogebic Community College Foundation.

—Revised admissions policy to remove the $10 non-refundable application fee and removing the requirements that all transcripts have to be on file before being accepted to GCC.

—To begin the search for a construction technology instructor to replace the pending retirement of Ray Niemi.

—Announced Mt. Zion will close on March 17.