Letter from the President

It’s 2018. Ten years ago, who could have imagined the changes we would see over the coming decade? How we shop, how we connect with friends, how we use technology, how we work and how we live are all transforming. If there is one thing for certain, the rate and breadth of change is increasing and transforming our world.

We at NMC are constantly asking ourselves how to TIMOTHY J. NELSON, PRESIDENT continue to make learning and education relevant in this environment. To help us find the answers to that question, we have partnered with five other community colleges in the U.S. and the Business Innovation Factory, a consulting group in Rhode Island, to learn a new model based on design theory. A first step is to start by asking a simple, yet often overlooked question: What do our students tell us makes the most relevant and meaningful learning experiences? So we asked them through intense interviews and observations. They told us they want to use what they are learning. They want to practice it. They want more than the transfer and accumulation of knowledge. They want to do in order to learn.

These insights, along with national research, have driven us to establish a faculty-led project that seeks to incorporate meaningful experiential learning throughout our curriculum. Following a disciplined design process, we will establish rapid prototypes in areas of community projects, team and leadership skills development, project management and more. NMC faculty and staff have always been sensitive to the development of life skills for our students. This is simply a more disciplined and comprehensive approach. We will continue to design and redesign what we do in order to meet the expectations of our stakeholders. N