HOULTON, Maine — The Houlton Rotary Club met for its luncheon meeting on Monday, Oct. 22, with Timothy Crowley, president of the Northern Maine Community College, serving as the featured guest of the day.
Crowley, who has been the NMCC president since April, 2002, has focused on program development to meet local and state workforce needs at the college. His most recent effort is in Water Treatment Technology and Wind Power Technology, offering the first degree programs in this field in New England.
Rotarian Lori Weston, who hosted Crowley, mentioned that the NMCC Foundation has raised $11 million in the past 10 years to support scholarships, instructional technology and also a new wellness and student center project.
On a personal note Weston informed the group that Crowley completed his undergraduate degree and his master’s degree at the University of Southern Maine and went onto the Harvard University Management Development Program in Higher Education. He is a member of the Maine Community Foundation, the Aroostook Partnership, Lifeflight Foundation and the Presque Isle Rotary Club. Crowley resides in Caribou with his wife Mary and they are the proud parents of two sons.
Crowley spoke enthusiastically about the mission of NMCC and that is to provide affordable education to its students and to transform lives through education. He believes in raising self confidence for successful lives with having lots of doors of entry into the programs offered.
With 32,000 miles of rivers and streams, 5,600 hundred lakes and ponds and 4,100 miles of coastline in Maine, Crowley sees environmental issues around water as a focus of NMCC programs to keep water clean for the future. This is a labor of love and seven students are beginning in this training this year. The STEM faculty at Bangor High School and the York County Conservation District are involved in this as well. NMCC is initiating the program and the delivery method in the education piece.
Another focus of NMCC is Nursing Education with a new simulation lab on campus. “Junior Hal” is a computer generated patient who has a heartbeat and eyes that move. He is a wireless figure and can be transferred to an ambulance with the computer to practice ambulance travel. There is also a new born baby simulation figure that moves, coos and performs other bodily functions. Crowley describes the simulation lab as second to none.
NMCC has a growth initiative to notify the world that they exist to attract future workers in the County considering the declining student population in the area. Twenty businesses are involved in trying to attract people to the job market and education field. Of the $15 million given to Community Colleges in Maine, $1.2 million is given to NMCC. One third of this is dedicated to diesel hydraulics, one third to computer labs and one third to better and more appropriate student/family housing. Crowley encouraged the Rotarians to vote yes on Question #5 to invest in NMCC as one of seven community colleges in the state to benefit by this bond issue.
