North Central Missouri College is in the process of merging three satellite campuses in the northwest part of its 17-county service region. Two of the existing satellite campuses are at Maryville and Bethany, where nursing programs are offered. The third existing satellite campus is the North Belt Center, located in the village of Country Club in Andrew County. Offerings at that site currently include Behavioral Health and Early Childhood Education programs, along with various general education courses. NCMC has been leasing facilities in each location at a combined cost of more than $50,000 annually. The merger to a new location includes NCMC’s purchase of a property with renovation of an existing facility and construction of an adjoining building for programs currently offered and the ability to offer additional career technical education in a part of the region where economic indicators for employment demands are high.
The city of Savannah was selected due to its strategic location and ability to enhance enrollment by offering the aforementioned programs in this quadrant of the NCMC service region. What is most prominent in the locations’ merger is to positively impact workforce development with a high quality education and training center in an area of need. Supportive of this plan are data indicating that the counties of Holt, Gentry, DeKalb, Worth, and Andrew demonstrate below the mean in the following areas: average family income, average household income, per capita income, percent of adults with no college and no degree (associate or bachelor) and some college but no degree. A center in Savannah provides easy, centralized, and affordable access to higher education for all, including underserved areas in northwest Missouri.
Savannah Campus Tech & Equipment
The North Central Missouri College Savannah location will provide students in northwest Missouri with access to the highest quality education in multiple allied health and technical skills areas. This means training students using the industry-standard equipment they will encounter on the job. In addition, designing a modern learning environment requires a significant investment in instructional technology.
NCMC has already made major purchases of equipment for the robotics and agricultural equipment technology programs to be housed in Savannah. The next steps are to update the simulation technology used by our nursing department, and to acquire the equipment necessary to start programs in radiologic technology, surgical technology, and diagnostic sonography. This will include high fidelity mannequins, virtual reality equipment, wearable simulators, stationary and mobile x-ray machines, operating room tables and lights, and ultrasound machines, in addition to many other smaller items found in modern hospitals. Fully equipping all the labs will be a multi-million-dollar project and the College will be seeking donations of used technology as well as purchasing new with grants and institutional funds.
At the same time, NCMC is constructing a new facility with eleven classrooms and seven labs. Each one requires the infrastructure to deliver a full multimedia experience. In the learning environment of today and the future, instructors are able to share presentations and other electronic information through multiple touchscreen displays spread around the room. These displays can be written on with the instructor’s finger like a whiteboard, and then saved for future use or sharing with students. Alternately, students can break up in groups and project information from their personal devices to the closest screen for collaboration. The rooms will also be set up with high quality tracking cameras and microphones to enable a shift to hybrid or remote learning when needed, allowing instructors to work with students in the classroom and students online simultaneously. It costs approximately $100,000 per room to provide this technology.
Full details and images of the Savannah Campus are available to download.
