Nicolet College President Kate Ferrell addresses staff and students Monday, April 1 during the school’s Community College Month kickoff event. Star Journal photo

April is Community College Month

By Eileen Persike, Editor

RHINELANDER – Nicolet College is shining a spotlight this month on the role that it and other community colleges play in rural areas like the Northwoods. April is Community College Month, an education campaign started by the Association of Community College Trustees.

During a kickoff event April 1, Nicolet College President Kate Ferrel said that spotlight gives Nicolet a chance to make sure people are aware of the work they do and the lives that are transformed.

“Community colleges serve a special population of individuals,” Ferrel said. “We serve students specifically through a wide variety of support structures, through emergency funding with our Foundation, to our coaching model – which is more like a case management model – and all kinds of technology that helps us to support students and keep track of them and help them stay on the right path.”

Two Nicolet College students, whose stories share the mission of community colleges across the country – of dedication and achievement, were recognized at the kickoff event. Becky Visser Breezer, a student in the culinary program, is the 2024-25 Nicolet College Ambassador.

“I’m very grateful and appreciative of this honor,” Visser Breezer said. “I never thought in a million years I’d be standing here as the ambassador of anything; if people know me, I’m a jokester. Three years ago I had a neurological event that rendered me unable to walk. I was really sick and they still don’t know what happened. Three years later, I’m here, taking the culinary program to bring my barbecue business back to our community for all of us.”

James Kieweg is the Nicolet College Foundation Ambassador.

“My story is kind of interesting, in the same way that all of ours are unique,” Kieweg, a student in the welding tech program said.

On Sept. 11, 2022, Kieweg was driving too fast late at night and went off the road going 60 mph, and wrapped his truck around a tree. Two weeks later he woke up in a hospital bed to discover he had lost a leg and the sight in one eye, had some broken ribs and fractured skull. Some months later, with no place to live, he slept in the bushes by Trig’s in Rhinelander until he could get a bed at Frederick Place temporary housing. It was there that staff helped him connect him to the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation and Nicolet College. That was also when he received his prosthetic leg.

“It was a lot of learning at once; a lot of changes,” Kieweg said. “But through the help of the community, the Foundation – everyone in the community has been unbelievably kind and because of that I’ve been able to work my way back up.

“Realistically, I couldn’t have even done school without the school’s help. The Nicolet Foundation helped with everything like bus fare to get to school, security deposit for my place – it’s been an amazing experience. I’ve been really blessed with all the help I’ve gotten,” Kieweg added.

The stories Visser Breezer and Kieweg told help explain how the role of colleges, like Nicolet, has evolved through the years. Ferrel said another example of change is how students balance their personal lives and college classes.

“It used to be that colleges expected students to wrap their lives around college. Now the student is in the driver’s seat,” Ferrel said. “Community college students are really busy people, often single parents, taking care of mom, grandma, their kids; so we have had to become much more flexible through the years. The name of the game has really been about agility and flexibility on our part. We’re much more of a consumer-driven entity now that delivers a product of higher education.”

It also delivers community and continuing education – a strategic priority Ferrel described as the 60-year curriculum.

“[It’s] all about designing the depth and breadth of a curriculum that could serve a 16-year old taking Start College Now classes or transcripted credit classes all the way to our folks that are in our Learning in Retirement group,” Ferrel said. “What we figure is across the course of about 60 years we need to position ourselves to serve the entire realm of generations with different curriculum and different programs.”

The community is invited to share what makes Nicolet College their community’s college with #CCMonth on social media.