Golden Apple: NTC Holds Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for Remodeled Student Success Center

Students, faculty, staff and donors filled the room at Northwest Technical College’s new Student Success Center for a ribbon cutting ceremony on Wednesday.

“Leading up to this event, it was just such anticipation, and today was just so fantastic to see everyone from the communities, students, faculty here during the ribbon cutting ceremony, and also our major donors Keith and Eva Olson, couldn’t have done this without them. Their major gift of $25,000 was just a huge success in helping us in also getting us to that $50,000 mark,” said Ashley Johnson, Student Success Center Executive Director.

This ceremony was also a part of the first-ever NTC First Day of Giving where the goal to raise $50,000 in 24 hours to give back to NTC students was successfully met.

“Right now we’re at $25,000 and we have met our goal for the day – a little bit over that, I haven’t counted all of the cash donations that are in jars around campus yet, but I definitely feel that we have exceeded our goal,” said Johnson.

Student success at the college is a lot more than just academic studies. The college wants to see students pursue and achieve their individual goals and have fun doing it.

“The Student Success Center, we remodeled and updated everything and this will house pretty much everything a currently enrolled student needs to be successful. That includes tutoring, the library, our testing center, advising, career services, American Indian resources – all of those things will be housed here along with other things and support staff who can come along students and support them as they continue to achieve their dreams and goals and diplomas and degrees here at NTC,” said Tyler Peterson, Student Success Center Director.

Something that makes the remodel of the Success Center unique and special is that students were able to add in their suggestions and opinions on the project.

“The really cool things that we did in this remodel was we continually asked for student feedback and input, and so they were the ones that designed the space and the layout and they chose some of the furniture we put in here and how many computers we wanted, so we really wanted them to feel apart of it, and we tried our best to implement all their ideas and they had great ideas. It’s turned out really nice and today as students were coming through, I saw a lot of excited faces, and they’re happy and excited to get in here,” said Peterson.

The goal and purpose of the Success Center is to build a community with not just students but with faculty and staff at NTC. It’s a center that will provide support and promote students success.