RLCs: Start Small. Go Anywhere.

I pity the poor NWTC delivery van driver. His weekly route is east and north, west and north and then, north and north, and north. The NWTC District is large, ungainly and spread out over the rural and wooded northeast corner of Wisconsin with the cities of Green Bay and De Pere anchoring the bottom of the map. Think of the thumb and first two fingers of your right hand, palm up. That's our District.

The main Green Bay campus sprawls over the old Larson Orchard site on the southwest side of the city, just north of West Mason St. There are satellite mini-campuses in Marinette an hour north of Green Bay, up the first finger, and in Sturgeon Bay about 45-minutes north north-east just over the Bayview Bridge on the thumb of the Door Peninsula. Regional Learning Centers fill in some of the spaces between: Luxemburg-Casco, Niagara, Crivitz, Oconto Falls, and Shawano. In addition, NWTC regional managers and central planners extend our classes into local high schools and community and job centers. We've got the District covered.

Up to now, I have split my time between the West Regional Center in Shawano and the Northwest Regional Center in Oconto Falls (thus the name of this blog playing on the title of the 1959 Hitchcock movie: North by Northwest). Either center building could fit inside the gymnasium of the Green Bay campus with parking spaces to spare. But size does not indicate amount of learning that's happening at each of these small sites every day.

Though the buildings are modest, both of  "my" sites schedule full-grown programs in business, health science, ag and general studies. On any day (or night or weekend) in-person and video-conference classrooms at either site run concurrent classes in Nursing Assistant and Healthcare Business Services as well as Accounting, Leadership Development and Human Resources and other courses. This is in addition to a full schedule of General Studies courses transferable to 28 other four-year colleges, including the UW-system.

Our students, especially those in trades and other lab-intensive courses know they will eventually have to travel to take some of their classes in Green Bay, Marinette or Sturgeon Bay. Car detailing and phlebotomy just don't work on VC. Until that time, however, students at the Regional Learning Centers experience college on a small scale, but with no less rigor. I give credit to the leadership who has spread a strong network of student success west, northwest, north, east and central. I may be a tad biased, but I give even more credit to the RLC staff and part-time faculty (formerly called adjuncts) who are key to the success of the regional centers. They are the front-line faces of post-secondary education for many students of the district.

When you serve a District that spans half a hand, and a couple of tanks of gas, it's important for both economic and political reasons to provide equal opportunities for certificate, vocational diploma and associate degree programs across the entire area. NWTC students, all 42,000 by last count, are confident that wherever they go -- main campus in Green Bay or auto tech classes in Wausaukee -- they will receive consistent, quality education. Your zip code shouldn't limit your dreams. As our billboards put it, "Start Here, Go Anywhere."