Oct. 20—EAST GRAND FORKS — Enrollment is down at Northland Community and Technical College, but community engagement events and scholarship awards are up, Northland President Sandy Kiddoo said during the school's 2022 State of the College event.

The Thursday, Oct. 20, luncheon was hosted by the Grand Forks-East Grand Forks Chamber of Commerce and attended by a roomful of community and business leaders. The event's theme was "A Year of Firsts," marking Kiddoo's first full year as president of Northland. She started in July 2021.

For Kiddoo, the first year was one full of blizzards — she played a video showing photos of eight blizzards last winter.

"I never thought that one of the most difficult decisions as a college would be whether to close or not," she said.

For the school, the past year was marked by the unveiling of a new strategic plan, more community events and new programs to draw new students and help existing students.

Though Northland's enrollment is down about 45% from 10 years ago, Kiddoo highlighted the ways Northland is trying to draw students, such as workforce partnerships and scholarship programs.

At present, Northland's enrollment sits at approximately 2,100. Of that number, 618 are concurrent enrollment students — high school students taking college classes at Northland. Kiddoo said most of Northland's students are non-traditional, with about half going to school part time and most older than 21.

To help draw students who want to go into the workforce immediately after high school, the college has a new program called Northland Works, which helps pair students with local businesses that will assist them with tuition costs for high-demand fields.

"Many people provide tuition assistance for their employees and allow them to achieve training and obtain employment in the field immediately after graduation," said Kiddoo.

Northland had a record-breaking year in scholarship awards, said Kiddoo, with more than $400,000 provided to students. These scholarships included Department of Agriculture scholarships and workforce development scholarships from the state of Minnesota.

Also created in the last year is the Northland Cares Fund, which provides emergency grants to students in need. The school's foundation started the fund, but to keep the money rolling in, Northland partnered with Bully Brew Coffee to create "Northland Rocket Fuel," a unique blend of beans selected by Northland faculty and staff.

"We had some fun selecting that blend, and the spirit of it is the proceeds from that go directly to this Northland Cares account," said Kiddoo.

The coffee beans are available now for preorder, and soon will be available to purchase at the Northland bookstore and Bully Brew locations.

Kiddoo talked about Northland's new strategic plan for 2022 to 2027, and how in developing it, community members often said they had not been to a Northland campus or were not aware of degree programs offered by the college. In response, said Kiddoo, the school focused more on community outreach in the last year.

Northland held open houses at its East Grand Forks and Thief River Falls campuses, hosted National Guard Training and invited the public to its Thief River Falls aerospace campus. Off campus, Northland held an event at the Mall of America to showcase learning and career opportunities in autonomous technology.

The college also opened a new location in Warroad this year with the support of Marvin Windows, making for five Northland locations across northwestern Minnesota: East Grand Forks, Thief River Falls, the aerospace site at the Thief River Falls airport, Roseau and Warroad. A mechatronics program is offered at the new location.

Barry Wilfahrt, Chamber of Commerce president and CEO, said around 90% of Northland students stay in the community or region after graduation and enter the local workforce.

"This college is absolutely critical to the Grand Forks workforce and our Grand Forks business community," he said.