NEMCC named an Apple Distinguished School for second term in a row

Honor covers the term from 2022-2025

by Michael H. Miller

BOONEVILLE, Miss. -- (01/10/2023) — Northeast Mississippi Community College focuses on a student-first learning philosophy that allows the college, its employees and students to continually re-imagine education and personalize instruction to meet the needs of those that the college serves.

Due to its dedication to re-imagining the success of its students, Northeast has been named an Apple Distinguished School for a second term extending from 2022-2025 by Apple, Inc.

Northeast became just one of a handful of community colleges in the world when it was named an Apple Distinguished School in 2019 and joins even rarer company by repeating as an Apple Distinguished School for the second time in a row.

"It's a huge honor," said Northeast president Dr. Ricky G. Ford. "It's exceedingly difficult to get named Apple Distinguished School for the second term in a row, but this indicates that we are taking instruction very seriously at Northeast. We are also taking seriously the condition that our students are in when they graduate from here and go to work because we understand that our students must be able to compete in a global workforce."

Northeast focused its efforts on its technology initiative for its second Apple Distinguished School honor including lowering the cost of textbooks for students, saving students over $7 million, increased student success, increased student satisfaction and positive pandemic enrollment trends.

"Many years ago, we started on this journey with iPads and to partner with Apple," said Northeast vice president of instruction Dr. Michelle Baragona. "We also started a process of bringing in Open Educational Resources for our students and the purpose of that was to make college relevant, equitable and affordable and that's what we've been able to do with our Apple Distinguished School recognition."

Through its use of Open Educational Resources (OER), Northeast has been able to save its students more than $7 million through not only faculty grants but the Mississippi Z-degree program. For students majoring in General Studies at Northeast, the student will see reduced textbook costs during their time at the two-year community college.

Northeast's adoption of OER has skyrocketed since 2018 when the college focused more on its technology initiative and in the Fall 2021 over 75 percent of classes at Northeast used OER.

Northeast has also seen its student success rates rise due to the increase of technology in the classroom with students succeeding 80 percent of the time instead of 72 percent just seven years ago. While the student success rate has increased, student satisfaction has as well. Students are more engaged in the classroom and cite not only the decrease in course material cost but ownership in the class as reasons for their increased satisfaction.

By using more OER in the classroom, Northeast has also been able to decrease the average cost of a textbook to just over $20 per course across the academic spectrum. In Fall 2015, the average cost of a textbook at Northeast was $214 but over a seven-year span, the college has steadily cut the cost of textbooks down to just $22 per textbook.

"It's not really about the devices; it's more about how we're using the devices in the context of teaching and learning," said Northeast instructional technology specialist Dr. Carlena Benjamin. "We really want to grow our students. We want to prepare our students for the workforce by staying on the cusp of technology and innovative ideas and strategies."

Northeast's submission for the 2022-2025 Apple Distinguished School award focused on how the college supports technology inside and outside the classroom and how the college has built a sphere of support to help those with said technology.

Northeast not only gives every student a chance to purchase an iPad while at the school, but it offers a Student Help Desk in the Haney Union and the college's Apple CORES program. In addition to providing hands-on support for students, Northeast also has a professional development through Apple Teacher Support and Apple Professional Learning opportunities available to employees, who want to increase their use of technology as well.

"I was very fortunate as a coach to be able to win six consecutive state championships and each one of those championships as each year became more and more and more difficult to achieve," said Ford. " Being named an Apple Distinguished School for the second time in a row, this was very difficult for us too, because we not only had to take the things that we had established in the first term of being an Apple Distinguished School, but we had to add upon and improve upon those things, so it's a continuous movement of the needle that we must make sure that we are constantly moving forward, constantly improving instruction because the success of our students depends upon it, and we're proud to be the only community college in the state of Mississippi to be named an Apple Distinguished School."

While the Apple Distinguished School award is not based on the amount of Apple products that a school buys or provides, Northeast does find itself as one of the top leaders in the southeast in helping students acquire the latest model iPad for their education, providing iPad Pro and iPad Air versions for its employees, and even iPad rentals for those who may only be taking part-time courses or find themselves without an iPad for a time due to repair. In addition to its fleet of iPad, the college also embraces AppleTVs in many of its classrooms and community spaces that support Apple AirPlay. Students and employees are also privy to the Apple Productivity Suite and the Everyone Can Create Suite if they desire.

In addition to the college's Apple Distinguished School award, Northeast has been chosen by Apple, Inc., to take part in the company's Campus Leader program. Deadline to apply for the Campus Leader program is January 31. For more information about the program, check out -

https://jobs.apple.com/en-us/details/200450817/campus-leader-northeast-mississippi-community-college?team=STDNT Inquiries about the program at Northeast Mississippi Community College, contact Benjamin at cmbenjamin@nemcc.edu.

Northeast not only strives to push the boundaries of traditional education, but it wants to transform the learning environment through technology. Whether it is crafting engaging lectures, putting content creation in the hands of students, so they have ownership in the class or breaking the barriers outside the classroom walls, Northeast is moving forward with technology in education and helping to inspire students to reach their full potential.

--NEMCC--

Multimedia

Northeast Mississippi Community College president Dr. Ricky G. Ford talks about the college's Apple Distinguished School award and winning the award for the second time in a row. (1 minute, 37 seconds)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e5azcyicemxmu0e/ADS%20-%20Ricky%20Ford.mp4?dl=0

Northeast Mississippi Community College vice president of instruction Dr. Michelle Baragona talks how Northeast has embraced technology in the classroom and how it has helped not only students but employees as well. (30 seconds)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hygljhp7fopvudy/ADS%20-%20Michelle%20Baragona.mp4?dl=0

Northeast Mississippi Community College instructional technology specialist Dr. Carlena Benjamin talks about the process the college had to go through to become an Apple Distinguished School for the second time in a row. (39 seconds)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0fl4hmf1jvnjlns/ADS%20-%20Carlena%20Benjamin.mp4?dl=0

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