Northern swings into new academic year

Montana State University-Northern has started a new academic year touting some impressive figures.

"As an institution, we are winning in all of the categories that a chancellor would want to be able to say he is winning in," Northern Chancellor Greg Kegel said. "Our placement rate is at 100 percent, our customer satisfaction, which is employers who employ are students, is very high, and every year, our career fair, the number of people who are coming to the campus to recruit our students has increased."

Classes started Monday at Northern, with orientation held from the middle of last week through the weekend.

Northern has been doing quite a bit of work, in the dormitories, in the Student Union Building and elsewhere to improve student life at the university, while continuing to maintain and improve its programs, some of which are top-ranked in the nation and oversea in the world.

The automotive technology program at Northern was again ranked second in the nation the independent organization The Best Schools, and its internationally known diesel technology program is continuing its top-ranked work, now in the state-of-the-art diesel technology program.

But Kegel also touts the other programs at the university, such as in the health care, education, business and criminal justice program.

The focus in professional careers has driven Northern to the top in starting income for its graduates, higher than every other unit of the Montana University System.

The median starting income for Northern graduates is $31,200, $11,000 more than the median for all four-year colleges in Montana.

The university also is the top-ranked school in the state - and 15th in the nation - for upward mobility, starting college in the bottom 20 percent of income distribution and moving into the top 20 percent.

The university also has increased its enrollment and retention of Native American students. Northern implemented the Little River Institute through a five-year grant awarded to its extended university in 2015 through the Native American Serving Nontribal Institutions Program of the U.S. Department of Education. Program Director Erica McKeon Hanson works to operate a center of tutoring, mentoring and support for Northern's Native American students and a source of professional development for Northern faculty and staff.

Northern's recruitment and retention of Native American students has grown substantially since the institute began, with enrollment growing from 12 percdent to 18 percent of the student body and retention nearing 90 percent.

And Kegel said work on other projects at the university - such as adding a hockey club, which was approved last April, plans to convert Donaldson Hall into a multicultural center, and plans to build Northern's own football stadium - continue.

Look for more in the Havre Daily News Back to Northern special section Sept. 9

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Havre Daily News reporter Rachel Jamieson contributed to this story.