Lake Michigan College is expanding efforts to meet the needs of students and employers around the Benton Harbor area.
LMC President Ken Flowers and VP of Enrollment, Marketing, and Governmental Relations Al Pscholka addressed the Benton Township Board of Trustees Tuesday to share some of the latest.
Pscholka said the college has been working to enroll graduates of Benton Harbor High School this year, with 81 of 126 graduates now having applied. That’s the highest number in decades. Pscholka told us they’ve increased regular contact with the students.
“We’ve got an admissions person who embedded herself because she’s a Benton Harbor High School graduate,” Pscholka said. “She has a real affinity for Benton Harbor students and she just decided to spend an inordinate amount of time, a lot more time than usual, working directly with students, with staff to build that trust.”
And Pscholka told trustees the college is working to meet the needs of the township, offering a police academy that’s now graduated 40 officers. Flowers told us there’s more public safety programming on the way.
“We’ve been working for some time to build a whole public safety program,” Flowers said. “So the police academy is growing. We’ve moved from one session to two sessions now. We’re just getting ready to hire an EMT person to kick off our EMT training and then move along into the fire academy soon.”
Benton Township Police Chief Greg Abrams is on the college’s police academy advisory committee and told trustees about the firefighter training on the way.
Pscholka also noted LMC is looking forward to the completion of the township’s new water tower, which will be painted with both the township’s and LMC’s logo. He said the college is experiencing increased enrollment the last few years and has “a good story to tell.”
