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NICHE downsizes staff, venues

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NICHE downsizes staff, venues

The North Idaho Consortium for Higher Education (NICHE) underwent several changes in order to better meet the needs of students.

The changes included a reduction in the number of full-time NICHE personnel and the consolidation of most of the NICHE services to NIC.

NICHE was instituted in 1999 to increase cooperation between the University of Idaho, Lewis-Clark State University, Idaho State University, Boise State University and NIC and to make information about these colleges more available to potential students. NICHE also provides access to the Idaho Career Information Services, which provides subscribers with information about potential jobs. Until recently, NICHE also administered entrance tests.

Jay Baldwin, NICHE director, said the changes were instituted in order to eliminate redundancy and make testing and other services once offered at the NICHE Harbor Center more available. In addition to increasing availability, Baldwin said that the changes would help conserve NICHE funds, describing the changes as a better use of money.

“We were able to expand our services by consolidating them onto the NIC campus,” Baldwin said. “Take testing for example. We eliminated the redundancy. What I was doing at the Harbor Center was offering tests that, in some instances, they (students) could be taking over at NIC.”

As part of the changes, the Harbor Center will no longer administer college entrance tests or CLEP tests.
Instead, NIC’s testing centers, including those at Kellogg and Sandpoint, were expanded in order to better accommodate not only its own students, but students from other Idaho colleges.
According to NICHE, this will be a great benefit to distance learning-students who often had to travel large distances to take on-campus tests.
“Students can now take tests at NIC centers, regardless of what school they go to,” Baldwin said. “If you are a UI student and you’re on the distance learning program in Sandpoint, you can go to NIC testing center there to take tests.”

The consolidation of testing allowed Baldwin to eliminate two of the three NICHE full-time staff positions. Baldwin is now the only full-time NICHE staff person. In addition to his responsibilities as NICHE director, Baldwin now works for the NIC Community Relations Office as director of Joint Communication.

“I report to each one of the five schools,” Baldwin said. “The funding for the office comes from the state and is intended to be used on behalf of all the schools. So all the schools want to make sure that they are sharing in the decision making about how those resources are used.”

Baldwin said that he hopes to continue to expand the NICHE services. NICHE is currently appealing for the approval to offer a certification test for social work majors.

“That is one example of a test that needs to be offered that we haven’t added yet,” Baldwin said.

Another change that has taken place is the addition of Boise State to the NICHE program.

“Boise State had never been a member of NICHE in the past, but this summer they came on board,” Baldwin said.

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