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Hello and welcome to the 30th season of Dateline Delta.

I'm Diane Middleton, a member of the Delta College Board of Trustees.

On today's show, we will welcome new college president Michelle Allmendinger to campus and hear highlights from her state of the college presentation.

Well, then sit in on renaming of the college's gymnasium.

To wrap up, the show we'll hear how a student is finding their way the Delta Way.

Preview A Chocolate Affair and in honor of our 30th year, look back at a highlight from our very first show.

Delta College recently welcome its new president, Dr.

Michelle Allmendinger.

Dr.

Allmendinger most recently served as vice president of student affairs at Southwestern Community College in Iowa.

She sat down with us to share her goals and vision for Delta's future.

Well welcome again, Dr.

Allmendinger.

It is a joy to have you here on campus.

Where are we at day 39?

39.

40 ish.

Wonderful.

Well, I know you've been very busy.

We're so glad to have you.

And, you know, I can recall the night that I was able to call you and tell you that we had selected you and I just I'm interested in knowing what your first thought was when you learned that you'd been selected as our new president.

I was so excited, when I was here to interview, it was a 13 hour day, and when I got in my car that night, my first thought is, I hope I get to go back there.

So when you called me that night, I was thrilled.

My second thought was I better start packing.

Well, we're glad that you did.

And we're glad that you're here, and I know that for many of our folks that haven't had the chance to meet you, I know you've met a number of people in the community and around the college campus.

What initially interested you in Delta College?

So I did my doctorate at Michigan State, and while I was there, a couple things happened.

First of all, I fell in love with the state of Michigan.

And second of all, I had the opportunity to shadow Chris Hammond, who was president Mid-Michigan of the time.

And she introduced me to what being a president is like and all of the community colleges around Michigan.

So when I saw the posting come up for Delta, oh, I've got to look at this.

And then when I started looking, I felt so immediately connected to the mission and the vision and the values here that I thought, that's a place I want to get to know better.

That's a place I could see myself.

And that was before I even set foot here.

And then once I got here, I knew that connection was strong.

Well it was, we're glad that you invested the 13 hours.

It was a long day, and you handled it beautifully.

And, you know, now that you're here and you've had some time to walk around, what do you see as your role as the college president here at Delta?

So I comes from an athletics background, and I see the college president as the coach, the general manager and the head cheerleader all in one.

So I need to understand the players and what they do and what our overall goal is well enough to be able to say, well, what if we tried this over here?

And what if we tried that over there?

But then I also have to think about the budget and a relationship to the community and be able to shout our story from the rooftops.

So I think it's the combination of those things in my mind.

Yeah, it's a lot.

It's a lot.

It's definitely a lot, you know?

And so I get to kind of springboard off of that.

How do you feel Delta can contribute under your leadership?

What do you what's your vision for engaging with the communities and what we can do to to help our communities?

I think physically and theoretically, we are at the center of lakes Bay, of these counties, of our communities, and Delta is in the perfect position to innovate, to help our communities think about what is coming next and how do we get ready for that, and how do we prepare students for that.

And that is so exciting to me that the what's next, and how do we get there.

And Delta's just a fantastic place to do that.

There was already so much going on here and I knew that so many good things happening.

That's right.

And you can step in and say all right where are we going now.

Yeah.

And that planning is so important, especially in today's environment.

You look around and you see so many things changing so quickly.

What do you think are the biggest challenges that face our students?

Well, unfortunately, there are some big ones.

Our students, like many people in the country, face housing & food insecurity.

They face mental health challenges, and now they're facing whether or not they're gonna have a job because of AI, right?

But you have to figure out a way to prepare them for whatever work environment and whatever world they're going to face in the next 5-10 years, And we're trying our best to do that.

And taking that to the next level, what do you see as the challenges for community colleges on the horizon?

There are quite a few.

We're going to face a demographic cliff, whether it's fewer people coming through our schools and therefore graduating and coming into college.

And we are facing constantly changing federal laws.

Were facing shifting opinions about public education.

And so we just have to keep reinforcing to people what our value is what we do here.

And good that we do the results that we put out.

And you can come along with us.

I've been so pleased about the public perception I get when I tell people that I'm here to work at Delta, when I was here interviewing, when I've been out in the community.

People love this college.

And that feel so good to have that support.

We're very fortunate.

It's a tremendous asset for this region.

And I think about, you know, all that we have to offer and, you know, you're coming into this with such an optimistic view and, and have been so well received.

You know, one of the things that when you become a leader at this level, we don't get here alone, right?

So is there a mentor in your past that, you know you can think of that really led you to this point?

And and what did that person mean to you?

So I've had a few, but one of the very first ones was the athletic director at my undergraduate institution.

His name was Harvey Noshur he hired me for my first coaching job, but when I was still a student there, I took his athletic administration class.

Well, first things he taught us was you pay the officials before the game, which doesn't seem that important.

But the second part of that thought was because you might not be that happy by the time the game was over.

But it is your job to be a professional to leave it to hold up your end of the responsibly.

And it was that kind of a persona and that he brought to the athletic department at Knox.

And it's something that I've tried to emulate in my career.

Yeah, yeah.

So let's think about campus, what have you what have you found to be your favorite spot on campus so far?

Well, so far on this campus, it's right out there.

It's the courtyard.

Courtyard.

It's so pretty.

I love it so much.

Yeah.

My second favorite might have to be the roof of the planetarium.

I got to watch the July fireworks up there, and that was.

And you walked away with a little astronaut?

I do, I have a little astronaut from on the planetarium, and, And it's just such a cool place.

What a gem to have as part of the Delta family.

Well, to kind of wrap things up.

I want to have a little fun with you, if I can, for a few minutes, and then we're going to have a little lightning round, if that's okay with you.

One word answers, we're going to work with the word really quickly.

Favorite national park?

I don't know the answer to that one.

All of them.

Sure, I'm sorry you stumped me right off the getgo.

Okay, so this will be a good one for me to ask you.

Favorite college sport to watch, to watch, to watch?

Probably tennis.

Like I watch tennis all the time.

Softball followed closely second football.

I love all sports.

So cake or pie?

Cake, but if I'm really honest, brownies.

Okay, I'll make it.

I'll make a note of that.

Favorite season.

Fall, jeans and sweatshirt.

Okay, but I do love Michigan Summer too.

Best concert you've ever seen?

Fleetwood Mac in the 90s when they came back together, that would be a good month.

So all right, looking for the final answer here, right.

Name one object that you brought with you to your new office?

Oh, to my new office.

Photos of my niece and nephew and, some just office decorations.

Little ducks.

Yes.

I had little ducks and little, trinkets around my office.

Good.

Yeah, well, we're sure you're going to be adding a lot of different things to that office.

We're so glad you're here.

I look forward to everyone getting a chance to meet you.

And I think they'll be delighted that you're here as our next president.

So thank you for your time today.

Recently, Dr.

Allmendinger participated in Delta College's fall learning days to give her first state of the college address.

Let's see some of the highlights from this event.

I am so excited and so honored to get to welcome you to Learning Days for fall of 2026.

The cabinet and I have been looking at the strategic plan.

It is a well thought out document that just happens to be expiring in 2027.

But I deeply believe in those values the mission, the vision, the pillars.

Those are not going to change.

I'm not going to come in and flip it inside out.

In order to do that strategic planning, we have to know first who we are.

So I want to share some numbers with you this morning.

This is the contact hours for fall over the last few falls.

And you can see that we are the highest we've been in five years.

Now the headcount is down a little bit so that students must be taking more classes.

So when we look at our IPEDS retention, we're still hovering around that 60%.

But we know that IPEDS doesn't always tell the whole story for community college students.

So we wanted to look at our overall retention.

We know we have some continue work to do there.

And when we look at the IPEDS 150% completion rate, we're still in the 20 low 20%.

So it's definitely something that we want to build up.

It's also important because we know what an impact we have here at Delta on the local economy.

We had a, economic impact study commissioned, and in ‘23, 24, the impact of Delta was 469.7 million on Bay, Midland and Saginaw counties.

And why is it so high?

Well, because 79% of our graduates from the last five years live in district.

They stay here.

They come here, they stay here.

They build our communities.

We've got this ‘25,26 school year.

We had over 1500 earn a certificate or degree.

So that's fantastic.

And when we think about where we're going, we know we have some things that we're going to be facing.

So you've probably heard of the enrollment cliff, right?

It's just a simple shift in the demographics.

There are fewer children in the country.

And so we have to think about that.

What does that mean for our enrollment?

What does that mean?

For Delta.

we also have some other things to think about, though, as we plan strategically, as we think about our students.

You all were probably familiar with the HOPE survey that was done of our students that looked at their student basic needs.

I'm not going to read all of these to you, but when you look at 41% experienced depression and anxiety.

Our students have a lot going on.

We do the very best that we can to support them.

We have so many good supports going on coordinated care, mental health support, special needs, financial aid, early alert.

We're trying right.

We want to try even more.

And we want to be able to wrap those services around students.

And that has is what is driving the A Wing renovation.

I have some really good news to share on that front, Over the summer, the state legislature approved the first step of our construction, which means that we get to move ahead with the design, the planning, the fundraising.

it's aiming to right size the library and pull together a number of the student support services in one place so students know exactly where to go to get those services.

If you've been paying attention in the last few years, you know our students are also being affected by changes in financial aid.

A couple things stood out to me in particular, that I wanted to make sure that everybody was very aware of.

They have changed the rules now to the point where dropping one class will have new major consequences in ways that it's never had before.

Now, the other big work that our financial aid folks and admissions and registrar's office have been doing is trying to combat fraud.

And now I get to move on and tell you about some of the other good work that's been going on since spring or summer.

The board recently passed an AI policy, it is a first step.

It is an umbrella policy.

We needed something to make sure that we were protecting the college, its data and all of you.

We're also doing work in L and M wing, and this one is a three phase project.

First of all, our heavy duty diesel program has moved back to this campus from Bay ISD.

robotics, electrical, Hvac, and CAD will have their spaces moved and updated.

We've done some upgrades on the Carlyon gym.

You can't see the floor, underneath these mats, but I promise that's what it looks like.

We also celebrated this year as part of our year long 65th anniversary.

We rededicated the covered bridge that went up 50 years ago, under the leadership of faculty and staff to celebrate America's bicentennial.

The structure was restored using as much of the original material as possible.

And we even had five members of the original construction team come out the day that we rededicated it.

This is the 65th anniversary of Delta, so we want to keep celebrating.

And one of the ways that we're going to do that is by having open houses at our different campuses September 21st in Midland, September 28th and Saginaw and October 15th in Bay City.

We're going to invite the community and we're going to open the doors.

We're also going to celebrate here because who doesn't love more cake, right?

September 30th, 1pm to 3pm on this campus will be just celebrating our 65th.

Delta College's gymnasium will be renamed the Carlyon Gym in honor and memory of Don and Betty Carlyon, whose vision, leadership and unwavering commitment helped shape the college from its earliest days.

Dateline Delta had a front row seat for the dedication.

Let's watch.

Don's commitment to students was especially evident in his devotion to commencement.

He attended every single Delta College commencement from 1962 until his passing.

He understood what those ceremonies represented, not just the completion of a degree, but the opportunity for a better future that makes the name the Carlyon Gym and especially fitting.

Don and Betty were devoted to Delta College and their service, generosity, hospitality, and belief in the power of education will continue to live on.

At this time, I would like to ask the Carlyon family to join me by the easel, which holds the dedication plaque.

On behalf of the Delta College Board of Trustees, faculty and staff, past and present, and the people of the Great Lakes Bay region.

It is my great honor to officially dedicate the Carlyon Gym.

This name will forever commemorate Don and Betty Carlyon and the vision, leadership and commitment they brought to Delta College from its earliest days.

Please unveil the plaque.

Each month, Dateline Delta highlights one of our students that has a unique story to tell.

Let's meet this month's outstanding student.

So I faced many challenges while I have been in my time here at Delta.

I came to Delta during the pandemic and I was in Foster care when I was a teenager.

So having to navigate just coming out a foster care system, going to college at the same time, which is a rarity for many kids in the foster care system, having to face the nontraditional of being a foster student and also being a woman in the trades.

Those were some of my biggest challenges.

And the resources I used were the FAST program, which is designed for, you know, being able to meet other students that were also in foster care and have that community.

So one of the things that I learned from not having a traditional support system, like most others, is that you're going to have to find a lot of things yourself, and you're going to have to do a lot of things on your own, and that's okay.

And it's going to have to be okay.

And sometimes, even if it doesn't feel like it, it will be in the end.

The only way to the other side is through what you're going through.

I've had many different achievements from my time here at Delta, and I would say some of my proudest ones are the CSWA and the CSWP, or the Certified SolidWorks Professional.

Those took a lot of time and a lot of hard work to be able to get through, and I don't pass them the first time I was able to retake them and learn from my mistakes and being able to grow in that way was just very impactful, and I'm very proud of the final result.

Another achievement that I'm really proud of is I bought my first home a few years ago, so I am a very young home buyer, so I bought it when I was 22.

That's been a very impactful achievement for me.

I would say the Delta Way as being able to fit in, but also being able to stand out at the same time.

Being a nontraditional student, I was the only woman in a lot of my classes.

I was the only person that experienced foster care a lot of times.

And so I really stood out by all of it.

And at the same time, because I was welcomed by everybody, even though I did look different and I was a different.

I was still able fit and just the same and find belonging.

My plans after Delta are to continue in the workforce and to grow in the workforce.

I work for a wonderful family owned company.

I work at Fullerton Tool now as an engineer, and I've gotten a chance to grow within the company.

And I credit Delta for helping me grow, within the company, because if it weren't for going here, I wouldn't have gotten a lot of the experience to help me at my current job.

The Delta College Possible Dream program provides cultural, educational and college prep opportunities for the regions six through 12th grade students who may not view college as a possibility.

The program is dedicated to the idea that every student deserves a chance at success.

To learn more, we spoke with Julie Dorsey, Foundation Manager.

There's something for everyone at A Chocolate Affair coming up Thursday, November 5th at HORIZONS Conference Center in Saginaw.

Whether you enjoy seeing friends, making friends, hearing live music, dancing to live music, feasting on decadent menu items, sipping cocktails and mocktails, savoring decadent desserts in an elegant and welcoming space, or all of the above, you won't want to miss this very special night out.

So what makes a Chocolate Affair, one of the most anticipated events of the entire year.

Since its beginning, nearly 27,000 attendees have fully funded the Possible Dream Program and the possible Dream scholarship.

These are unique opportunities specifically created for middle and high school students right here in our region.

Possible dream provide six years of interactive, educational, cultural, and career focused activities, expanding students horizons and setting their sights on a college education and a life they're passionate about.

More than 80% of our program graduates go on to college and to careers they love.

Like manufacturing, engineering, education, law and medicine, to name just a few.

Please join us November 5th at HORIZONS for a Chocolate Affair, where in just one evening you can change someone's life for a lifetime.

You can purchase your tickets and even learn about sponsorships using the information at the bottom of your screen.

We can't wait to see you there.

Dateline Delta is entering its 30th year of highlighting the college's curriculum and sharing information about important educational issues affecting the Great Lakes Bay region.

Throughout the year, we'll celebrate this milestone by looking back at segments that have helped tell the Delta College story, enjoy.

Good evening welcome to Dateline Delta for Wednesday, October 29.

I'm your host Earl Selby, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Delta College.

Dateline Delta is a video magazine program that focuses on the people, places and things that happen around our community college.

You'll have the opportunity to hear from students, staff, and teachers.

We'll visit the Delta campus, as well as some of our off campus sites, and we'll show you some of the advancements and refinements that take place every day here at Delta College.

And this in our rural edition of Dateline Delta, we'll go underground, ground level at to outer space, with a few stops along the way.

In our first story, we'll visit the groundbreaking ceremony and the construction site of the new Science and Learning Technology project that's taking place here on the campus.

And our second story, we'll reach for the stars when we visit the Delta College Planetarium in wonderful downtown Bay City.

Next, we'll explore some of the reasons why enrollment at Delta College is reaching new heights.

And finally, we'll look at the special happenings at Delta that are coming up the next month.

When we look at our Dateline Delta Calendar of Events.

I want to personally thank all the previous Board of Trustees and Foundation members who have volunteered in hosting this show over the years.

Now let's see what's on the Dateline Delta calendar of events.

The Delta College Planetarium will be hosting a series of shows during the month of October.

For more information about these shows and events happening at the planetarium, visit their website at delta.edu/planetarium.

Delta College will be hosting the Great Lakes Bay Employment Job Fair on Thursday, October 15th from noon to 3 p.m.

The job fair is open to all industries and all majors and is open to the public.

The event will be held in the Delta College Gym.

For further information on these events or other campus activities, contact the Office of Marketing and Public Information at (989)686-9490, or visit our website at www.delta.edu Well, that wraps up our show.

Please join us again on October 25th when we highlight what's happening here at Delta College.

One of America's leading community colleges.

Now, I leave you with the sights and sounds of Delta College.

For Dateline Delta, I'm Diane Middleton.

Thanks for watching.

Local production scene on Delta College Public Media are made possible with support from viewers like you.

Thank you.