NIC withdraws last of ‘no confidence’ votes

Nearly a year ago, people showed up an hour early just to get a seat at the North Idaho College trustees’ meeting. 

They waited more than three hours to give public comment. 

The college was on the brink of losing accreditation. Faculty and staff were leaving. And the college had gone months without a head of human resources. 

Kathleen Miller Green, head of the faculty assembly, remembers going home after that meeting sick to her stomach about her beloved college’s reputation and future. 

At Wednesday’s board meeting, the room was largely empty. No one gave public comment and the trustees praised presenters during what they considered to be a lengthy nearly two-hour meeting. 

Miller Green got up and read a statement she had been waiting years to give. The NIC faculty voted unanimously to withdraw their five votes of no confidence in the prior board of trustees.

The withdrawal is the final in a series of withdrawals of votes of no confidence — from students, staff, and now faculty. 

Morale amongst those same groups is up, representatives say. Enrollment is also up and employee recruitment is improving, school leaders said Wednesday. 

Those outside the college are acknowledging progress as well. Moody’s Investor Services upgraded NIC’s issuer and revenue bond rating on Tuesday to stable after having downgraded it both in 2023 and 2024.

The college was placed on probationary status, an improvement from show cause, last month by its accrediting body, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. 

New board builds trust

After years of strife, the first board meeting in November of the new trustees was a relief for Miller Green and the NIC community. 

“In my humble opinion, this board did more work in 45 minutes than the previous board had done in 2 1/2 years,” Miller Green said. 

However, the fear and uncertainty of that time didn’t fade immediately. 

At their first meeting after the November election, the faculty agreed that the majority of their issues were with the prior board.

“Every single thing that we asked for was specific to the former board and things that we felt were ranging from illegal to not following the college policies to lack of civility and respect,” Miller Green said. 

Nearly 50 faculty members had left during the previous board’s tenure. 

“I can’t state strongly enough that the 115 full-time faculty and almost 300 adjunct faculty that stayed and dug in, every single one of them picked up extra load,” Miller Green said. “So that there was no impact on our students. And that’s hard to do that for seven semesters.” 

The NWCCU agreed that there was no student learning impact due to the accreditation issues. President Nick Swayne had asked faculty to stay and have faith in the process, Miller Green said that wasn’t possible for everyone but those who stayed felt pride in their success preventing student impact. 

Still they weren’t ready to resolve the votes without seeing the new board in action. They decided to revisit the issue at their March meeting. 

After a few months of hour-long, civil board meetings, the faculty was ready to withdraw the votes of no confidence. About 50% of faculty were in attendance at their assembly meeting earlier this month. They voted unanimously to withdraw the votes. 

The staff assembly felt ready to move a bit more quickly, voting in December to withdraw its five votes of no confidence, said Katrina Bjorkman, staff assembly representative. 

“With the election in November our board makeup changed drastically, the staff felt in general obviously that the issues that happened were mostly dealing with the previous board members,” Bjorkman said. “It felt a little disingenuous to hold them accountable for the actions of the previous board. We wanted to show that we were committed to moving forward with the college.” 

Staff assembly meetings in recent months have been more positive, Bjorkman said. 

“We don’t have these kind of dark and gloomy things to talk about,” she said. “There’s a lot more positivity and there’s a lot more focus on the good.”

While there was some frustration over how cuts to the athletic budget were handled, overall people feel more confident with their jobs, Bjorkman said. 

“I think we’ve kind of reached that turning point of seeing a light at the end of the tunnel,” she said.

The associated students of NIC also withdrew their three votes of no confidence. Addressing the issues that led to the votes of no confidence was one of the requirements placed on the trustees by the NWCC to return to full accreditation status. 

Budgets, enrollment, recruitment 

At Wednesday’s meeting, the board discussed a variety of issues tied to the NWCCU’s remaining recommendations. 

Fall and summer enrollment opened recently with Swayne focused on a continued increase in students. Full time enrollment this spring was up 36%. 

Tuition revenues this year were up about $500,000 from what was budgeted, said Sarah Garcia the vice president for finance. In 2026 the college is budgeting for an increase in enrollment. 

“This is the first time in I don’t know how long that we’ve budgeted for an increase in enrollment and felt comfortable doing so,” Garcia said. 

The college is not proposing a tuition increase for 2026. The last time NIC increased tuition was in 2019. 

NIC also plans a 5% salary increase for full time employees in 2026 with about 60% of that cost being covered by the state. 

Meagan Snyder, the new chief human resource officer, shared her plans to reduce turnover and increase employee retention. 

Snyder’s own position was open from November 2023 until she started in December. It took three candidate searches to hire her, something she hopes to avoid when filling other positions in the future. 

The college had unusually high employee departures over the last three years but only project 57 for 2025 down from 94 in 2024.

Snyder plans to send out an employee engagement survey for the first time since 2020 and do interviews with staff members to see what has made them stay. She also plans to do a comprehensive review of the pay structure to ensure NIC aligns with industry standards.

The college has been fighting an uphill battle with its reputation, said Tom Greene, head of communications and government affairs. 

“People were scared to come to NIC,” Greene said. “They were worried their credits wouldn’t transfer and that we wouldn’t be here long enough to graduate.” 

His team has focused on social media, advertising campaigns, and community events to start changing their reputation, Greene said.

The message has been: “We’re here to stay.”