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2023 WMU Homecoming weekend fun set for campus and community

Details about most student and alumni homecoming activities as well as various other events are posted on the campus events calendar.

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Southwestern Michigan College Board Adopts $24.1-M Budget for FY2021-22

Saying, "Despite all of the many financial challenges born from the pandemic," Southwestern Michigan College Board Chair Thomas F. Jerdon and his colleagues have adopted the college's 2021-22 fiscal year budgets this week. Following a public hearing on Wednesday evening, the Southwestern Michigan College Board of Trustees adopted the balanced $24,109,000 general fund for July 1, 2021-June 30, 2022. That budget anticipates $9,102,000 from tuition and fees, $6,406,000 from property taxes on 2.4038 mills and a $7,244,000 state appropriation. Chairman Jerdon says, "SMC has always had a balanced budget and does so again despite all of the many financial challenges born from the pandemic," and adds, "The administration has the highest gratitude from the Board of Trustees for steering the financial ship in the right direction while we continue to maintain our campuses, provide a 3-percent increase to all employees, complete a $550,000 chemistry lab project at the Niles Campus and continue to save for the future Lyons building renovation and other needs. All of this without special millage requests from the taxpayers." In his president's report, Dr. Joe Odenwald says summer classes began Monday with head count up 9.8-percent, however, he says, "Contact hours are only up 0.7-percent, because we have some adults in the mix that we didn't have before through the Michigan Reconnect program. Adult students often take fewer hours as they balance work, family and education." Odenwald goes on to report that, "For fall semester, Monday we were up 144 in head count and 14.5- percent in contact hours. Good orientation numbers are driving this. We've been doing orientations since May 1st. We've got 75 pre-registered for Friday and about 74 for next week. We're basically doing an orientation every week except last week, when graduations were happening, Memorial Day and around July 4th. We must keep the momentum up and get to 2,021, and it's trending in the right direction." Odenwald points out that, "A year ago yesterday, we had 838 students enrolled with a budget that said we had to have 1,650. We opened the doors when the rest of the state was still pretty well shuttered and got to 1,770. Yesterday we had 992 students, just shy of 1,000. The point is, we've come through a tough, tough year. If we can rebuild our enrollment, we're going to be okay." Vicki VanDenBerg of Plante Moran joined the meeting by video and reviewed the annual financial audit plan with trustees, including a timeline starting July 15th and year-end field work during the week of September 13th, with the final management letter delivered to the board at its October 13th meeting. VanDenBerg says, "We'll be focusing a lot of our time and effort on making sure federal stimulus packages related to COVID are properly reported for both financial statement purposes and federal compliance audit purposes." In other business, the board accepted two gifts to the college totaling $660 and acknowledged a pair of gifts totaling $325 to the SMC Foundation. Since there is traditionally no July meeting, the next session on August 11th will combine long-range planning with a dedication of the Recruiting Gallery trophy hall in the Charles O. Zollar Building on the Dowagiac campus.

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