KBOCC celebrates accreditation
An Upper Peninsula community college celebrated earned accreditation Friday.
Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College became accredited in July. The college will now be able to gain access into federal funding and other perks that fully accredited colleges can take advantage of.
“We have reached the standard that’s set by the federal government, in terms of all the things that we do and how we operate,” KBOCC’s Assessment & Accreditation Coordinator Treneice Marshall said. “It makes us eligible for federal funding and federal financial aid. It allows our students to be able to transfer to other universities more easily–that’s sort of the big drive for accreditation–transferability of courses. It’s also the accountability to the students and the community regarding what we’re doing.”
The college will be able to offer new classes and programs in the next few years.
“We beginning to look at offering some new programs,” Marshall said. “There will be some new degrees offered in the future: business, fine arts…those are kind of on the front burner right now…also a Native American studies program.”
The school was chartered by the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community in 1975. The main campus is in Baraga.
The college recently took over the former Baraga County Memorial Hospital building in L’Anse, and is renovating it for classroom and office space.