Roberta TeahenRoberta Teahen, the director of Ferris State University’s Doctorate in Community College Leadership program, has been named a Fellow by Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City. NMC is a Ferris partner institution.
Teahen received the college’s highest honor in recognition of her 30 years of service there which concluded in 2001 when she joined the Ferris administration.
“As a community college, and in this case truly ‘the community’s college,’ Northwestern Michigan College has always been responsive to the needs of the greater Grand Traverse area and focused on the students it served,” Teahen said.
Among the accomplishments Teahen cited among her points of pride:
- Co-founding and providing early leadership to the Center for Business and Industry
in the early 1980s. That has persisted in various names over the years and is a vital
training resource for businesses of the Grand Traverse area, she said;
- her involvement in the acquisition of the former Chef Pierre corporate headquarters
that now houses the University Center (where Ferris is a partner) and other NMC offices;
and
- the design and implementation of the M-TEC that houses the college’s technical programs and training services; and the “return-to-industry” program for occupational faculty that enabled more than half of the technical faculty to spend a semester in industry to refresh their knowledge of industry’s expectations. This venture was a game-changer in the enhancement of our technology programs, she noted.
NMC, founded in 1951, has selected at least one Fellow each year since 1964. Joining Teahen, as a 2020 Fellow of the college, is Bill Marsh Jr., co-owner of the Bill Marsh Auto Group, in Traverse City, who has a decade of service on the NMC Foundation Board.