News Photo by Reagan Voetberg The Alpena Community College board of trustees began drafting a funding priorities letter to the ACC foundation on Thursday at their board visioning workshop meeting.

ALPENA — The Alpena Community College Board of Trustees met for a visioning session Thursday morning to discuss funding priorities to forward to the ACC Foundation Board, including renovating the Natural Resources Center and making sure students’ basic needs are met.

The trustees organized funding priorities into three pillars: student wellbeing, infrastructure, and innovation and technology.

Those pillars will be used to categorize unrestricted funds. The need for more unrestricted funding sources was noted at a joint meeting of the board of trustees and the foundation on Dec. 11. The foundation already has many restricted funding sources from donors that give to specific projects or scholarships.

The three pillars will help donors feel more comfortable knowing where their donations are going rather than the college asking for donations without any sort of categorization.

“It would be restricted to that pillar but it would be more broad than…’I got stuck in the elevator in NRC so I want to pay for a new elevator,” Mary Eagan, executive director of the ACC Foundation, said at Thursday’s meeting. “The broader the better.”

“The more opportunities you offer donors to give to what they’re passionate about, the better,” ACC Foundation Trustee Tim Kuehnlein said.

Funding allocations for each of the individual pillars were discussed.

The student wellbeing pillar will encompass athletics, student activities, and student mental health.

Eagan said there are a lot of students in need of the basics, like paying for housing and food. She said that over $12,000 has been spent this school year on student support through different funds, including the Berg fund.

“I’ve only been in this position for a year, but you know, I was five feet away for five years, and I’ve never seen the demand for need as I’ve seen this year,” Eagan said.

The trustees also discussed setting up a separate athletics foundation to fund athletics. President Don MacMaster said that there are needs like new or expanded dugouts for the baseball team and cover for travel expenses.

Kuehnlein said that at the foundation’s last meeting they established an athletic fund to start raising money through the foundation for specifically athletics.

Eagan said there is a Lumberjacks boosters club that also raises funds to help cover athletics expenses.

The infrastructure pillar will address needs such as updating the NRC, updating signage, building a second climbing range/substation, fixing/replacing behind the scenes computers and networking equipment, and completing roofing projects.

Current capital projects include the solar array and new student housing, which both need to be done by Aug. 1, MacMaster said.

As far as funding for the NRC goes, the college will be receiving funding from the United Stated Department of Agriculture Rural Development Congressionally Directed Spending/Community Project Funding to cover up to 75% of the project.

The rest of the funding will have to be made up through fundraising, money from the state, or a long term loan. Money from both fundraising and from the state would be preferable, MacMaster said.

Kurt Konieczny, director of facilities management, said he hopes to get an architect for the NRC project in a year.

The innovation pillar will address technology upgrades, nursing simulators, emergency broadcasting system upgrades, Webex end of life replacement, and more.

“We have a lot of technology that…has end of life at some point and so there’s a lot of behind the scenes infrastructure that supplies the Webex internet, the wireless, the fiber between buildings.” Adam Keyes, director of information technology, said. “We’re going to be coming up on the replacements for that as well.”

Each pillar will have a rationale and a dollar figure. The dollar figures are $1 million for student wellbeing, and $2 million each for infrastructure and innovation.

Transparency to donors about where their money is going is key.

“We endeavor to not mislead people about what we’re doing,” MacMaster said.

The board of trustees will review a letter detailing their funding priorities to be sent to the ACC foundation at their regular board meeting Thursday.

Reagan Voetberg can be reached at 989-358-5683 or rvoetberg@TheAlpenaNews.com.