College of Menominee Nation Programs: Cultivating Community and Culture

The College of Menominee Nation (CMN), a tribal Land Grant college chartered by the Menominee people, stands as a vital resource for higher education in the rural area of Northeast Wisconsin. With its main campus in Keshena and a second campus in Green Bay, CMN serves not only the Menominee community but also surrounding communities, including the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. CMN provides opportunity for the Menominee community and surrounding communities a resource for higher education that would have otherwise not been available in this rural area of Northeast Wisconsin. Many of the students are Menominee community members and have been able to take their skills and give back what they have learned to their community in such areas as teaching, business, public administration, natural resources, and trades programs.

A Hub for Community Engagement: The Department of Continuing Education

The College's Department of Continuing Education (DoCE) plays a crucial role in extending the college's reach beyond traditional academic programs. DoCE oversees tribal extension programs, utilizing annual capacity funding to build collaborations and partnerships within the community. For these reasons, the College is a trusted resource for knowledge and programming throughout the Menominee Tribal community. With a long history of providing community workshops, DoCE addresses diverse needs and interests, offering training in areas such as gardening, cooking, ServSafe Food Safety, Wildland Firefighting, Quillwork, and Quilting. Over the last ten years, the DoCE has held an average of over 100 workshops per year with almost 700 participants.

Micro-Credential Programs: Bridging Academia and Community

Recognizing the evolving needs of its community, CMN has been exploring innovative approaches to education, including micro-credential programs. This project aims to combine these two well established programs of academia and extension work into a micro-credential program that will allow community members to learn about opportunities and techniques in traditional Menominee practices and sustainable agriculture and receive academic credit for their time dedicated to learning. CMN will offer approved workshops and workshop series per policy of the institutions Committee on Academic Quality that will give participants a college credit based on student hours.

The purpose of this project is to provide structured training and opportunities for Menominee community members to obtain a credential in sustainable agriculture or Menominee culture that they are able to utilize in their daily life or the profession they are seeking out. It also provides an opportunity to gauge their interest in these areas before committing to a full program in an academic year. The college has already provided over the last 27 years, the opportunity for community members and others in rural Northeast Wisconsin to obtain post-secondary education degrees. In addition, the college's Department of Continuing Education Extension program has led the way on community training opportunities to assist in improving lives. This project offers the ability to bring the two together in a new credentialing program that has never been offered.

Developing the Micro-Credential Program

The Dean of Continuing Education and the Community Training Coordinator (CTC) will work with the Registrar to develop a process that will meet the approval of the college's Committee on Academic Quality. This committee is comprised of the college's faculty department heads, chief academic officer, special projects coordinator, and the registrar. In order to receive this approval, all workshops and/or classes need to meet the minimum qualifications as set forth by the group. The minimum qualifications include meeting the mission of the college, measurable goals and objectives, instructor credentials, and course evaluation. In order to receive a single credit, a student must have a minimum of 15 contact hours. Workshops and training series will be a minimum of fifteen hours and can be up to 45 hours of classroom contact or work that equates to 15 hours for a one-credit course. Qualified instructors will be brought in for topics the college is unable to fill internally. The college does however plan to utilize federal regulation standards when developing outcomes and objectives.

Training Opportunities and Community Impact

CMN has been actively providing a variety of training opportunities to the community, responding to the interests of community members, local employers, and tribal leadership. The topics covered included healthy eating and fresh food preparation, establishing and maintaining a home garden, food sovereignty, mental health, personality assessments, grant writing and grant management. Specific workshops and training offered were Mindfulness for Native Americans, Mindfulness for Tribal Elders, Real Colors Personality Assessment, Enhancing Grant Writing Skills, The 4C's of Successful Grants, Grant Implementation, Northstar Digital Literacy Assessment and Training, Kehtekaewak Farmer's Market Food Demonstration, and the CMN Gardening Workshop Series. A number of tribal communities, including tribal and non-tribal members, benefitted from participating in these workshops and training. The 4C's of Successful Grants, Grant Implementation and Enhancing Grant Writing Skills curriculum was designed with guidance from the CMN Committee on Academic Quality to ensure that is aligned with internal academic policy and procedure as well as our accreditors, the Higher Learning Commission.

Addressing Community Needs

There was an expressed interest by participants who attended the Kehtekaewak Farmer's Market Food Demonstration and the CMN Gardening Workshop Series for additional programming, knowledge, and hands-on opportunities to learn more about topics that would help families and tribal communities gain food sovereignty, with the increased cost of living and inflation. There was also an interest in future programming in financial literacy for individuals and families to, again, help address the cost of living and inflation.

Challenges and Future Directions in Alternative Credentials

CMN's experience with micro-credentials highlights the evolving landscape of higher education and the need for flexible, accessible learning opportunities. In total, 33 people have taken part in the microcredentials we offered. These participants had a variety of professional backgrounds including, agriculture, administrative, communication and indigenous knowledge. There is a very clear interest by employers, colleges and learners in alternative credentials. Without doubt there is an interest and need in the Menominee community in cost-friendly, verifiable, bite-sized, quality education. There are a number of terms to describe what our community is seeking: reskilling, upskilling, certificates, certifications, licenses, badges and more. The buzzword in higher and continued education was microcredentials, which is what our proposal was seeking to fund. It was our intention to establish an alternative credentialing program at College of Menominee Nation, a program that offered microcredentials with pilot offerings in communication, Menominee language, and various agriculture topics.

However, CMN has also encountered challenges in implementing micro-credentials, primarily due to the lack of a standardized definition and framework within higher education. There have been unanticipated obstacles and challenges in offering microcredentials at College of Menominee Nation. One of the largest obstacles is the lack of a standard in higher education when it comes to what a microcredential should consist of. This extends to there not being a standard or official definition of a microcredential by CMN's chosen accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission. When it comes to providing services and opportunities to our community, CMN aims for sustainability. The last thing we would like to do is to offer an alternative credential with the intent of it being transferrable to other institutions or accepted by employers and it being unable to do so. To meet the needs of the community, CMN is continuing to move forward with alternative credentials in the form of certificates. A process with internal procedures is already in place at CMN.

Moving forward, CMN would like to capitalize on the expressed interest in programming related to food sovereignty, healthy eating, tribal agriculture and financial literacy for tribal individuals and families. Our staff intends to research potential curriculum to be trained in that would help us provide the community with that knowledge and skill sets. In order to offer as relevant programming as possible, there may be a need to survey or poll the community to find out what topics would be of most interest and importance for them to learn to gain food sovereignty for themselves and their families. In the first quarter of 2024 there appears to be a few opportunities for professional development that will help staff understand practical approaches to training adults, which will help us develop a better understanding of andragogy.

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Project ROOTS: Investing in Teacher Education

The College of Menominee Nation (CMN) is proud to announce that its Teacher Education Department has been awarded $1.74 million over five years. Department of Education's Indian Education Professional Development Grant. Through this new initiative, Project ROOTS: Resilience-Oriented Opportunities for Teacher Success, CMN will provide a culturally grounded, community-based pathway to teacher licensure. âThis grant represents an incredible opportunity to grow our own teachers,â said Dr. Kelli Chelberg, CMN Teacher Education Department Chair.

Honoring Legacy and Supporting the Future

CMN deeply values its relationships with community leaders and supporters. We honor IGA Chairman Ernie Stevens, Jr.âa relative, friend, and steadfast supporter of the College of Menominee Nation. We celebrate a life devoted to strengthening education and community. Through his support, Chairman Stevens planted seeds of knowledge; from those seeds, he taught us the importance of giving back to our communities. Those lessons will continue to grow for generations. His relationship with the College began many years ago with Dr. Verna Fowler, our founding president. He was invited to speak at our commencement twice in CMNâs 32-year history, most recently in May 2025. As he spoke to our students this past spring, reflecting on his long-standing support, Chairman Stevens shared that he always wished he could do moreâbut Dr. Education and community were central to his vision for stronger Tribal nations. Chairman Stevens and Dr. Chairman Stevens continued his support of CMN under President Christopher Caldwell, honoring the promises he made to Dr. Fowler. "Your success today fills my heart with encouragement. These words reflect his life as a true fighter for education, sovereignty, and community. Chairman Stevens walked with us in a good way, supporting our students, our culture, and our future.

Community Engagement and Outreach

The College of Menominee Nation relies on a number of social platforms to notify the community and potential participants of upcoming programming and training opportunities. There also seems to be a large portion of the community we serve who seek out information in the hardcopy of newspapers. This is why we advertise programming and training opportunities in the Menominee Tribal News, which now has a digital version, also.

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