Northwest Dean of eLearning, Angel Nickens, Completes MCCLA

by Sarah Smith

Senatobia, MS (06/21/2023) — Angel Nickens, dean of eLearning at Northwest Mississippi Community College, recently completed the Mississippi Community College Leadership Academy (MCCLA) Program. The goal of MCCLA is to help select administration gain practical insights to the future needs of community college leaders, specific to the community college system.

To be a part of MCCLA, participants are nominated and must qualify by meeting the goals set forth by their supervisor. This program is a yearlong consisting of workshops strengthening one's management skills and utilizes current situations and circumstances to build credibility and learn from real-life issues administration is facing. It also allows opportunities to network with colleagues and learn what they're doing to manage current issues facing community colleges.

The program consists of studying subjects impacting community colleges, meetings, and workshops.

"Participants met in person in October and February for three days," Nickens said. "Between the on-site sessions, participants worked in small groups to conduct research, develop action plans, and completed many reading assignments-nine books total."

Nickens joined the program in late spring of 2022. This program gave her the foundation to be a successful member of the administrative team and understanding into the inner workings of a community college that one might not be privy to as a faculty member. She humbly noted that going from full-time faculty to administration, she had little knowledge of what it meant to be an administrator until she began her journey and this program.

"In a six-month span, I moved from full-time science faculty to assistant dean of eLearning to dean of eLearning, so I only had a little administrative experience or knowledge," Nickens said.

On June 1, 2022, Nickens was named dean of eLearning, and there she said she began a yearlong "crash course" on everything that would've otherwise taken years to learn, covering everything from personnel and human resources, finance and budgeting, law and legal issues, community college governance, legislative strategy, to strategic planning.

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Northwest Mississippi Community College President, Dr. Michael Heindl, congratulates Dean of eLearning Angel Nickens on her completion of the MCCLA program. Photo by Andrew Dale

Northwest Mississippi Community College

Northwest Dean of eLearning, Angel Nickens, Completes MCCLA

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Northwest Mississippi Community College

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