News Photo by Reagan Voetberg The Alpena Community College Board of Trustees discusses policies at their meeting on Thursday night in the boardroom at the Donnelly Natural Resources Center.

ALPENA — On Thursday night, the Alpena Community College Board of Trustees met for their regular meeting to discuss agenda items including a Dear Colleague Letter received last Friday from the U.S. Department of Education.

ACC President Don MacMaster reported on the Dear Colleague Letter. The letter calls out Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practices for toxically indoctrinating students with the false premise that the U.S. is built upon systemic and structural racism and advancing discriminatory policies and practices, according to the letter.

The letter urged higher education institutions to scrap DEI policies, procedures, and programs, or face consequences such as losing federal funding.

The board discussed their options on how to respond to the Dear Colleague Letter.

MacMaster shared what other community colleges in Michigan are doing. Delta College, he said, will not be changing any of its DEI programs. Jackson College will be scraping any language related to DEI off of its website, policies, and procedures, but will continue to provide the same programs.

Macomb Community College will be taking the considerations of the letter much more seriously, MacMaster said. Both ACC and Macomb have utilized federal funding successfully for projects and would not want to put that funding at risk.

“One way of looking at it is, we’re way up here in Northeast Michigan, and nobody’s really going to follow us, you know, we do what we do,” MacMaster said.

The only concern MacMaster had about the language used on the college’s website was in the college’s goals and values section. One of ACC’s goals is to offer a welcoming, safe, and adaptable culture that inspires diversity, according to the ACC website.

“I don’t think we’re violating anything that I read out of that letter, that we need to eliminate or scrub,” Trustee Joseph Gentry added.

Karen Bennett, legal counsel from Wenzel, Bennet, and Harris PC, agreed that it is not necessary for the college to be overly concerned about the letter at this time.

IN OTHER BUSINESS

* ACC students Zach Holifield, Aiden Bishop, and JJ Salas, co-founders of RISE, a new student group that aims to draw awareness about alcohol and drug abuse, presented the goals and aspirations of the group. The acronym stands for Responsible Independent Strong Empowerment.

* ACC faculty member Todd Artley introduced new faculty members Dane Werth and Wesley Repke.

* Mac McClelland, director of Mac Consulting Service, LLC discussed the U.S.-23 corridor improvement authority. ACC’s participation is critical to the project proceeding. McClelland urged the board to adopt the resolution of concurrence and waiver of exemption for the U.S.-23 corridor improvement authority and development plan and tax increment financing plan. All board members voted to adopt the resolution.

* The board voted to rescind policy 7009A, titled Title IX Policy and Grievance Procedures for Complaints of Sex Discrimination and Sex-Based Harassment. Policy 7009 remains in effect. Policy 7009A will be removed from the college website and all publications and handbooks.

The policy was removed to comply with a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky which vacated 2024 Title IX regulations. College policies will now comply with the 2020 Title IX regulations.

* The board voted to pass a resolution to enter into a multi-year rental agreement with the Iosco Regional Educational Service District’s Adult Education Program for the use of space in the Besser Technical Center.

* The board voted unanimously to pass a resolution to allow Vice President of Administration and Finance Nick Brege to sign contracts related to grant funding from the United States Department of Agriculture for ACC’s new student housing project.

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