Celebrating Successful Community College Graduates This Spring
Spring often brings the largest commencements at Iowa community colleges, where we celebrate students as they take the next step in their professional and personal journeys. In the eyes of every graduate, we see your work. Every part of what makes your campus special can be traced to thoughtful faculty, staff, and administrators. Our year-round calendars mean many of us are already diving into summer, but we couldn’t let this moment pass us by without saying our most sincere thank you for the ways you support student success.
Board Retreat Brings Big Picture Discussions
This week, we hosted our board – one trustee representative from each of our 15 community colleges – for our once-a-year board retreat. This complements our year-round board meetings as an opportunity to get creative, think big picture, and connect on both strengths and changes. Trustees will be bringing this energy back to their campuses as we continue to work together as one voice for the Iowa Community College System!
Monique Hits the Road for NICC Business Summit
Some of our favorite days are when we get to join you on campus – and this trip to Peosta was definitely one of those days. Monique joined business executives and educators for a joint session focused on “The Cost of Culture.” Speaker Nora Burns shared about The Undercover Project, where she went on more than 350 job interviews and spent 15 months working undercover on the front lines to gain fresh insight into the employee experience and uncover the strategies that truly build—or break—workplace culture. The group discussed what today’s students are looking for in employers, while also diving into the disconnect students may have with what the day-to-day of the jobs they think they want are like. Thank you to Northeast Iowa Community College for creating this business summit!
Sharing Student Success Stories on Social Media
Our 2026 PTK Iowa All-Academic Team are getting year-round recognition as we share special parts of their journey and what’s led to their success on social media. We’ve already gotten started on showcasing these students with very different backgrounds and stories. Jump over to our channels to read more and follow along!
Summer Trustee Conference: Registration Open
With 124 trustees across the state, this is the one time a year we get to gather, focusing on ways we can further bolster our own community college and the Iowa Community College System as a whole. Our 60th anniversary will be a lens to honor the past, highlight the present, and look ahead to the future of student success in Iowa.
Event overview:
- Who: Trustees and Presidents
- When: July 7 (optional afternoon activities), July 8 (day – conference, night – awards), and July 9 (dismissal at lunch for easier travels)
- Where: Iowa Valley Community College District, 3700 S Center St, Marshalltown, IA 50158
- What: Trustees will come together to reflect on six decades of service to students, communities, and the state, while engaging in conversations about the evolving role of governance in strengthening access and opportunity. ACCT President and CEO Jee Hang Lee will join trustees for this special anniversary event.
- Register here (How-to guide for registration platform here)
Annual Events Changing in 2027
We’re excited to announce strategic changes to our annual events to start in 2027: 1) the trustee conference, previously held on its own in the summer, will join the convention and tradeshow in the fall, and 2) launching trustee campus visits for colleges to rotate hosting and showcasing its programming with one-day gatherings.
These changes will maintain current professional development opportunities, increase engagement between college leadership, maximize participation and efficiency by aligning major statewide gatherings, and continue opportunities for trustees to visit colleges for focused tours.
Mark your calendar now for November 10-12, 2027 at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines. The first campus visits will begin in the summer of 2027, more information to come as planning progresses.