Southwestern Michigan College is adding a third opportunity for students to earn honors distinction while at the college. SMC has been approved to create Gamma Nu Chapter of Alpha Beta Gamma, the international community college business honor society. It will join Sigma Psi, the chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, the international honor society for community colleges, and SMC's homegrown Honors Program as avenues for the college's brightest students to shine academically.

Transfer students can have it all. Elisabeth Fellows, 21, reached that conclusion starting at Southwestern Michigan College, then continuing to Grand Valley State University, where she’s a senior studying medical laboratory science to work in a hospital.

Southwestern Michigan College’s Early College programs let students jump-start higher education by earning credits while still in high school, often for free. Jeremiah Wilson of Edwardsburg took advantage of the Early Middle College (EMC) partnership, which allows high school students to earn enough credits for an associate degree free of charge, between SMC and Edwardsburg High School.

Southwestern Michigan College’s finest students put their finest work on display during the college’s second Honors Showcase Dec. 12 in the art gallery of the Dale A. Lyons Building on the Dowagiac campus. Fourteen students enrolled in SMC’s Honors Program presented posters and answered questions, simulating a professional conference experience unheard of for most college freshmen and sophomores.

What a difference a year makes. Three SMC students, two barely out of high school, the third still in high school, are getting chances to attend a higher education national conference. Kristen Arnold, a Southwestern Michigan College elementary education major from Oklahoma; Sydney Harmon, a White Pigeon psychology major; and Justine Grisham, a dual-enrolled Edwardsburg student, can attend the Midwestern Psychological Association's annual meeting next spring with SMC faculty.

Every Monday afternoon Dr. Donald Ludman’s social work students tutor for Ester Stanley’s free after-school program at The Stepping Stone, 214 Miller St., Dowagiac. Stanley, a Dowagiac teacher for 32 years, visited Ludman’s Introduction to Social Work class in October. After her presentation, several students asked to visit and are now engaged in tutoring elementary-age students in reading, mathematics and social studies homework.

Southwestern Michigan College’s first 50 years produced 2,974 nurses. From the very first graduation of 20 women from Dowagiac, Cassopolis, Edwardsburg, Marcellus, Decatur, Lawton, Berrien Center, Buchanan, South Haven and Paw Paw on Feb. 5, 1967, at Dowagiac’s Federated Church, nursing has been a flagship program. By expanding the Nursing and Health Education Building, President Dr. David Mathews said, “We’re trying to position the college so the next generation has access to affordable, highest-possible-quality college education close to home. This is the last piece to our puzzle” after $8.6-million O’Leary and Daugherty building upgrades and three residence halls costing $7.5 million each. The project “allows us to double the size of our ACEN-accredited nursing program,” Mathews said, “and add another health-related occupation,” such as occupational therapy assistant or physical therapy assistant.

Two Southwestern Michigan College students and Professor Dr. Barbara Karwacinski presented research on “Educational Expectations and School Experiences: What Makes Generation Z Students Happy” at the Michigan Sociological Association’s annual conference at Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids. SMC sent the only undergraduate presenters for the second year in a row. Kaitlynn Kendall, from Edwardsburg, returned joined by Olivia Ziemer, from Hartford.