Northwest College students will soon be able to further their goals of becoming a paramedic or going on to a bachelor’s degree in software development thanks to two new programs approved by the board of trustees at their December meeting.

The board unanimously approved a paramedic certificate program and a software development associate degree Dec. 11 after presentations by the professors leading the way on the respective programs.

At last week’s State of the College address, President Lisa Watson said the paramedic certificate and software development programs should be ready for fall rollouts.

“We don’t anticipate any problems with either being approved by the (Wyoming Community College) Commission,” she said.

Marnee Crawford, director of nursing, said in December the decision to offer a shorter paramedic program was in response to many conversations with students and health care partners, as well as a “dire shortage” of EMS professionals across the state and nation. The college already offers an associate’s degree for advanced EMTs to rise to the next level, but many students already in the field don’t want to take — or have — the extra time.

“Students have said paramedics don’t have to have the degree, but they do need the training,” Crawford said. “We examined where potential students are going, talked to clinical partners. Some said they didn’t come here because it took too long to get through the program.”

Students will still be able to use the classes needed to get the certificate to return at some point and get the full AAS degree. And offering the certificate, Crawford said, doesn’t require any more staffing for the department.

“This is a nice way of meeting some community needs,” Watson said in her January address.

The software development associate degree program led by professor Astrid Northrup is likewise in response to community needs.

She said the demand for software developers is expected to grow 22% and qualified software developers should bring in companies.

“This is an ‘if you build it they will come’ type of job,” Northrup told the board in December. “This is a real initiative from K-12. This could be for people who want to get into the computer industry but don’t want to do math for computer science, which is calc/ This is just college algebra and statistics. It’s targeted toward people who want to find solutions to problems, rather than full on computer science.”

The associate degree will be offered in most if not all of the community colleges in the state, as students in each college working on the program will be part of a cohort, all striving to then finish the final two years of a bachelor’s degree at the University of Wyoming.

“It’s an interesting hybrid model, as any student in any college belong to same cohort,” Watson said during her address. “There’s a lot of need for software development folks out there. Theres a big need for it and I'm excited about it.”

This program does require some extra hands, Northrup said, including a STEM professor position that the college was already planning to fill.