TRAVERSE CITY, MI - Faculty at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City have voted to join the state's largest teacher's union, a move that supporters say will give faculty a "voice at the table."

"It's not that we want more pay, or because we're not happy with our benefits," said Nancy Gray, chair of NMC's faculty council. "It's that voice at the table that we really want."

The move to unionize with the Michigan Education Association was overwhelmingly approved by faculty, who voted 65-16 in favor of the measure. The vote, conducted by mail, was counted Thursday. The college has about 88 faculty, officials said.

Marguerite Cotto, vice president for lifelong and professional learning at NMC, said it was the college's preference to stay within its "existing governance structures."

But she said administrators will work to build an amicable relationship with the union.

"We will continue forward to make it good," she said. "What ties us all together is the mission, and the passion for the students and the learning experience." "We don't know what this thing is, but we will make it good."

Gray declined to discuss what issues faculty would like a greater say on. But she did say faculty are troubled by their lack of "security."

"We are basically an at-will organization," she said. "We don't have any security. That's what we really want."

Faculty at many, but not all, of Michigan's 28 community colleges are unionized, officials said.

With the election is now over, and both sides say they're ready to work together, the lead up to the vote included at least one contentious moment between faculty and the administration.

A Feb. 20, NMC Human Resources Director Aaron Beach said faculty must not "let someone else decide whether it is worth risking the loss of wages and benefits in collective bargaining by a third-party who does not know you, this College, or our culture."

MEA attorney Ted Iorio likened the email to the typical "propaganda that an employer sometimes puts out."

Cotto said it was not the college's intent to issue a "threatening statement," but rather to clarify possible changes in faculty compensation should contract negotiations commence.

"We've always worked at being vary candid with economic realities, budgets, revenues, etc. It's not an infinite capacity to raise tuition ... to match changing attitudes in compensation," she said.

Cotto acknowledged, however, that compensation was not the driving issue behind faculty's effort to unionize.

Rather, she said, it was the "status and relevancy of their voice as a group relative to the board of trustees" or faculty's sway on college governance committees.

"Clearly, it is a voice that had a pretty common themes of dissatisfaction with the status quo and the desire to have a different presence within the decisions that are made that impact them," Cotto said.

Brian McVicar covers education for MLive and The Grand Rapids Press. Email him at bmcvicar@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter