By Moneth G. Deposa
Variety News Staff

A CALIFORNIA-BASED investor yesterday disclosed her plan to open a post-secondary nursing school on island that will complement Northern Marianas College’s nursing program and provide employment opportunities for local citizens in the medical profession.
Sedy Demesa, executive vice president of the Pleasant Care, met yesterday with Gov. Benigno R. Fitial, lawmakers and officials of Northern Marianas College, the Public School System and the Board of Education.
“Our group is planning to establish a private medical center and a nursing school here…and this will probably happen in March or May as the curriculum has been approved by the nursing board and we are just awaiting the approval of the NMC board of regents,” Demesa told Variety.
Emmanuel College, Demesa said, will provide healthcare and healthcare-related courses to students from the CNMI and the Asia Pacific region.
The licensed vocational nursing courses that will be provided by the college are based on a curriculum approved by the California Board of Private Post-Secondary and Vocational Education and the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians.
“Emmanuel College believes that nursing education should involve the integration of professional content and humanistic value system manifested in each course,” Demesa said. “It will provide the 3 C’s of nursing education — caring, compassionate and committed,” Demesa said.
She said it is the CNMI’s strategic location that can help make Saipan the center of education in the Asia Pacific region.
“It is the college’s objective to bring American education closer to the Asia Pacific region which will, in turn, bring in a new community of visitors — international students mostly from around Asia,” Demesa said, adding that the nursing course can be completed in 11 months which is “short but comprehensive enough to save the students time and money in acquiring a license to practice in the nursing field.”
One full-scholarship will be provided to a local student for every 10 foreign nursing students that enroll at Emmanuel College.
Demesa said graduates from Emmanuel may take an associate degree in nursing from NMC.
Their students will pay their own tuition and other related fees, she added.
Classes will be held at the Pacific Towers Hotel — the former Koreana Hotel — in Chalan Kanoa.
Clinical training will be conducted at the Commonwealth Health Center, doctor’s clinics, home health agencies and the CNMI Aging Center.
Demesa said faculty will include CNMI and U.S.-registered nurses as well as guest lecturers from the U.S.