BRUCE Johnson has been in the Pacific for several years. Seven years ago, he arrived on Saipan and found himself a job at the island’s community college as a language instructor.
Since then, he has never left Saipan, and Northern Marianas College has been his second home.
In his first three years, he was an instructor at NMC’s languages, literature and communication department.
For the next two years, he was appointed chair of the department.
Since last year, Johnson has been working as NMC’s instruction dean, overseeing seven departments—languages, literature and communication; sciences and mathematics; business, hospitality and computer technology; social sciences, fine arts and humanities; health, physical education and athletics; nursing; and vocational education and special projects.
“I’m very lucky that we have a lot of talented people in instruction. They handle most of the headaches in their level,” Johnson said in an interview.
As dean of the instruction, Johnson intends to give the best service he could offer to the students and the community as a whole.
“We’re committed to stay on the top. We’re continually evaluating ourselves to ensure we’re providing our students and the community the academic skills that they need,” Johnson said.
He said his office plans to expand further its academic programs to include courses that would bring greater benefits to students.
For one, he said, NMC aims to offer Spanish in fall and possibly other European languages in the near future.
“We want to expand our languages program. Spanish is a major consideration since it’s more transferable for those who want to transfer to a four-year university. Spanish is generally accepted or credited as a foreign language,” he said.
NMC currently offers Japanese, Chamorro, Carolinian, English and American sign language.
NMC also plans to offer an entirely new course, natural resource management, to equip people who want to specialize primarily in agriculture.
“It will be a kind of land management agriculture type of class focusing on the science of agriculture,” he said.
This program will be placed under the sciences and mathematics department.
It would complement the NMC’s Cooperation, Research, Extension and Education Services projects.
For nursing, NMC aims to develop a program that would allow foreign nurses to do review classes at the college in order to pass the U.S. licensing examination.
“This program is for nurses. They can study here to pass the exam,” he said.
For the health and P.E. department, Johnson said, the college plans to add a second level to the existing college gymnasium “to make it become more profitable to the community.”
For the humanities department, NMC has added a broader history course, covering the history of Micronesia region.
“This is not just about the Marianas, but also about the whole Micronesia,” he said.
The department is also offering new humanities seminars to students.
NMC’s grandest plan is the construction of a new complex that would house more classrooms, faculty offices, conference rooms and lounges.
Also on NMC’s wish list is the development of a bigger library and the construction of a campus hotel for its hospitality program.
“We have all these big plans, but the big thing that we wish for is the availability of capital improvement projects funding,” he said.
For the last seven years, he said, he observed that people working at the college “are proud to have been here.”
“I’ve seen a lot of development. I hope to see more development taking place in the college to ensure we can really adequately address the community’s needs,” he said.
Prior to Saipan, Johnson lived in Pohnpei for a number of years. He also lived for a short time in Sweden.
“That’s the time when I became fluent in Swedish,” he said.
A lover of languages, Johnson had studied French, Farsi (the language in Iran), Pohnpeian and Indonesian.
He finds it “more comfortable” to speak Swedish.
Johnson is originally from New York, where he took his bachelor’s degree. He later moved to California, then to Hawaii, where he got his master’s degree in linguistics.
“I’ve been through places, big modern places, but I enjoy most a life in the tropics,” Johnson said.
