WASC accreditation allows NMC and its students to apply for federal funding assistance. It also allows other accredited institutions in the U.S. to accept the credits earned at NMC by transferring CNMI students.
NMC President Carmen Fernandez told the members of the joint House and Senate Committee on Health, Education and Welfare yesterday there are only two possibilities in January — WASC will reaffirm NMC’s accreditation or terminate it.
She expressed confidence that NMC will be able to convince WASC that it’s worthy of accreditation but added that more work is to be done.
Next week, WASC is sending a three-man team to determine whether NMC has complied with the commission’s recommendations.
“They will ascertain if we had done what we claimed we did. This visit is absolutely crucial. This will determine the destiny of the college,” Fernandez told lawmakers.
In December, NMC must submit a supplemental report to WASC.
“We should make a case that we are ready to be affirmed,” Fernandez said.
27 years and counting
NMC marked its 27 years of existence this year. It started with about 172 students in the fall of 1983 or two years after it was established.
In the years that followed, NMC saw a dramatic increase in student enrollment — reaching to over 1,000 on Saipan alone — as more students prefer to take up their first two years of college here due to economic considerations.
WASC first granted NMC an initial accreditation in 1985 and reaffirmed it in 1990, 1996 and in 2001.
In 2001, NMC became the first community college in the Western Pacific Region to have been granted an accreditation to offer a full baccalaureate degree program in elementary education.
Students from neighboring islands like Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, Yap, the Marshall Islands and Palau who wished to become teachers began enrolling at NMC.
But in 2005, WASC expressed concerns about the college’s financial situation and programs.
Two years later, WASC placed NMC’s accreditation under probation.
Early this year, WASC told NMC to show cause why its accreditation should not be rescinded.
Rep. Ramon A. Tebuteb, R-Saipan, who studied at NMC before moving to the University of Guam, said he is saddened by the situation of the CNMI’s only public college.
“We have to exert all efforts to assist the college. We are saddened by this but we should not be pointing fingers on whose fault it was,” Tebuteb told the Variety.
Tebuteb said he was forced to go to UOG because back then there were very few courses offered at NMC.
Rep. Diego T. Benavente, R-Saipan and the chairman of the House Committee on U.S. and Federal Relations, said the CNMI community must “save the college.”
“We hope that the commission would reaffirm NMC’s accreditation. Save the college. It’s our only college here,” he said.
Benavente studied engineering in the U.S. because at the time, NMC wasn’t established yet.
“Thirty years ago, NMC wasn’t around,” he said.
Contingency plans
Although she’s confident that NMC will meet WASC’s requirements, Fernandez said her management team has devised a “closure plan” in the worst case scenario.
This will include offering a “teach-out” policy to graduating students which should entitle them to finish their associate degree for a semester.
Transferring students to other nearby colleges in the region will also be an option.
Guam Community College will be tapped to secure all student records until such time that NMC is able to re-open.
“It that was to happen [NMC’s shutdown], we would certainly mobilize all the support that we will get,” Fernandez told the lawmakers.
NMC’s board of regents approved an over $3 million budget for the college’s operations this fiscal year 2009.
NMC is entitled to supplemental budget from the central government but with revenue down, it has suffered huge cuts.
Fernandez said if any of the House or the Senate’s proposed appropriations for NMC is passed into law, certain programs like the vocational education, nursing, and business department, will be negatively affected.
As of 2006, NMC was offering 17 associate degree programs, 18 certificate of achievement programs, 18 certificate of completion programs, and a bachelor’s degree in elementary education.
