“The college took the commission’s action letter and its accreditation responsibilities very seriously and was focusing and prioritizing its work to comply with the accreditation standards,” the WASC team’s evaluation report said.
The team headed by Dr. Sherrill L. Amador said NMC’s physical appearance has improved, specifically the entrance road which has already been paved. Buildings were painted, and many rooms refurbished, the team noted.
After Nov. 2008 when Amador and her team visited NMC, they came up with the evaluation of the college’s work to resolve Recommendations 1 and 2 of the Oct. 2006 evaluation visit.
The evaluation was also based on the commission’s requirement that it resolved its 2007 year audit findings as requested in ACCJC-WASC president Barbara Beno’s action letter of June 30, 2008.
NMC failed to comply with recommendations 1 and 2 which required the college to have linking planning, program review, and resource allocation; and institutionalize a systematic, evidence-based process for evaluation program effectiveness.
In its findings and analysis of NMC’s efforts to comply with recommendation 1, the team said the college completed several planning and program review activities in a short period of time.
“In many instances planning and actions were occurring almost simultaneously to meet the college’s self-imposed schedule to comply with this accreditation recommendation and visit,” the evaluation report added.
The team said what remained to be completed were the evaluation of the process and the results of the planned actions.
At the time of the visit, NMC had just begun to reflect on the planning activities that occurred in the past few months and recognized that the next steps were evaluation of the process and of the outcomes to be achieved, the team stated.
It added that the college has completed a schematic of its planning and budgeting process model.
NMC, moreover, finished the first phase of its integrated planning by determining resource allocations based on plans.
For recommendation 2, the team was able to verify that NMC has developed and implemented a comprehensive program review.
The team said NMC’s review program is standardized, based on information and data available, and used for the purposes of program improvement, planning and budgeting.
But the team also noted that the program review and the student learning outcomes processes were very complex and intensive and the college community needs to evaluate the processes, and especially the outcomes achieved to date, to determine future revisions and enhancements.
In its conclusion, the team said NMC partially implemented recommendation 2, adding that the college “appears to understand it needs to step back and determine what was accomplished in the first cycle, and then it should evaluate the outcomes using agreed upon criteria and begin the next annual cycle.”
