He urged NMC President Carmen Fernandez to meet with lawmakers and find solutions to NMC’s growing problems.
The California-based Western Association of Schools and Colleges is scheduled to announce its decision on NMC’s accreditation by April.
NMC’s status was downgraded from full accreditation to show cause after the college failed to show satisfactory improvements in some of its academic and other programs.
If NMC loses its accreditation, the college and its students can no longer be eligible for federal assistance, and the students’ credits cannot be transferred to accredited U.S. schools.
Hofschneider, R-Saipan, said while many of NMC’s problems go back several years, they weren’t addressed properly and have become worse.
“New problems are cropping up, adding to the uncertainty of whether full accreditation will be granted any time soon. Faculty and administrators express a lack of confidence in management’s ability to address these issues in a substantive way, and have real concerns about whether management is functioning in a fair and competent way,” the lawmaker told Fernandez.
He said long-time faculty members have left NMC due to frustration and some others are leaving soon.
“Qualified and experienced faculty [members] have left amid the uncertainty of accreditation and continued employment with the current college administration…. Many are planning to leave if nothing changes at the college. This puts the entire college community at risk,” he said.
NMC is an autonomous government agency governed by the board of regents.
Its funding comes from tuition and from federal and local appropriations.
Local appropriations are mostly spent to pay for the salaries of personnel.
Hofschneider said the CNMI community has made huge investments in NMC and won’t allow it to further deteriorate.
“I and several of my colleagues are interested in finding a solution to these problems and hope that you will find the time to meet and discuss accreditation, college administration and ongoing operations issues in detail,” he told Fernandez.
