Before the board meets this afternoon, its personnel committee will review the self-evaluation and the input from the college community.
The board is scheduled to convene at 4:30 p.m., after the personnel committee meeting at 2:30 p.m.
“An action will be taken tomorrow,” NMC Chairman Charles V. Cepeda said yesterday.
He said the board will not wait for the decision of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges/Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges regarding NMC’s accreditation.
WASC-ACCJC is expected to announce its decision next month.
“If we have to wait for the WASC decision, the college will have no president until June,” Cepeda said.
NMC Faculty Senate President Frank Sobolewski, in a separate interview, said the board may decide to temporarily extend Fernandez’s contract until the WASC announcement.
“We can’t fully evaluate the performance on accreditation until we get the decision from WASC,” he said. “They may feel we need that to make a full determination of the president’s performance — that’s a possibility.”
Soboleswki, an honorary member of the board of regents and a critic of Fernandez, said he doesn’t want to predict the board’s decision.
He said faculty members polled regarding Fernandez’s accreditation work were split in their evaluation.
Of the 54 evaluation forms recently passed out to instructional and non-instructional faculty, only 29 submitted responses which were both favorable and unfavorable to Fernandez, he added.
Ivan Mereb, Associated Students of NMC president, said nearly a hundred students gave Fernandez a passing mark in a survey that focused on her efforts to get the college’s accreditation reaffirmed.
The evaluation showed that all respondents were satisfied with her performance in getting NMC re-accredited, Mereb said.
