OFFICIALS of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education or WICHE are on island to meet with the leadership of Northern Marianas College.
On Monday, WICHE President Demaree Michelau and Vice President Patrick Lane joined college officials led by NMC President Galvin Deleon Guerrero, Ed.D and Vice President for Administration and Advancement Frankie Eliptico in a media conference at NMC.
With Michelau and Lane were University of Hawaii President and WICHE Immediate Past Chair David Lassner, WICHE Commission Chair Matt Freeman and Vice Chair Antwan Jefferson.
It was the first time that the commission’s top officials have visited NMC, Deleon Guerrero said.
With the enactment of Public Law 17-78, the CNMI became the first U.S. Pacific territory to join WICHE in August 2012. Guam followed suit in 2016, and then the U.S.-affiliated island nations of Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia in the last couple years. They now form the “Micronesian bloc” on the commission, said Eliptico, who is also a WICHE commissioner.
Deleon Guerrero said NMC pursued WICHE membership for many reasons. The commission, he noted, offers tuition fee discounts for students from member-states so CNMI students who want to go to U.S. universities and colleges don’t have to pay out-of-state tuition fees.
He said NMC’s partnership with WICHE has resulted in total savings of $1.51 million in academic year 2022 alone, through the commission’s student access programs.
Deleon Guerrero said WICHE has also been a powerful advocate and ally of NMC during recovery from typhoons and the Covid-19 pandemic.
In addition, Deleon Guerrero said WICHE has advocated the inclusion of territories like the CNMI in important pieces of federal legislation.
Through WICHE’s advocacy, he said, “we in the Western Pacific are not forgotten and we are very appreciative of that.”
Michelau, for her part, thanked the NMC officials for the opportunity to visit and talk about programs and partnerships.
“It’s an honor to be able to see the island and hear about the great things that you are doing here at NMC,” she said, adding that they were “astounded” by the college’s “great work.”
She expressed hope that during their visit they can come up with other ways to expand opportunities for NMC students.
She said WICHE has been in existence since 1953, when the Western states formed the organization.
She also said WICHE is a partnership of states and territories that aims to increase access and opportunities to their students, “and it’s really important for us that the Pacific is part of that partnership,” she added.
Eliptico, who worked with CNMI lawmakers in drafting P.L. 17-78, said: “Of course we want all of our students graduating from high school to come to NMC, but we…also want to make sure they’re taking advantage of many other universities and colleges that are out there. And we saw that many of them are going to schools in the Western states. So we wanted to make sure that they were given an opportunity to save some money and make sure that the scholarship money they were given [was] going farther.”
He said before the Commonwealth became a WICHE member, CNMI students in the states had to pay out-of-state tuition fees.
Since many educational institutions are part of WICHE’s programs, the CNMI’s membership allowed its students to “stretch their scholarship funds,” he added.
“WICHE membership really does complement the range of offerings at NMC. Because we cannot be everything to everybody, we want to make sure that students are accessing programs that…we may not have. That’s why WICHE membership is very critical to us,” Eliptico said.
From left, Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education Vice President Patrick Lane, Northern Marianas College Vice President for Administration and Advancement Frankie Eliptico, WICHE President Demaree Michelau, WICHE Chair Matt Freeman, WICHE Immediate Past Chair David Lassner and NMC President Galvin Deleon Guerrero, Ed.D. pose for a photo after the press conference in the NMC Board of Regents conference room on Monday.