NORTHERN MARIANAS COLLEGE

Contents

Overview and history

NMC graduates

Challenges

Dwindling finances and program issues

Leadership and accreditation issues

Buildings

Academic departments

External Links

See also

Overview and history

'Northern Marianas College' ('NMC'), is a two-year community college located in the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). The college was founded in 1981 by Agnes McPheteres in a renovated former United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands hospital on Saipan where its main campus remains to this day.[1] NMC today has three campuses located on the islands of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota. The main campus on Saipan lies in the region of Micronesia in the western Pacific, approximately 3500 miles west of Hawaii, 1500 miles south of Japan, and 100 miles north of Guam. NMC is the sole public college within the Commonwealth and is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, though that status was significantly threatened in 2004[2][3] (scroll down to "Marshall Islands, CNMI" section of source). Although NMC is a two-year college, it also grants bachelor's degrees through its School of Education. The average class size at NMC is around 15 students, though enrollment officials seek to fill most classes to the official cap of 25.
In addition to its mandate embodied in the Northern Mariana Islands Territory Constitution to provide higher education to CNMI citizens, NMC seeks to attract Asian students who wish to learn English as a Second Language (ESL).[4] The Northern Marianas Islands is the closest United States territory to many Asian countries. International students are not required to apply for a student visa with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, since the CNMI controls its own immigration and labor laws locally, not without controversy (see George Miller (politician) [5]); NMC assists students in obtaining student visas from the CNMI government and there is no entrance examination requirement at NMC for students taking ESL. The majority of island English-speaking residents and student English-speakers at NMC do not speak standard American English (also see Standard English),[6] [7] though most instructors at the college do and are from the U.S. mainland.

NMC graduates

NMC students who pursue education higher than an associate's degree usually attend the University of Guam or the University of Hawaii. Some transfer to the U.S. mainland, while most who forego further education and have "local" status or US. citizenship attempt to enter jobs within predominantly the CNMI public sector.

Challenges

Dwindling finances and program issues

Along with the CNMI's current economic recession, the college has faced severe budget cuts beginning in 2006. [8] The normal 2006 Summer II term was canceled altogether.[9] Tuition was raised by 31 percent beginning in the Fall 2006 term [10] and student enrollment dipped by nearly the same amount.
In September 2006, the salaries and length of work-weeks of most employees at the college were recently cut by 10 percent.[11]
During that same month, NMC's U.S. $277,000 United States Department of Education Adult Basic Education grant was transferred over to the CNMI Public School System. [12] The college's film school was closed in 2005 and its nursing program has been continually plagued with problems. [13]
[14]
[15]
[16] On August 07, 2007, the nursing program's acting chair stated she was leaving on Aug. 18, with no replacement in sight and faculty numbers down to three, with only one adjunct teacher for the program's 30 students in the fall.[17]

Leadership and accreditation issues

In addition, a bill that would have required higher education credentials of all members of the college's governing board and that the college president hold an earned doctorate [18] was withdrawn in May 2006 from the CNMI legislature. [19]
During a October 2006 visit by WASC, the WASC lead official "noted that although NMC committed to do so 16 years ago, the college still has not established a process for regular program review and assessment". The same official stated that WASC was "deeply disappointed" that NMC had not made significant progress in doing so. [20] In December 2006, WASC stated that NMC's accreditation was "at serious risk" because it lacked qualified administrative leadership.[21]
The February 5, 2007, ''Saipan Tribune'', and later the May 18, 2007 edition of the ''Chronicle of Higher Education'', reported that WASC placed NMC on probation until June 2008. Handed down by the senior-college commission, as well as by the association's community-college commission, their statement said it was concerned with "inadequate and unstable administrative leadership, inadequate faculty and staff, cuts in public funding, inadequate planning and resource allocation," and "serious deficiencies in the quality of education and services offered to students at off-campus sites, as well as the continuing failure to institutionalize program review, systematically assess student learning," or develop programs to meet the needs of the local labor market. The commission was also concerned about what it saw as the lack of experience of the college's governing board, financial instability, drops in enrollment, and poor completion rates, and the institution's lack of autonomy from the government of the Northern Marianas Islands, a commonwealth affiliated with the United States.
Danny O. Wyatt, Acting President of the college, replied that the "probation sanction was handed down because of an accumulation of organizational problems going back as far as 1990." He stated that the college has suffered from a lack of leadership and that past institutional promises to WASC to improve the institution after being placed on warning status simply were not carried out. The accreditor got "sick and tired of the excuses," according to Wyatt.

Buildings

In May 2007, the CNMI Governor signed House Bill 15-222 into law (Public Law No. 15-58) authorizing NMC to secure a $250,000 loan to repair and renovate its dilapidated buildings and classrooms.[22]

Academic departments

Northern Marianas College offers degrees and certificate programs from seven departments:

★ Business

★ Human Performance and Athletics

★ Languages and Humanities

★ Nursing

★ School of Education (four-year program)

★ Sciences, Mathematics and Vocational Education

★ Social Sciences and Fine Arts

External Links

★ Official website

★ Weekly official updates from the NMC President's office

See also