Members of the Board of Regents expressed their surprise yesterday when they learned about the planned transfer of the Northern Marianas College archives out of campus, an issue they admitted was not brought to their attention for action.
Regents William Torres and Malua Peter revealed this during the continuation of the board meeting yesterday where they claimed that it was only during Thursday's board meeting that they were made aware of the management's “relocation plan” for the college archives.
Peter admitted that the program committee which she chaired first heard about the “plan” from the “streets” and there was no official information or communication received from NMC president Sharon Y. Hart.
“We [committee members] learned that almost everything is ready to be transferred.and I can say that it wasn't brought to the committee for deliberation,” she told the board during yesterday's meeting on campus.
It was last Thursday when two former archivists of the college-Herbert Del Rosario and John Cook-brought to the attention of the board management's relocation plan for the library archives. Both opposed the planned transfer and appealed to the board during the meeting's public comment.
Torres, for his part, also noticed the board's lack of information from management pertaining to some issues and plans for the institution.
“For some reason, I guess there seems to be more information [we get] out there in the community than here [inside the college],” he said, asking NMC president Hart to submit specific information regarding the disclosed relocation plan for the archives so the board would be properly informed about the issue.
Board of Regents acting chair Elaine Orilla emphasized yesterday that the “board has not taken a position” on this relocation plan and is in the process of still gathering information after this which was just disclosed during the meeting.
The board is the policy-making decision body for NMC and issues like relocation or transfer of some programs at the college need the board's approval.
Hart, meantime, described the issue about the archive relocation plan as mere “information-sharing” within the college community.
“The college does not come forward to the board [for action] . because everything now is only information that we're sharing,” said Hart yesterday.
Saipan Tribune learned that the CNMI Archives has over 500 reels of microfilm pertaining to the CNMI Constitution, the Covenant negotiations, and public laws enacted from 1978 to 2007. The collection also includes 3,000 reels of microfilm from the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands government, records of the Spanish colonial government from 1678 to 1899, and over 139 reels of microfilm courtesy of the Australian Archives pertaining to the military administration of the German New Guinea possessions from 1914 to 1923.
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