Issues and ideas for NMC board consideration

[B]By OSCAR C. RASA[/B] [I]Special to the Saipan Tribune[/I] [I]Editor’s Note: The following is the text of a presentation the author gave to the Northern Marianas College Board of Regents on May 20, 2011.[/I] [B][I]Last of a two-part series[/I][/B] [B]- Board members need to be mentored to better understand the nature of higher education, which is distinctly different from government, business or the military.[/B]

The president’s role is to help individual board members understand the issue in the context of an educational institution. Presidents need to present information in a clear and concise way, which includes comparative date from other institutions so that a context can be developed. NMC has not yet identified peer and aspirant institutions for comparison, which does not help the board better understand data and key assessment information.

[B][U]ISSUE 3: Governance[/U][/B] [B]- Unfortunately at NMC, there is a core of voting administrative member who are appointed to governance committees and appear to control all aspects of the institution.[/B]

The seemingly incestuous appointment of a core administrator to the entire governance structure does not promulgate good decisions because it severely limits the intellectual capital that is brought to decision-making. Good decisions involve all stakeholders. Discussions of opposing viewpoints bring new considerations to the discussion. It also allows for full ownership and support of a decision instead of an “us versus them” dichotomy. Effectively governed institutions have a balance between centralized and decentralized administrations.

[B]- Faculty members should control academics to support program advocacy, quality curriculum, and faculty retention but do not have the proper governance structure.[/B]

The longstanding and universally accepted Statement of Government of Colleges and Universities describes the president’s leadership role as “supported by delegated authority from the board and the faculty. That carefully stated proclamation supports the principles of effective governance by describing the power in an institution comes from two sources, the board and the faculty. The board provides strategic direction and ultimate accountability for the institution and the faculties provide the expertise and instruction to students. The president manages the system in between, supporting both the board and faculty and listening to student’s concerns. This arrangement means that faculty needs to have control of curricular matters. Faculty ownership of the curriculum also supports program advocacy, quality curriculum, and faculty retention. Unfortunately at NMC, instructional faculty is poorly represented as a group. The NMC Academic Senate includes numerous administrators and is chaired by the academic dean. The curricular business is conducted by the chairs—not the faculty. Resolving this would be to put faculty in charge of programs and use the academic dean and president only as intermediaries to ensure resources and strategic goals align with faculty recommendations. As the final accountability body, the board would provide the final approval for programmatic decisions recommend through the president.

[B][U]ISSUE 4: Communication and partnership[/U][/B] [B]- Open, ongoing, and substantive communications are not the standard at NMC. The infelicitous joke on campus is that we will read about it in the paper the next day.[/B]

Communication is as critical in higher education as in business, government, and other sectors. At NMC, the timing of communications is abysmal. As an example, a notice was read during finals week on the topic of the accreditation status of NMC. This is reacting to students and faculty leaving because of uncertainty over programs. Ongoing communication would have easily prevented this from occurring at NMC. However, students and faculty did not receive the needed information back when personal decisions were being made for the next year. A well-designed web page would have gone a long way to help get the word out. “With-it-ness” is an educational term for knowing what is going around you at all time and participating what will happen next. The opposite is “reactiveness”; this term would better describe NMC. Reacting to the accrediting agencies and adverse campus situations instead of effective preplanning is time consuming and leads to poor decisions. To be honest, accreditation agencies are not out to get an institution. They do, however, want to have regular communication, especially if there is a negative situation occurring. NMC may have avoided the current “show-cause” through ongoing communication and seeking WASC’s help early before things got out of hand.

[B]- Opportunities for grant partnerships, poor interagency collaboration, entrepreneurial vacuity, and constant turnover of faculty is severely limiting the potential that NMC could have on offsetting the economic, environmental, and social problems on the islands.[/B]

Communication with the community is also an important aspect of a community college’s mission. Missed opportunities for partnerships on grant opportunities, lack of interagency collaboration in many areas, entrepreneurial vacuity, and the constant turnover of faculty due to hiring and retention practices is severely limiting the potential that NMC could have on offsetting the economic, environmental, and social problems on the islands. Sharing expertise with the Commonwealth not only is in the public good but also goes a long way toward developing economic partnerships and recruiting students. Community colleges should be the primary driver of future economic development. Being an autonomous agency does not mean that a college cannot support its own government and community.

[B][U]ISSUE 5: Professionalism[/U][/B] [B]- Chronically starting meeting late, lax dress code, and smoking on campus portray the message that institutional leaders are not to be taking seriously.[/B]

There appears to be a lack of professionalism with select individuals. Chronically starting meetings late and dress codes are examples. People fully understand that formal business attire is impractical in the CNMI but when institutional leaders come to work in jeans or shorts and sandals, are not timely, and senior leaders are seen smoking on campus outside the president’s office, it portrays a message to the students and public that we are not to be taken seriously. Direct correlation is difficult to establish but this situation appears to show up in lack of seriousness for academics by the students who also smoke on campus and are late for class. NMC is educating the future professionals of the island and good professional practice needs to be modeled.

[B]- A lack of professionalism related to financial and property controls is widespread. Control of finances is used as a power source and not a way to support college operations.[/B]

Although it appears to be improving, there continues to be a lack of financial and property controls. Participants at a procurement workshop were recently informed that a comprehensive inventory had never been done at NMC until this year, and that substantial equipment is missing. Chairs and directors can attest to the fact that finances are in disarray. Purchase orders not paid from years ago are still surfacing with no explanation of why things were not paid, or where the appropriated money was spent. The quintessential example cited is that the heavily funded human services program never graduated a student but provided equipment for administrators campuswide to include the president. Although the program has now transferred to the SOE, they do not have the bulk of the equipment and are still paying past due bills. This is just one example of “failing to plan for the end” and is a pitfall that budget managers need to prevent.

[I]Oscar C. Rasa is credentialed by the California Community Colleges as a community college chief administrative officer (valid for life) that authorizes him to serve as a president of a community college or superintendent of a district. He is also credentialed by the same institution to be a community college supervisor. He also holds two lifetime instructor credentials in the areas of governance and public services and administration. Rasa earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Guam.[/I]