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NMC explores more funding sources
The Northern Marianas College is looking for other funding opportunities to better serve the college’s vision, mission, and goals to attract and keep students coming to NMC.
NMC president Dr. Sharon Hart said one of the biggest funding opportunities she found during a recent trip to the U.S. mainland is under the U.S Department of Education.
“The U.S DOE has a program called SERV, and it stands for School Emergency Response to Violence. That project is open to any institution that would meet their requirements. It is not a competitive grant because they have set aside money for any institution that would reach their requirements,” Hart said.
Hart also told NMC board members about funding opportunities that the college could avail off to improve majority of their programs.
“They extend the SERV program to the point to allow institutions like us to get funding there. My goal when I visited the U.S. was to start finding funding opportunities,” she said.
Although NMC has lost its only grant writer, Rita Chong, NMC is already seeking to fill the position, she said.
“At the same time, we are strategizing because this is our time to write significant amounts of grants. We have other employees here that will be involved. The SERV grant [will] bring a strong learning environment back to the college,” she said.
Hart noted that they could tap the SERV grant, which can go from $250,000 to over $1 million and can last from 18 to 24 months.
“It is important for us to get moving on these right away,” she said.
The American Council on Education grant is another potential source of funding.
“We are now hoping to get scholarship doors open. They are helping us and those funding will be for students and the facilities,” Hart said.
She said she also talked to several people who could help the college.
“We have given our foundation [the task] to focus on funding opportunities for community colleges and there are other various organizations that we can avail of funding resources,” she said.
