NMC looking forward to lifting of warning status

The Northern Marianas College is optimistic that its accreditation would be taken off from warning status after NMC submits its progress report to the Western Association of Schools and Colleges next month.

NMC president Antonio Deleon Guerrero said the college plans to submit the report by Oct. 8, or a week ahead of the Oct. 15 deadline. The report would update WASC on the progress that the college has made since April with regards to the accrediting agency’s recommendations.

A three-member team from WASC will visit the college on Oct. 27 and 28 to validate the report.

“I am confident that we will be able to meet WASC’s accreditation standards. WASC’s major concern was the impact of La Fiesta to the financial stability of the college,” Guerrero said. “With the transfer of La Fiesta to the CNMI government, the accrediting commission knows that we can now start being more stable financially as an institution, and that we can now just focus on meeting our mission and providing quality educational programs and services—without having to worry about operating a mall.”

Guerrero, who has just come back from a conference of Pacific postsecondary education officials in Honolulu, said he has informed WASC’s Barbara Beno of the transfer of the La Fiesta mall to the CNMI government. Beno is the executive director of the WASC’s Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges.

“She said it was a brilliant idea. Both the junior and senior commissions are both very pleased that La Fiesta no longer causes any financial burden to the institution, and that we are being assisted by our CNMI government,” Guerrero said.

The college was placed this year on warning status by WASC’s two accrediting commissions—for Junior and Community Colleges and for Senior Colleges and Universities—due to its inability to correct finance-related problems and failure to comply with certain accreditation standards.

WASC’s Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges placed NMC on warning status last January and retained the same status despite NMC’s submission of needed reports last June. It expressed concern over NMC’s purchase of the La Fiesta complex, citing the college’s lack of resources to maintain two campuses.

Early in July this year, WASC’s Senior College Commission issued a warning to NMC for non-compliance with standards, as had been cited by ACCJC.

The SCC’s warning has put the college’s four-year elementary education program—its only baccalaureate program—at risk.

“The Senior College Commission is deeply concerned about the institution’s ongoing capacity and ability to sustain the quality of its academic programs, especially the baccalaureate education program,” said CSCU executive director Ralph A. Wolff in a July 2, 2004, letter.