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Verdict on NMC accreditation to be issued within this week
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Posted on Jan 17 2005
Northern Marianas College officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the Accrediting Commission of Community and Junior Colleges had considered NMC’s efforts to improve its financial standing and get its accreditation off warning status.
In an interview yesterday, NMC president Tony Deleon Guerrero said he had yet to hear about the outcome of the accrediting commission’s meeting held from Jan. 12 to 14.
Included in the meeting agenda was NMC’s accreditation, which has been on warning status since last year.
Citing the time difference and the observance of Martin Luther King Day, Deleon Guerrero said he does not expect to be able to reach the California-based commission until Wednesday, Saipan time.
Nevertheless, he expressed hope that the commission considered NMC’s move to rid itself of obligations over the La Fiesta shopping mall, which has been a major concern for the accrediting body.
“We sent information to them immediately after the memorandum signing the other Friday,” Deleon Guerrero said. He was referring to an agreement signed between Gov. Juan N. Babauta and the NMC Board of Regents for the transfer of La Fiesta to the CNMI Executive Branch.
The ACCJC placed NMC’s accreditation on warning status in January 2004, due to the college’s failure to correct finance-related problems and inability to comply with certain accreditation standards.
The ACCJC retained the warning in June, citing concerns over NMC’s lack of resources to maintain two campuses: its existing campus in As Terlaje and La Fiesta.
The Senior College Commission stated the same reason in July, when it issued a warning that put the NMC’s four-year elementary education program—its only baccalaureate program—at risk.
On Sept. 15, 2004, Babauta and the NMC Board of Regents signed a memorandum of agreement to transfer La Fiesta to the Executive Branch.
The agreement was only finalized on Jan. 7, after NMC received the approval of the original sellers—Hotel Nikko Saipan and Coco’s Lagoon Development Inc.—and the Attorney General’s Office.
