NMC touts new business degree to Chamber members

The Northern Marianas College promoted its new bachelor’s degree in business management to employers of potential students at the Saipan Chamber of Commerce’s general membership meeting yesterday.

According to Chavel Green, department chair of NMC’s business department, the college is offering the program to the islands’ working population who would like to earn a degree in business management.

“We are having classes scheduled more after work. You’ll find most of our classes scheduled after 5 o’clock and on Saturday morning, right through 6 o’clock in the evening. So you in turn won’t have to give [your employees] time off for them to come to classes,” Green told business leaders in the crowd.

With schedules designed to suit the community’s working hours, the college hopes more employers will motivate their employees to sign up for the degree program.

Green also highlighted the degree’s accounting emphasis, which was developed after hearing significant interest from prospective business students who were more interested in studying accounting over management.

In a separate interview, accounting instructor Richard Waldo said that students need no longer go to Guam or Hawaii to study accounting as they can attend the college here.

He believes this is a step toward helping students become certified public accountants.

According to him, one only needs 24 credits to take the Uniform CPA exam, an amount that the college offers now.

However, 150 credits are needed to become a CPA, he said, equivalent to a master’s degree.

“Maybe [a master’s degree] is our next goal,” he said.

According to him, Guam is the biggest accounting site for CPAs in the world. He noted that after students complete their business degree with an accounting emphasis on island, they could travel to Guam to take the CPA exam.

He calls the exam the “toughest exam in the world to pass,” but unlike state bar exams required for lawyers—which only allows legal practice within the state the test was taken for—the CPA exam allows for employment nationwide.

Essentially, he said, you could take the exam in Guam and practice in Maryland.

He added that being a CPA is approximately the fifteenth most wanted job in America.

On top of the new degree, Bobbi Merfalen, NMC dean of academic programs and services, introduced the crowd to the college’s development of its prior learning assessment, or PLA.

According to her, PLA is an academic process that awards credits for knowledge gained during a student’s previous job, training, or life experience.

“This fall the college will be having…the BE-200, which is a portfolio development course,” Merfalen said.

She said the course will assist students in putting together a portfolio for evaluation.