Starting in the fall of 2021, which is in August, more than 70% of the Northern Marianas College\u2019s classes will already be face-to-face, but interim president Frankie Eliptico acknowledged yesterday that NMC will no longer attain 100% of that format.<\/p>\n
Speaking about NMC\u2019s budget at a public hearing before the House of Representatives\u2019 Committee on Ways and Means, Eliptico said the 100% face-to-face modality is no longer feasible because they\u2019ve learned during the pandemic that many students prefer online classes.<\/p>\n
The interim president said these students are thriving and succeeding in an online environment because it afforded them the opportunity to continue their jobs and all the other obligations that they have to meet without having to attend classes in person. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo we wanted to stress that we\u2019re not going back, the college is not going back to pre-pandemic levels. That world will no longer exist for us,\u201d Eliptico said.<\/p>\n
He said their focus now is how the college is adapting\u2014just like all the other colleges and universities in how they are using the pandemic to maximize learning and continue the integrity of the classes, even amid the pandemic and after the pandemic. \u201cIt\u2019s \u2018What did we learn in the pandemic, and how are we moving forward,\u2019\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
In the meantime, Eliptico said, they still welcome students on campus as they\u2019re having face-to-face student activities. He said they are making sure, however, that they are enforcing COVID-19 restrictions, including asking students to stay home when they\u2019re sick, keeping their distance, using face masks on campus and many other improvements to the NMC facility. <\/p>\n
Eliptico also stated that despite super typhoons Soudelor and Yutu and COVID-19, their enrollment numbers continue to be strong. \u201cWe do continue to have degree programs and bachelor\u2019s and associate\u2019s levels in various areas, including business management, nursing, business administration with various emphasis, including accounting, business management, computer application, and others in high demand here, including nursing,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Eliptico said a number of graduates at the college continues to increase and that the latest figures that they have is approximately 250 students or 250 were degrees conferred. \u201cSo we remain strong,\u201d he said, noting that they have over 100% increase in enrollment from about 10 years ago. <\/p>\n
He said more and more students are looking to NMC for their professional growth and development. In fact, despite the pandemic, typhoons, or no matter what the disaster is, they\u2019ve been able to continue a strong enrollment, Eliptico said. He attributed this to their strong relationship with the Public School System and the expansion of programs at NMC. <\/p>\n
Also, despite the pandemic, NMC did not cancel any programs. \u201cWe did not postpone any programs. We continued on an online environment and when it was safe to do so, we were starting to peel back some of the restrictions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The interim president said many of their classes are now using a face-to-face format.<\/p>\n
When Saipan Tribune left the hearing yesterday afternoon, some NMC officials were still testifying. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Starting in the fall of 2021, which is in August, more than 70% of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":340763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[69],"class_list":["post-345416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-nmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}