We Hart U

Were I the entrepreneurial type, I might get bumper stickers and T-shirts printed with our title, along with a picture of a luscious very red apple in the shape of a heart next to Hart. Not patenting the idea, so enterprising ones out there, go ahead. Could be commercially viable.

Sharon Hart commends herself to us in several fronts. First, she is professionally a competent woman, and our being a strong proponent of Nu ren ban bian tian (Women hold half of the sky!), shattering of the imaginal glass ceiling that retains the entrenched patriarchal perspective in executive offices is high on our list. Her thesis at U of Illinois was on the status of women employment on non-traditional careers. Good enough.

Second, she was a Fullbright scholar doing research with Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (Vadodara) in Gujarat, a State of India north of Maharashtra (we spent a lifetime in a few moons there late ’70s) and south of Pakistan. The University is the only one that conducts its instructions in English in the whole State, and Hart’s stint would have been as educational to her as it was challenging to her colleagues.

Third is her avowed interest in democratic governance in education and, given our island’s propensity to rule by decree even in the clash of power positions, e.g., we surmise to be the case in the PSS Sablan v. Garrison brouhaha, a proponent of democratic governance could only be a welcome treasure chest of methodology that may just influence the archaic structures of central command posts.

Three impressions and we haven’t met the lady yet. We deign to be presumptive.

We do know that NMC sits in a choice position as the only public institution of higher learning in the CNMI, a land grant institution ran like a community college by virtue of size of resources and clientele, though a four-year bachelor’s program in education is in place. 

NMC has been used as a whipping boy by the Legislature who looks at it as a fat hog of nonproductive value but whose appetite for financial assets is sheer pork, while the Chamber of Commerce thinks it should be fine-tuned vocationally to meet the needs of local businesses. Add to that the fact that a majority of the students allegedly require special accommodations of some form or another, and we have a college that is perceived as mostly a dumping ground for those who are not accepted by off-island institutions, and home to newly arrived immigrants needing to polish language proficiency and rapid acculturation to qualify and operate here or elsewhere.

The low institutional self-esteem is also a result of the island’s tutelage in the art of running program grants under one administrative umbrella, creating fiefdoms and resulting in feudal wars in the absence of a genuine overarching vision, mission, and authentic sets of strategies. Thus, the ethos from Capital Hill to As Terlaje is to be proficient in grant writing so that we can put together a hodgepodge of programs and projects under the NMC logo.

Not that the above description is a particular monopoly of the CNMI as I am sure Sharon (she’s called Dr. and/or President Hart enough that she might find it refreshing to be acknowledged more as a person rather than simply a professional role) knows through the various educational engagements that paper her trail. NMC does face the challenge of affecting a radical paradigm shift more than a facial makeover to get her on track to the cutting edge of contemporary pedagogy rather than as a wayside inn for personnel in transit, teachers and students on holdover, who are headed elsewhere.

We do not presume to tell Sharon Hart how to do her job. We do recognize the various players in place and it might not be a bad idea to return to pedagogy as the primary business of the institution. The Faculty Senate may focus on “how we teach” since “what we teach” is subject for research and development rather than done-deal object rammed down people’s heads; the student body reflect “what and how we learn,” running through the whole gamut of objective experiences, reflected expressed feelings, articulated interpretive thoughts, and decisional sets of actions to further the learning process.

College is where colleagues (all learners) gather with open minds to confer in their diversity with big hearts to accept the common and the marvelous, not a factory line where students are manufactured into uniform clerks and cubicle denizens.

The Board of Regents would do guardianship role, and administration facilitates and ensures efficient and effective implementation.  Consensus would be retained at the level of doing, not on monitoring congruent ideas and similar thoughts.

The Legislature can retain contextual discord, dissonance and dissensus functions to further enhance diversity of opinions, but still realizing that allocation of funds and resources remain as their major responsibility.

Ah, but we are spouting opinions without being asked.  So we will stop and I’m sure my media colleagues will keep their pens alert as Sharon Hart gives flesh to the dreams that make NMC a “smart” place in the island. And yes, we do Hart U!