NMC cites accreditation perks

By obtaining a renewed maximum accreditation term, the Northern Marianas College is expected to tread the next six years with a duly-earned capacity to apply for an unlimited number of federal grants and offer to its students college credits that are transferable to other institutions.

NMC President Jack Sablan yesterday enumerated the set of perks that go with the territory of securing a reaffirmed license to offer two-year programs at CNMI’s lone postsecondary institution.

The college’s reaffirmed accreditation status was validated by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges Western Association of Schools and Colleges last week based on NMC’s self study and the three-day WASC comprehensive evaluation conducted last October 2000.

In addition, NMC students will also have fair chances of securing federal financial aids to support their education.

“Another vital point is that the college has met the standards imposed upon all colleges that are associated with our size and the kinds of programs that we offer. We’ve met the standards set for these institutions,” said Mr. Sablan, who officially announced NMC’s reaffirmed accreditation status in a press conference.

“These are four critical areas. It is so important to maintain a good accreditation status with the commission,” he added.

The college president expressed confidence that with the great number of commendations NMC has received from the accrediting commission, students can feel confident that they are attending an institution that has met WASC’s high standards among other educational entities in the Pacific.

“When they come here to take classes, they can feel confident that their credits are transferable. We hope that with this reaffirmed status, it will boost our student enrollment,” said Mr. Sablan.

Complying with the accreditation requirement, NMC has started work on its Focused Midterm Report based on three specified recommendations cited by the WASC visiting committee.

According to NMC Accreditation Liaison for the Junior Commission Dr. Barbra Moir, the task of completing a midterm report is not a small undertaking.

“It’s an extensive, comprehensive look at what the college is doing, so it’s almost the same as a self study, except that it looks specifically at recommendations that were made by the visiting when they were here on October. We have already prepared and done the research, the self-examination, the writing to be developed into a report for WASC,” said Dr. Moir.

The midterm requirement is due on 2003.

All institutions vying for accreditation are required to file a Focused Midterm Report in the third year after each comprehensive evaluation, to indicate progress toward meeting the evaluation team’s recommendations and forecast where the college expects to be by the next comprehensive evaluation.

Under its evaluation report, the WASC team listed top three recommendations which are required to appear as subjects in the Focused Midterm Report.

First, it is recommended that the college integrate its program evaluation efforts, institutional effectiveness assessment, and strategic planning implementation processes with its methods for resource allocation and distribution.

Second, the college should direct sufficient resources to its institutional effectiveness efforts in order to built its capacity to collect, analyze and use information for effective institutional decision-making.

And third, NMC should institutionalize an integrated, systematic process for evaluating program effectiveness.