‘NMC cannot afford to make any mistakes now’

The Northern Marianas College only has six months left to meet accreditation standards and come into full compliance before it submit its final report on Oct. 15 to the Western Association of Schools and Colleges’ Accrediting Commission of Community and Junior Colleges.

The Oct. 15 report will focus on program review, student learning outcomes, the planning process and a master plan for facilities.

For this purpose, NMC is working on contracting expert consultants to facilitate the college’s processes, provide advice, expertise and guidance to ensure that what NMC is doing is topnotch and will pass the test in terms of Commission approval.

“These consultants are experts in these fields. We have a short time frame and we cannot afford to make any mistakes,” NMC president Dr. Carmen Fernandez said during a meeting Tuesday afternoon with the House Committee on Health, Education, and Welfare.

The consultants, who are expected to arrive within the next two weeks, are those who helped the College of the Marshall Islands and its president, Dr. Wilson Hess, overcome the college’s situation when WASC placed the institution on show-cause.

NMC has set aside a $150,000 grant from the Office of Insular Affairs to help fund the hiring of the consultants.

For the college not to seek the help of these consultants would be “very, very difficult,” Fernandez said.

“We do have a director of Institutional Effectiveness but bear in mind that we’re all trying to catch up with work for many, many years. The director of Institutional Effectiveness has a tremendous amount of catching up to do, especially in terms of providing the data and reports of the faculty and the need to make be able to make decisions and analysis on the programs. It’s an overwhelming work load,” Fernandez said.

The newly hired director of Institutional Effectiveness, William Castro, left his post as chief planner for the Guam Public School System to serve at NMC.

Castro’s office facilitates and coordinates the collection, analysis and interpretation of institutional data to support assessment and improvement initiatives and to support institutional planning and decision-making.

Their responsibilities include providing statistical descriptions of the institution; assisting with institutional planning processes; lending support to others’ institutional research questions; and consulting with departments and offices about their effectiveness studies.

“We could definitely do all this on our own. We have the capacity and intelligence at the college; however we just don’t have the time. And that is the pressure we are working against,” Fernandez said.

She recounted that two days after she received the WASC letter placing the college on show-cause, she emailed ACCJC president Dr. Barbara Beno for advice and consultation.

“I knew that the time frame was too limited and we don’t have the manpower at the college to turn it around in such a short time. It was also recommended as a good idea to [hire expert consultants]. Dr. Hess could not have turned that college around without the help that he got. We need the external facilitation to be able to expedite our process,” Fernandez said.

NMC is due to submit its final report on Oct. 15, 2008. WASC representatives will pay another visit in November to inspect the college. In January 2009, the accrediting commission will make a decision whether to reaffirm the college’s accreditation or to terminate it.

“Those are the only two options at this point,” Fernandez said.