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BOE lauds NMC’s success in regaining accreditation
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Posted on Feb 18 2014
Board of Education chair Herman T. Guerrero lauded the Northern Marianas College after it recently regained its accreditation with the Accrediting Commission of Community Junior and Colleges.
Guerrero disclosed plans by the board and the Public School System management to send a joint letter to the college, recognizing the institution and its employees for their hard work in having the college’s accreditation reaffirmed.
“It took our college three years to do it. It’s been a very choppy and bumpy road for NMC and the reaffirmation certainly strengthens their position,” Guerrero told Saipan Tribune, adding that despite allegations and campaigns previously raised against the college, these didn’t distract it from the objective of having its affiliation with ACCJC reaffirmed.
NMC received early this month the ACCJC’s decision to reaffirm the college’s accreditation, after determining that all deficiencies identified earlier had been resolved.
PSS earlier disclosed that majority of its high school graduates enroll at the NMC each year. The institution is also home to specific courses that are key to PSS programs and initiatives.
For one, the college’s only baccalaureate program, the School of Education, produces most of the classroom teachers and related service providers for local public schools.
“This [reaffirmation] would help us in a lot of ways because we’re working with NMC. Hopefully, with this continued accreditation of the college it may be able to establish other programs that would further help our public schools,” Guerrero said, adding that NMC can now enter into partnerships with other institutions that could offer programs not offered at NMC.
Like NMC, PSS was once under the Western Association of Schools and Colleges—the main commission body of the ACCJC.
However, in 2012 PSS and its board decided to cut ties with WASC and chose to be aligned under the North Central Association, another accreditation commission certified by the U.S. Department of Education.
WASC has the highest member institutions in its fold, numbering approximately 120 colleges and universities.
But it is under NCA, Guerrero said, that PSS and BOE found satisfaction.
