From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

View of an area of the Northern Marianas College campus, 2005. On the right is the library. On the left are various administration offices. In the back is National Public Radio station KRNM.

Northern Marianas College (NMC), is a two-year community college located in the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). The college was founded in 1981 by Agnes McPheteres in a renovated former United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands hospital on Saipan where its main campus remains to this day.[1] NMC today has three campuses located on the islands of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota. The main campus on Saipan lies in the region of Micronesia in the western Pacific, approximately 3500 miles west of Hawaii, 1500 miles south of Japan, and 100 miles north of Guam. NMC is the sole public college within the Commonwealth and is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, though that status was significantly threatened in 2004[2][3] (scroll down to "Marshall Islands, CNMI" section of source). Although NMC is a two-year college, it also grants bachelor's degrees through its School of Education. The average class size at NMC is around 15 students, though enrollment officials seek to fill most classes to the official cap of 25.

In addition to its mandate embodied in the Northern Mariana Islands Territory Constitution to provide higher education to CNMI citizens, NMC seeks to attract Asian students who wish to learn English as a Second Language (ESL).[4] The Northern Marianas Islands is the closest United States territory to many Asian countries. International students are not required to apply for a student visa with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, since the CNMI controls its own immigration and labor laws locally, not without controversy (see George Miller (politician) [5]); NMC assists students in obtaining student visas from the CNMI government and there is no entrance examination requirement at NMC for students taking ESL. The majority of island English-speaking residents and student English-speakers at NMC do not speak standard American English (also see Standard English),[6] [7] though most instructors at the college do and are from the U.S. mainland.

NMC students who pursue education higher than an associate's degree usually attend the University of Guam or the University of Hawaii. Some transfer to the U.S. mainland, while most who forego further education and have "local" status or US. citizenship attempt to enter jobs within predominantly the CNMI public sector.

Along with the CNMI's current economic recession, the college has faced severe budget cuts beginning in 2006. [8] The normal 2006 Summer II term was canceled altogether. [9] Tuition was raised by 31 percent beginning in the Fall 2006 term [10] and student enrollment dipped by nearly the same amount.

In September 2006, the salaries and length of work-weeks of most employees at the college were recently cut by 10 percent.[11] During that same month, NMC's U.S. $277,000 United States Department of Education Adult Basic Education grant was transferred over to the CNMI Public School System. [12] The college's film school was closed in 2005 and its nursing program has been continually plagued with problems. [13] [14] [15] [16]

In addition, a bill that would have required higher education credentials of all members of the college's governing board and that the college president hold an earned doctorate [17] was withdrawn in May 2006 from the CNMI legislature. [18]

During a October 2006 visit by WASC, the WASC lead official "noted that although NMC committed to do so 16 years ago, the college still has not established a process for regular program review and assessment". The same official stated that WASC was "deeply disappointed" that NMC had not made significant progress in doing so. [19] In December 2006, WASC stated that NMC's accreditation was "at serious risk" because it lacked qualified administrative leadership.[20]

The February 5, 2007, Saipan Tribune reported that WASC placed NMC on probation. The college's Acting President stated that the "probation sanction was handed down because of an accumulation of organizational problems going back as far as 1990."

Northern Marianas College offers degrees and certificate programs from seven departments:

• Business
• Human Performance and Athletics
• Languages and Humanities
• Nursing
• School of Education (four-year program)
• Sciences, Mathematics and Vocational Education
• Social Sciences and Fine Arts

• Official website
• Weekly official updates from the NMC President's office