One last chance: North Idaho College faces final site visit

COEUR d’ALENE — This week, a team from North Idaho College’s accreditor will visit campus for the last time before NIC’s deadline to return to good standing.

Since early last year, NIC has operated under a show cause sanction, the last step before loss of accreditation. Federal regulations stipulate that the college has until April 1, 2025, to resolve the remaining issues identified by the accrediting body.

There is no framework for how a college would handle loss of accreditation. It’s never happened in Idaho.

Show cause sanctions are almost never levied against public institutions, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. When they are, it’s typically because of problems with a college’s finances or academics.

Instead, NIC’s accreditation is in jeopardy because of decisions made by the board of trustees.

Origins of a crisis

In an email to The Press, Trustee Greg McKenzie said problems at NIC predate his election “by more than a decade.” He pointed to declining enrollment, rising administrative costs and college policies that trustees had not reviewed or updated in years.

He noted that the roots of NIC’s current situation go back years. McKenzie was elected in 2020. Before issuing the show cause sanction, the NWCCU reviewed documents related to events at NIC dating back to 2019.

“The accreditation deadline is three years from a date prior to December 2022, so any ‘story’ glossing over dates prior and how NIC received its first accreditation warning is narrative building for political action committees whose election strategy is to ‘save NIC now’ when all political candidates have pledged to retain accreditation,” McKenzie said Friday.

In a recent article in the Kootenai Journal, board chair Mike Waggoner said NIC “needed big changes” three years ago, before the college was sanctioned, which he said the “conservative majority” on the board of trustees has since delivered.

“It all started with the board replacing the management,” Waggoner wrote. “This was strongly resisted. But it has worked. We need to thank those members who made the original changes. They are Todd Banducci, Greg McKenzie and Michael Barnes.”

In September 2021, Banducci, McKenzie and Barnes voted to terminate NIC President Rick MacLennan without cause.

MacLennan sued for wrongful termination and received nearly $500,000. That includes a $250,000 payment from NIC’s former insurer, as well as the 12 months of salary and benefits the college agreed to pay him, totaling around $249,000. 

Trustees voted 3-2 in October 2021 to name head wrestling coach Michael Sebaaly to the position of interim president. Sebaaly resigned from NIC last fall, for unclear reasons, after the college placed him on administrative leave.

In March 2021, four area human rights groups submitted a complaint of civil rights and civil liberties violations at NIC to its accreditor. In November of that year, the groups submitted a second complaint. 

A peer evaluation panel from the NWCCU investigated the complaints. A report issued in February 2022 described the board as “dysfunctional” and said then-board chair Banducci’s “role in questioning curricular content has had a chilling effect on faculty independence and diverse thought.”

“Fear for tenure, health, job security and punitive public ridicule abounds among faculty and staff,” the report said. “Faculty report adjusting course content and assignments to make them less potentially controversial for fear of retribution by political factions supported by (Banducci).”

Though the peer review panel recommended NIC be placed on probation due to non-compliance with several accreditation requirements, the NWCCU instead sanctioned the college with a warning April 1, 2022.

A deadlocked board

Michael Barnes resigned in January 2022, the same day the Coeur d’Alene Press published a story revealing he was likely a legal resident of South Dakota, not Idaho.

Locked in 2-2 votes, the remaining trustees were unable to choose a candidate to fill Barnes’ vacant seat or make progress in the search for a permanent president.

Trustees Ken Howard and Christie Wood resigned in May 2022. This left the board without a quorum and forced the Idaho State Board of Education to step in and appoint trustees to fill the vacant seats until the November 2022 general election.

Judge Cynthia Meyer blocked a lawsuit filed by Banducci and McKenzie that sought to prevent the State Board from appointing temporary trustees. The State Board then appointed David Wold, Pete Broschet and John Goedde to the vacant seats. The trio formed a new majority bloc.

Banducci has since suggested the judiciary, the State Board and the office of the governor conspired to “neutralize” certain NIC trustees and appoint unelected trustees.

“The whole accreditation issue has been quite the orchestrated and planned ordeal,” Banducci told the Sentinel, NIC’s student newspaper, in April. “It has been used as a political weapon. I think accreditation will probably look awfully shiny the minute that they get a majority on the board.” 

“They,” Banducci told the Sentinel, are “established, entrenched elites in this town” who “want money, power and control.”

“We’re deplorables to them and they hate it when they’re not in charge,” Banducci said. “It drives them crazy.” 

Secret meetings among trustees

Following a national search by a committee made up of 27 community members, the board voted 3-2 to hire Nick Swayne as NIC’s permanent president. Banducci and McKenzie cast the dissenting votes; the pair had walked out of Swayne’s interview for the position, though McKenzie later returned. 

The balance of power on the board shifted again after the November 2022 general election, when Brad Corkill, Mike Waggoner and Tarie Zimmerman were elected. 

Zimmerman said it was a turning point for NIC, the beginning of McKenzie’s year as board chair.

“With his leadership, he drove the college to show cause in five weeks and continued to run amok for almost a year,” she said. “The board majority have intentionally taken action and made decisions that were not in the best interest of the college. That’s how we got here.”

Waggoner joined with Banducci and McKenzie to form a new majority. One of their earliest acts was to use personal email addresses to secretly prepare for the public meetings during which they ousted Swayne and hired attorney Art Macomber to represent NIC. 

Court records show that Macomber contacted the three trustees via their personal email addresses Nov. 21, 2022, a week before the new iteration of the board was meant to convene for the first time.

“Leslie and I are leaving on December 15 for Texas and returning December 29,” Macomber wrote. “The December NIC meeting could be the 14th or earlier, or December 30, unless you guys want to pay me to fly for a day in between. I would say it’s not worth it and either set it earlier in the month or really late.” 

“I would suggest earlier,” replied Waggoner.

Under Idaho law, any convening of a governing body of a public agency to make a decision or deliberate toward a decision on any matter must be open to the public and properly noticed.

Serial meetings, which violate Idaho’s open meeting law, occur when a majority of members of a governing body have a series of small gatherings or communications to make a decision or deliberate toward a decision, even if a majority is never part of any one communication. 

One college, two presidents

During a series of chaotic meetings in early December 2022, board chair McKenzie joined Banducci and Waggoner in voting to hire Macomber as NIC’s new attorney and place Swayne on indefinite administrative leave for no disciplinary reason.

The NWCCU sent a letter to North Idaho College on Dec. 17, cautioning that the board’s recent actions did not align with the eligibility requirements and standards for accreditation.

Hundreds of community members gathered in the Schuler Performing Arts Center on campus for the Dec. 21, 2022, meeting, when the board majority hired Greg South as the college’s interim president.

South was an interim dean of instruction at NIC for several months in 2021. As interim president, he received an 18-month contract that contained several financial perks, as well as a $235,000 payout if the board terminated him without cause before the contract was up.

In February 2023, the NWCCU issued the show cause sanction to North Idaho College.

McKenzie, Banducci and Waggoner had previously downplayed or denied any threat to NIC’s accreditation.

“What about accreditation?” McKenzie wrote in a letter that was widely circulated to Kootenai County voters before the November 2022 election. “Isn’t it still at risk? No, that was Fake News. Accreditation has never been ‘at risk.’”

A legal battle

“It wasn’t an easy time, but I didn’t sit around the house,” Swayne said of his time on administrative leave. “I was out in the community meeting people.”

He was also fighting to return to work. In December, Swayne sued the college, arguing that the terms of his contract only allowed the board to put him on leave if he resigned from his job.

The court agreed. In March 2023, Meyer ordered NIC to immediately reinstate Swayne as active president of the college. By benching Swayne, Meyer ruled, the board majority had “wrongfully locked its captain in the brig while steering NIC toward an iceberg” and violated the terms of Swayne’s employment contract.

Trustees initially complied, swapping South for Swayne. But in April, the board majority voted to nullify Swayne’s contract but leave him in place as active president.

The decision came at the urging of Macomber, who alleged that an open meeting law violation occurred the day Swayne was hired. He argued that the board could circumvent the judge’s order, which prohibited the board from firing Swayne, by dissolving Swayne’s contract.

A week later, Meyer reaffirmed her decision to reinstate Swayne.

“This was an attempted de facto termination of Dr. Swayne and it was not done in good faith,” she said in a written ruling. “This protracted investigation into the formation of the contract with Dr. Swayne … is a pretext for getting Dr. Swayne out of the way. It is a sham.”

NIC’s last chance

Since receiving the show cause sanction, NIC has addressed several of the problems outlined by the accrediting body. These include updating college policies and resolving multiple lawsuits. The board also allowed South’s contract to expire, which the NWCCU previously suggested would be a “relatively ‘easy win’ and would be a significant step in regaining the goodwill, confidence and trust of NIC constituents.”

Enrollment has surged at NIC, with administrators saying this is the first year since 2011 that NIC has seen significant increases in every major enrollment category. Swayne attributes the increase to the outreach efforts of NIC employees.

Zimmerman said it’s important to give credit where it’s due.

“Because of the strong leadership of Dr. Swayne and the work of his staff, enrollment is up 15%,” she said. “That is despite the board majority, not because of them.”

Issues of board governance and trustee behavior still loom large. The NWCCU noted in March that NIC lacks a “functioning governing board responsible for the quality and integrity of the institution.”

Now the board must convince a site visit team that college governance has improved and those changes are sustainable.

Corkill didn’t mince words when describing the reason for NIC’s accreditation woes.

“We got where we are because of board behavior,” he said Friday. “For adults to behave in a manner that puts the very existence of the college in jeopardy is unbelievable.”

He said he believes poor behavior from some trustees is rooted in the politicization of the nonpartisan college board.

“People who get on that board of trustees with an agenda are only doing harm to the institution,” Corkill said.

When Banducci looks back on his 12 years on the board — a chapter that will soon end, as he did not run for reelection — he didn’t dwell on the turmoil of the past two years. He highlighted his proudest accomplishments, including his support for expanding the Meyer Health and Science Building and his vote in favor of building the Parker Technical Center.

“It was within one vote of never happening,” he said. “Time has proven the wisdom of that vote. It’s a tremendous resource for the community, business and industry and the three local school districts. Its partnership with the KTEC facility has been an unmitigated success.” 

Still, he acknowledged the controversy that rocked the final years of his term.

“I welcome no longer interacting with you and some of the other special people interested/involved with the college,” Banducci said in an email to The Press. “The character assassination, personal attacks, lack of accuracy and honesty, viciousness, vitriol, etc, and other egregious behavior will not be missed.”

In January, NIC representatives will go before the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities in Seattle. There, accreditors will meet to decide NIC’s status.

It will be North Idaho College’s last chance to return to good standing before the federal deadline.

For now, reflecting on his time at NIC and what brought the college to this point, Swayne didn’t focus on the struggles. Instead, he looked to the hard-fought wins NIC has earned along the way.

“What stands out to me is the resiliency of the NIC family, both employees and people who care deeply for the college,” Swayne said. “Everyone who worked at NIC faced different challenges the last few years, but they rose to those challenges. That is what I am most proud of. When we can focus on the work of the college, we can accomplish amazing things.”