MY TURN: Restoring trust at NIC

Dr. Debbie DiThomas and I have been working with North Idaho College for more than two years to assist with restoring NIC to a favorable accreditation status. As a team, the board of trustees, in concert with President Nick Swayne, are making great progress.

During this entire process, in our communications with NWCCU, the college’s accreditation agency, never was DEI, or anything that falls under that umbrella, a topic. None of the recommendations issued by NWCCU to which NIC must respond involve anything to do with DEI. 

NIC is currently on probation as determined by NWCCU, solely because of governance issues. There is a simple governance philosophy with respect to community colleges. Boards of trustees set policy, and presidents lead and operate the college. Things get messy when a board doesn’t stay in its lane and gets involved in the day-to-day operations of the college. The issues cited by NWCCU relate to problems that ensued as a result of the board’s bad governance. DEI has no bearing on NIC’s accreditation problem.

What does have bearing is past board dysfunction. Alarm bells rang when organizations representing students, faculty and administrative staff of the college each issued votes of no confidence in the NIC board of trustees. They saw the same issues that NWCCU cited in its report — bad governance practices.

Let’s fast forward to NIC’s current status. Student, faculty and administrative staff organizations have all rescinded their votes of no confidence. The current board is restoring trust at NIC. During decades of consulting experience, this is the most rapid turnaround I have seen, and it is truly impressive. 

The people of North Idaho take immense pride in NIC’s 90 years of bettering lives through education. Its board of trustees is now living the best practices of college governance, and the underlying issues cited by the NWCCU are being resolved. The dedication of these trustees, together with the president, is admirable, and their commitment will most certainly return NIC to a favorable accreditation status. 

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Ken Burke is a consultant with the Association of Community College Trustees. He was a contributing author to the book titled “Trusteeship in Community Colleges.” He has consulted with colleges across the country on governance issues.