Institutional Revival

Since President Cynthia Lindquist has come on board, Cankdeska Cikana Community College has regained its accreditation and is experiencing a boost in full-time student numbers.

By David Pluviose

Nobody would have seen this coming back in 2003, when the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) placed Cankdeska Cikana Community College on probation. The commission, part of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, didn’t have much choice, as the Fort Totten, N.D., college struggled with financial and administrative upheaval. But the college’s accreditation was reaffirmed late last year, not for two or four years as was expected, but for 10 years, a move HLC associate director Robert R. Appleson calls “extremely unusual.”

“It would have been more typical, probably, to have gotten five years, or six years. But the [CCCC accreditation review] team felt, and I think they made a strong argument, that the issues that had put [CCCC] on probation were not only resolved, but there was a very strong feeling that they weren’t going to recur,” Appleson says.

President Cynthia Lindquist, who took over the helm of CCCC in 2003 with a background in health administration, was apparently just what the school needed to slow the trend of rapid administrative turnover and get things moving forward again.

“She has the background to lead. The leadership issue was a major issue. She has a vision, and she knows where she wants to take the college,” says CCCC academic dean Thalia Esser, a former interim president of the college.

Dr. Gerald E. Gipp, executive director of the American Indian Higher -Education Consortium, agrees. “You have to give full credit to President Lindquist. There’s no question that her leadership, her ability to turn that around in a couple of years, is a tremendous feat, especially to gain 10-year accreditation, coming off of a probation.”