Pat Brown, of Taos, wrote a thoughtful letter to the editor in the Dec. 15 edition of the Rio Grande SUN, about the challenges facing Northern New Mexico College’s adjunct faculty. I’d like to address those specific concerns, and offer a few additional thoughts.
First, we are fortunate to have quality educators serving as adjunct faculty members here at Northern. They serve an important role at the College, and are vital to the educational mission here.
I’d like to add that our adjunct faculty members are not the only ones at Northern who have suffered without pay raises. Our full-time faculty, for example, haven’t received a raise in eight years, and many – many – on our staff deserve more than we can afford to pay them. They have stayed at Northern because they care about our students, and they selflessly give their time, their hearts, and their passion to make a difference for our community.
At the State of the College address last week, a colleague asked a question about how to retain our talented faculty and staff. It is one of the biggest challenges we face as a college (and one of the challenges that keeps me up at night, to be honest). We have to find ways of showing that we value not just our adjunct faculty, but everyone else on the Northern team as well.
Our long-term vision is to expand our enrollment and retention of students. We still offer, hands down, the single most affordable four-year program in all of the southwestern United States. This fact, in addition to our recent national accreditations in education, business, nursing, and engineering, speak to the quality of our educational offerings. We also offer amazing programs in everything from cosmetology to the arts and humanities. Biology, chemistry, environmental science… I could go on but I think you get the picture.
We need to promote the quality affordable education we provide, increase our enrollment, mentor our students while they are with us, and set them up for success when they graduate.
The word is already catching on. Northern experienced a 7 percent increase in enrollment this past fall, which was by far the highest percentage increase at any college in the state. Enrollment and retention will go a long way toward providing the flexibility to reward our faculty and staff with competitive salaries, bringing more faculty members into full-time positions, and adding staff, especially in areas where our people need help the most.
That won’t happen overnight, though. I recognize that. In the meantime, it is my responsibility as the president to look for ways to diversify our revenues. In other words, we need to seek out alternate sources of funding for the college. As community members, you should hold me accountable for the fundraising we do as an institution.
Pat Brown also mentioned the lack of office space for adjunct faculty. I agree that this is an important issue. Adjunct faculty need to have the space to prepare for class, and to mentor and advise our students. We’ve already embarked on a process to explore how to utilize space on our campuses better. This was well underway before I got here.
In addition, we are in the process of crafting a strategic plan for the institution. Part of that plan will include how we use space on both the Española and the El Rito campuses, and will keep the student experience at the forefront. In other words, our space utilization plan must be student-centric and adaptable to a dynamic, ever-changing environment.
The letter concluded by offering a critique of online classes. I can certainly understand the argument. I personally love the education that comes from a face-to-face encounter. But as a college, we must consider adapting to our environment. Many students in our community balance several challenges in their lives. Most of our students have to work, and take care of family members, in addition to their studies. For some, online classes and hybrid courses ease those scheduling challenges.
Please don’t take this as a sign that I want to move every course online—far from it. But a diverse blend of in-person and online courses will ease the burden on many of our students and put Northern at the forefront of competitive, affordable, quality educational institutions.
Thank you for your letter, Pat. I hope we can continue this dialogue as a community. To all of the readers of the Rio Grande SUN, let me say that Northern New Mexico College is your college. Please let us know what we are doing well, and what we can do better. We are here to serve you and your families.
To that end, we have established a forum to engage in this type of conversation. Every three months, I’ll deliver a State of the College address, to inform the community of our actions and intentions, but more importantly, to give you a voice in how we move forward together as a college and community. These events will always be open to the public.
All of us here at Northern want to wish you and everyone you love a wonderful holiday season and a joyous and prosperous 2017.
Rick Bailey Jr. is the president of Northern New Mexico College.