Northern New Mexico College’s top administrator believes the institution’s best days are yet to come, as school officials brace for more revenue reductions from the state legislature.
Northern President Richard Bailey told the public, during his March 30, State of the College Address, the state’s budget crisis could have an adverse affect on the institution’s bottom line.
“These are incredibly challenging times for our state,” he said at the start of nearly hour-long address. “If you look at all the cuts the state has made to trim the budget, 44 percent of those cuts have been on the back of higher education.”
Bailey said he spent his fair share of time working to convince law and other policy makers, Northern couldn’t endure any more cuts. Currently, much of the institution’s staff is already stretched pretty thin.
“So when I talk to the legislature I tell them, ‘We have tightened our belt as much as we can tighten it,’” he said. “I don’t know how we can tighten it any further. Every person at this institution is working three or four jobs because they care about our students and I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Bailey gave the address four days before the New Mexico State Auditor’s Office released Northern’s Fiscal Year 2016 audit. The report uncovered 37 findings that detailed school officials’ failure to properly manage the institution’s finances.
He is confident the institution will survive, and eventually thrive, in the face of the ongoing and upcoming challenges.
One of the ways Bailey and his administration hopes to weather the storm is by devising a concrete outline, or blueprint, in the form of a Strategic Plan, to guide the institution over the course of the next five years.
About 145 members of Northern’s faculty and staff attended workshops this past winter to discuss the institutional priorities they believe should be included in the plan.
Bailey said he enlisted the help from members of Northern’s staff for several reasons, but primarily because they are the “experts” who will be tasked with implementing the plan’s objectives.
The idea is to ensure Northern officials fund projects and other initiatives to help the institution reach its most immediate goals.
“At the time of fiscal austerity, it is very important that we are making very good decisions about how we use limited resources,” Bailey said.
The plan will focus primarily on four areas: enrollment, student success, communication and team spirit and work environment.
Bailey said he would like to see the enrollment numbers climb to where they were several years ago, when the Northern student population was at, or near, 2,000. He hopes to eventually accomplish this by strengthening old programs and offering new ones. Northern currently has approximately 1,062 students.
However, once the school has the students, Bailey said it is imperative for school officials to create paths for those students to enjoy success in the classroom and the world.
Through the plan, Bailey said he hopes to further establish lines of communication that will let the public know they have a say in Northern’s progress.
The final portion of the upcoming Strategic Plan will tackle team spirit and the work environment.
Bailey said it is important to establish team spirit to let the staff know they are appreciated.
El Rito-area resident and part-time instructor John Ussery consumed the address as both an employee and community member, and he liked what he heard.
“Rick Bailey is exactly what this College has been needing for far too long,” he said. “We have a man who is trained as a warrior and can handle all of the challenges. But he is such a gentle man and he knows how to listen to people. We are very pleased to have him on board. I appreciate his vision, honesty and determination.”
Changing curriculum
To move Northern forward and possibly grow the institution’s student body, Bailey said school officials should pay attention to the existing workforce data.
He said other than strengthening Northern’s capacity to meet the existing health care and education occupational demands as outlined by New Mexico’s State of the Workforce Report, officials should think outside the box.
“We could, right now, triple our Nursing Program and our College of Education and still not meet the demand signal for work,” he said. “Those students wouldn’t have a problem finding work.”
One such out-side-of-the-box training program would be cyber security.
Bailey said the burgeoning cyber security industry would be a good example of the type of program the school could establish to benefit the students and surrounding community.
“The College is considering and looking at establishing a program, two years maximum,” he said. “These aren’t computer science majors, these are individuals that go into a training program to become an operator and at the end of that process, they would get a job at $75,000 a year.”
Former student Sam LeDoux wanted to know what the College was doing to attract some of the growing number of non-traditional students returning to school.
Bailey said, in the future, he would like to attract some of those non-traditional and rural students by improving the institution’s distance and electronic education capabilities.
“We are looking at a way we can use technology where it is much more interactive,” he said. “That same technology will allow us to do more partnerships with UNM-LA (Los Alamos), UNM-Taos and Santa Fe Community College and some other institutions.”
At the March 24 Board of Regents meeting, Northern Provost Ivan Lopez-Hurtado said he and his staff are currently working on an articulation agreement that would allow students to enroll in certain programs and take classes at the aforementioned institutions. Those agreements are yet to be finalized.
Regardless of the financial and poor audit findings, Bailey said he is confident the school will see brighter days.
“We will weather this storm,” he said. “When I talked about the best days of the institution and best days of this community being ahead of us, I meant it. I still believe it with all of my heart. But, it will take a lot of work for us to get there.”