Mesalands to consider name change

The change, if it happens at all, won’t occur for a while, and it may be subtle. But Mesalands Community College’s president asked the board of trustees during its meeting Jan. 21 to consider altering the college’s name.

The meeting agenda that day listed under new business “Discussion on the Name of the College” that was not an action item. College President John Groesbeck suggested changing the institution’s name — one proposal he offered was Mesalands College — for marketing purposes and to reflect its efforts to draw more students from outside the region. He asked the board to think about the idea in the coming months. The board would make the final decision on a name change.

Groesbeck said as Quay County’s population remains flat or in decline, “it’s kind of a no-brainer” to change the college’s name as it becomes less of a community-based institution, adds sports programs and increases its numbers of non-local students. The college also wants to build student dormitories on a tract of land it seeks to acquire from Tucumcari Public Schools.

Groesbeck estimated at least one-third of Mesalands’ students are not from Tucumcari or the surrounding area and continues to trend higher as it offers more specialized programs. He said similar colleges that grow eventually drop “community” or “junior” from their names.

Though he said he loves the Tucumcari area, Groesbeck said it might be time to rename Mesalands Community College because “we’re increasingly not that.” He said the colleges that thrive offer sports and enroll more non-local students.

Trustee Craig Currell said he was against dropping “Mesalands” from the college’s name, and Groesbeck said he agreed with that.

Board Chairman Jim Streetman said he was OK with dropping “Community” from the college’s name as long as it “plans it out far enough.”

“If we’re going to get serious about this, we’ll have to educate the community about it,” he said.

According to the history section of its website, Mesalands Community College previously was Mesa Technical College from 1994 to 2001. It initially was called Tucumcari Area Vocational School in 1979.

In other business:

• The board approved the college’s annual audit, presented by Martin Mathisen of Atkinson & Co. of Albuquerque. He said the college’s was in “good financial condition” with “very liquid” and “solid” assets.

Mathisen said the college resolved three of four findings in the previous year’s audit. In the latest report, it found a “significant deficiency” in its transmission of pension data in 12 of 44 employees sampled, including two instances in which college’s contribution was lower than required. It recommended a review of the data submitted to the state Education Retirement Board.

The report found a significant deficiency in borrower data transmission and reconciliation. It also found a significant deficiency in student information security and recommended a risk assessment of its computer network against hackers or other failures.

Other less-serious findings were an issue of noncompliance of procurement rules for a class project to build a house and one case of noncompliance for a student who shouldn’t have received financial aid.

• Natalie Gillard, vice president of academic affairs, presented the annual Student Learning Assessment Committee report for the 2018-2019 academic year. From 2011-2012, it showed general improvement in students’ writing, oral presentation, scientific reasoning and information technology, mostly stable results in math reasoning and a small decline in critical thinking.

Gillard also reported a favorable outlook on the college’s accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission. Groesbeck noted Mesalands requires no follow-ups, no qualifiers and no probation with its accreditation from the commission.

• Aaron Kennedy, vice president of student affairs, gave a student-retention report for the fall 2019 semester. He noted out of 1,424 mid-term grades, a total of 109 “F” grades were reported, which he described as “super low.” Staff also retrieved 12 of 15 students who failed to show up for classes.

• In a reorganization of the board, it elected the same officers as before: Streetman as chair, Teresa Stephenson as vice chair and Liz Estrada as secretary-clerk. Board members Jimmy Sandoval and Currell were unopposed for re-election in November.

• The board approved a purchase requisition of $35,590 to Jenzabar Inc. of Boston for annual computer system maintenance.

• The board met for 30 minutes in closed executive session to discuss limited personnel matters. It took no action when open session resumed.