Mesalands enrollment drops by nearly one-fifth

Enrollment at Mesalands Community College dropped by nearly one-fifth during the previous school year, according to an annual report presented during the board of trustees’ Nov. 17 meeting.

Aaron Kennedy, vice president of student affairs, gave the college’s annual enrollment management report.

The report stated Mesalands’ annual headcount enrollment during the 2019-2020 school year was 2,003, a 19% drop from the previous year’s 2,483 and 22% lower from a peak of 2,549 in 2017-2018.

The college’s annual full-time equivalent student total was 913 in 2019-2020, a drop of 15% from the previous year and 19% from 2017-2018.

The report didn’t state a reason for the enrollment drop-off, nor was it discussed. Several members of the board of trustees previously had voiced concerns how the COVID-19 pandemic would affect the college’s student numbers.

Kennedy noted the college increased its persistence rate, or rate of students staying in school, by more than 6% from the previous year.

“We had fewer students but retained more of them,” he said.

The percentage of women who graduated at the college dropped from 43.8% two years ago to 11.3% in the recently completed school year.

Kennedy attributed that several factors, including many of Mesalands’ popular programs — wind energy, farrier, silversmith and prison programs — being male-dominated.

Kennedy also noted the college’s expansion of training certificates for the wind-energy field also was male-dominated.

In other business:

• Board Chairman Jim Streetman said 45 people have applied for the college’s president position and that 30 had completed applications.

“We have a pretty good list to draw from,” he said.

According to its website, Mesalands will continue to take application materials for the position through Dec. 31.

The board fired the college’s previous president, John Groesbeck, in April after he was put on paid administrative leave the previous month. No reason for the firing was given.

• Jessica Gonzales, the college’s director of financial aid, said in the annual financial aid report that 190 Mesalands students had received $1.22 million in aid. More than three-quarters of that money came from federal sources.

• Acting president Natalie Gillard said animal sciences faculty member Manny Encinias’ Western Meats School had drawn 78 students, including 35 in dual-credit programs. The course provides instruction on how to market locally produced meat.

Gillard also said New Mexico Small Business Development Center’s Martin Gutierrez praised Vicki Watson’s work on securing Paycheck Protection Program loans for area businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Gillard said there was a “large probability” that classes for college’s spring semester would be entirely online because of the pandemic.

• In routine matters, the board approved the quarterly financial statements to the New Mexico Higher Education Department and a restricted-funds budget adjustment request — the latter that included federal COVID-19 relief funds from the CARES Act.

• The board went into a 30-minute closed session with Gillard and took no action when open session resumed.