Question/Comment: I heard that the administration is going to tear out the beautiful tile in the administration building and put down the same floor that is in the event center - WHY in the world would you do that? The floor in the event center is cheap, ugly and not done well. The tile is beautiful, durable and will last for years. You want the floors to match - we have heard this over and over. But the flooring that needs to go is what's in the cafeteria not what's in the rotunda.
5/23/23 Thank you for your email. There is a committee of individuals working to determine the best approach for campus upgrades based on budget. If you have ideas, please forward them to Chief of Staff/VP of Finance and Administration Denise Montoya, at denise.montoya@nnmc.edu.
Question/Comment: This is an idea for the Fall 2023 semester or even Spring 2024. As students return to campus and we celebrate NNMC's makeover, it would be great to also have a day that focuses on Mental Health Awareness. Maybe a day when there are no classes and games, food and booths are set up for students. It could be an opportunity to meet with a trained Mental Health Counselor and set up an appointment or gather information about resources that are available to students. I think it's important to "normalize" the reality of the need for Mental Health Services. We are consistently faced with mental health crisis among our students. This would give them the opportunity to engage in activities that facilitate a conversation around a topic that often carries a negative stigma. Hope this sparks some creative thoughts! Thank you for your time!
5/23/23 Thank you so much for your email! We agree that normalizing the need for mental health services for students is very important, and we've submitted your idea to Northern's Counseling & Student Support Center (CASSC). To contact them, email cassc@nnmc.edu or visit them on our website at https://nnmc.edu/resources/counseling-student-support/.
Question/Comment: How are you keeping track of employees who are not vaccinated and should be masked up and following CDC guidelines?
11/16/22 According to Northern New Mexico's COVID Vaccination policy; all students, faculty and staff are required to turn in to healthandsafety@nnmc.edu, a copy of their updated vaccination record which is kept with the Health and Safety Officer. Individuals can ask for either a religious or medical exemption, which is filled out and turned in to the Health and Safety Officer. A letter is sent explaining their exemption has been approved and they need to turn in a weekly PCR, not hometest, to healthandsafety@nnmc.edu. It is requested that they wear a mask to keep themselves and others safe when on campus. With the decline of COVID virus; masks are now optional at NNMC campus. CDC guidelines have also been revised with the decline of positive cases of the virus; quarantine is no longer necessary if fully vaccinated.
Question/Comment: Hello, I'd like to know if there are any developing plans to landscape the NNMC- Espanola Campus? Would it be possible to consider beautifying the campus with low maintenance and cost effective landscaping ideas; such as, gravel, patios/benches, decorative rocks, cactus plants, etc? Thank You!
10/17/22 Thank you for your question. Yes, we are well aware of our campus “beautification” needs. We asked for funds for a landscaping study and campus beautification during last legislative session and we will ask again this year. As I visit other campuses, I see we really do have a situation of deferred maintenance that needs to be addressed.
— Dr. Bárbara M. Medina
Question/Comment: Students are being […] as much as the admin staff. I'm concerned about this disparity and hope that the salaries for admin and other workers will be increased.
10/13/22 If I understand your question correctly, we will take a look at the disparities you raise.
— Dr. Bárbara M. Medina
Question/Comment: In the last several months, culminating with the inequities in the salary matrix of the CBA, the lack of considering faculty input regarding the Faculty Handbook, the lack of reason, logical, critical, and common sense thinking, but rather death by data and death by detail, including a seeming lack of trust on the part of administration toward faculty, has been very damaging to faculty morale and administration/faculty relationships.
4/12/22 Thank you for the concerns that you expressed in your email. I will be following up with our leadership team and with faculty leadership as well.
— Dr. Bárbara M. Medina
Question/Comment: Is this platform still active? The last update on "answers" page was November 2020. It is October 2021 now.
11/2/21 Yes the platform is still active. We answer questions as they come in. Please keep sending them our way!
Question/Comment: We were informed that we should offer as many classes as possible as face-to-face classes in Spring 2021. (1) What is college planning to do in regards to safety of our students, faculty, and staff? With Delta variant, protection that vaccinations and masks provide is limited. Moreover, for many of us it has been over 6 months since we were fully vaccinated. (2) Would we be offered booster vaccines before returning to campus? (3) How many students, faculty, staff are fully vaccinated? Questions submitted 10/4/21. Please include date in your response. Thanks!
11/2/21 – Northern New Mexico College has been a role model in terms of how seriously we have taken the pandemic, how we have responded, and how we have made health and safety our top priorities. Nothing has changed as we approach the spring semester. The vaccine and mask requirements will continue to mitigate the risks of in-person presence on our campus. The data on vaccine completion is changing daily, but I can tell you that we are very close to full compliance for all faculty and staff. I will update those numbers in my next video update. We also offer vaccination clinics on our Española campus twice per week in partnership with the State Department of Health. The timing of the booster shots is dependent on state guidance, although they have already allowed boosters for those in the education workforce, so everyone on Team Northern should be allowed to get it at their convenience.
Question/Comment: What is the exact procedure for the selection of the best faculty award recipient? At least for the last couple of years, faculty are not being asked to share their accomplishments with the administration. How is then the administration judging all faculty member’s achievements? We did receive a survey to nominate the most deserving staff for the best staff award, but that was only for staff members, and not for faculty.
9/29/21 – For the last two summers (both during Covid), we have used a simple algorithm:
1) Supervisors nominate full-time faculty when they submit the annual evaluation summary for each faculty member (in May of each year). This nomination is captured in a Google Drive Form that chairs fill and collect the faculty member's scores in each of the areas: 1) teaching, 2) advisement, 3) college service, and 4) scholarly activities.
2) All nominated faculty are placed on a list ordered by their weighted score in their annual evaluation.
3) All nominees who had received the faculty award of the year in any of the five most recent years are eliminated (to avoid giving the award to the same person again and again).
4) The top five (or less depending on the number of nominees) nominees get a prorated number of points (on a 5-point scale) based on their annual evaluation and a prorated number of points (on a 3-point scale) based on how many years they have worked at NNMC.
5) The nominee with the top score becomes the "potential awardee" and gets confirmed only after the student evaluations of the last three years are reviewed, and we make sure that there are no red flags.
Notes:
In prior years, we used to request nominations by email. Unfortunately, we would only get a couple of nominations, and no evidence (beyond a couple of sentences) was provided as to why the nominee deserved the award. People were complaining about it, and when we tried to improve it is when Covid hit. Now, since the Google Drive Form asks if the faculty member should be nominated or not, we get way more nominees than ever before.
Ivan Lopez Hurtado, PhD, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Associate Professor, College of Engineering and Technology
Ph: (505) 747-2225, ilopez@nnmc.edu
Question/Comment: Hi, Trash is blowing around all over the El Rito Campus.
Thanks for the heads up. We are currently engaging with Rio Arriba County to see what can be done about providing some type of trash service in the village. Without a regular service, unfortunately, littering will remain a huge challenge.
Question/Comment: All male employees of NNMC need to be trained to treat all female employees (supervisors, supervisees, peers) with respect, fairness, dignity, and with equal opportunity.
Thank you very much for the comment. We take this very seriously, and urge everyone at the college to take heart of this statement. Everyone at Northern, at the very least, deserves respect, fairness, dignity, and equity of opportunity. Let me also make this very clear: sexual harassment or gender discrimination of any kind at Northern New Mexico College will not be tolerated.
We are currently engaging in dialogues with representatives from A Call to Men to discuss gender equity and awareness at the college. More soon.
Question/Comment: Why is it that when I have a contract I cannot get the same paycheck twice? Each pay day I receive a different amount. This is especially concerning because some school policies limit my income and I must watch every dollar.
I apologize for the headaches you are experiencing from the discrepancies in your paycheck. Please reach out to our Human Resources Officer, Mr. Ken Lucero, at kenneth.lucero@nnmc.edu, so he can coordinate with the business office and we can get this resolved as soon as possible. Again, sorry for the challenges.
Question/Comment: Hello, I'm a new faculty member starting this Fall. I just want to write and say that my experience teaching at NNMC has been incredibly positive. I continue to teach online at a school back east and the contrast is striking in how both administrations have handled moving classes online and communication with faculty. When I am in touch with anyone at NNMC they always express their gratitude. I have never taught at a college where this is the case. So although I have not met anyone in person I don't feel so removed from the mission of NNMC.
One thing I would suggest is more support for students who don't have stable internet. I have a couple students who lost internet for a week at a time and don't have transportation to NNMC. I'm not really sure what the solution would be. And my biggest concern is that as the semester progresses I am losing some students in that they've stopped participating after the date that I could withdraw them from the course. It would help me to know what services I could continue to use to try to engage the student. Like early alert etc. Otherwise I feel supported. It'd help to know if the college anticipates being online this summer or even Fall 2021. Thank you.
Thank you for your concern about student internet access. Without question, moving 95 percent of our curriculum online during this pandemic has not been a panacea. For example, 48 percent of homes in Rio Arriba County do not have access to the internet, and with the proliferation of telehealth and other services, access to broadband is far more than an educational dilemma, and is truly a social justice issue. In the short term, the college is using its philanthropic arm to offer free loans of both chromebooks and now jetpacks and hotspots to students in need. We recognize that this is only a temporary fix, however, so we are also working at all levels of government (city, county, state, and national) to advocate for long-term sustainable solutions. Thanks again for your advocacy.
Question/Comment: Please announce who this executive team is.
Thank you for the question. The executive team is the administration — the president and vice presidents.
Question/Comment: Pay equity.
Thank you for the input. I am very proud of the progress we have made in the last four years in this area. 99% of our employees received raises in 2018 and 2019 (after almost a decade without), and the raises were purposefully inversely designed (in other words, those near the top of the pay scale received raises of 1 to 2 percent (zero percent for the president), while some at the lower end received pay raises as high as 17%). Our relationships with our union partners are stronger now than ever. Do we still have work to do? Absolutely. But I also want to recognize the efforts we have made thus far to solve pay imbalances at the institution.
Question/Comment: The dates for the roundtable are almost a year from now, I cannot think of a reason for that. It seems it will not serve it purpose since current issues will not be corrected or confronted when they need
I know we scheduled these wayyyyyy in advance. The goal was to bring us together in informal ways, with no agenda other than to gather to talk to faculty and staff members on any topics of interest that day (when it is safe to do so, we will actually do them at local restaurants so we can break bread together). I worry sometimes that I focus a lot of my attention outside of the college, and that I don't commit enough time to hear from all of you about things that matter to you. So the roundtable discussions, this Anonymous Faculty and Staff Feedback mechanism, and our upcoming Eagle Newsletter will hopefully move us in a more fruitful direction. Please keep us posted! We want to make sure you have a say in how our institution is run, and how it serves our students and our community.
