NNMC News:
ESPAÑOLA — Northern New Mexico College (NNMC) announces it has been awarded $2,674,758 to fund the “El Centro” Title V project.
The five-year grant, which runs Oct. 1, through Sept. 30, 2027, will focus on support for Hispanic students, who are 74 percent of Northern’s enrolled population, and low-income (Pell-eligible) students, who are more than 54 percent of students.
The project’s goals are to expand NNMC’s capacity to support and guide dual enrollment/dual credit (DE/DC) and transfer students successfully into academic and career pathways, create a new Center for Teaching and Learning, and strengthen NNMC’s fiscal stability through increased enrollment, retention, persistence, transfer, graduation and career placement success for Hispanic and low-income students.
“This grant really has the potential to make change institutionally,” said Kristy Alton, Title V CASSA Project Director. “We’re looking at the whole student. El Centro can be a community center for helping our full-time, part-time and dual credit students change the direction of their life for the better, to become a success. This grant has great potential for helping the student, the college and the community succeed.”
The Center for Teaching and Learning (El Centro) will be the foundation for supporting the grant’s objectives, as both a physical and virtual space where faculty can receive professional development. To better serve Hispanic and low-income students, training will focus on culturally relevant teaching practices and providing an understanding of how those students can persist to degree completion.
El Centro will also offer professional development for staff and trainings for students. The classroom space will be available to community organizations to conduct trainings. Since one of the goals of the grant is to support dual credit students, the Center may also offer professional development for teachers who conduct dual credit courses at the high schools.
One of the project’s key goals is to create a community that supports a stronger sense of belonging for Hispanic students.
“We’re trying to create a space and an atmosphere at the college where students feel welcome, safe and comfortable,” Alton said. “It’s not necessarily a space where students are going to go and be served tea or coffee. We’re teaching these principles to our faculty and our staff so that every encounter they have with our students becomes a welcoming and successful encounter with them.”
Another focus of the grant will be to grow dual credit/dual and transfer enrollment and increase those students’ success through outreach, advising, counseling and academic support services. DE/DC students represent a growing percentage (19 percent) of Northern’s enrollment. Alton hopes to develop a dual credit center that is both a physical and virtual space.
“That’s another way of making our campus feel welcoming to our dual credit students,” Alton said. “It can be intimidating when a high school student walks onto a college campus. They don’t really know what they’re encountering. So we’re going to have people available to help guide them through their dual credit experience with the hope that we can turn them into full-time students once they’ve graduated.”
Many high school students take dual credit courses as a requirement for graduation.
“We think this could be more than just fulfilling a requirement,” Alton said. “Those one or two dual credit classes they take in high school could turn into an associate or bachelor’s degree. We just need to give them the support that will help with that.”
The project will also strengthen and expand Northern’s pre-college Summer Bridge program through expanded summer counseling and advising and engaging college orientation experiences.
El Centro is expected to yield an overall increase of 10 percent in enrollment, retention, persistence, transfer, and completion success over the five-year project for Hispanic and low-income students.
