CCC fees mostly remain unchanged

A fee schedule for Clovis Community College that appears to feature large increases in "programmatic textbook fees" for radiology courses but mostly leaves fees unchanged received approval Thursday from the college's board of trustees.

The programmatic textbook fee for a first-semester Radiologic Technology program Fall 2022 was listed as $755, compared to a listing of $144 when the program was last offered in the fall semester of 2021. A fourth-semester Radiologic Technology program shows programmatic textbook fees of $321 for the fall semester of 2022, compared with a listing of $144 in the fall semester of 2021, the last time that course was offered.

Robin Kuykendall, CCC's vice president of enrollment management and student affairs, said the programmatic textbook fees include the costs of all textbooks needed for all four radiologic technology classes that students in the program take per semester.

Bundling fees in that way, she said, reduces costs for students and streamlines processes for financial aid and dealings with the campus bookstore.

Other fees remained stable, compared with previous semester offerings, according to a fee schedule included with the board's Thursday agenda.

The board also heard a presentation on recent activities of the college's Small Business Development Center (SBDC), which provides consulting services and training programs for small-business owners.

Sandra Taylor-Sawyer, director of the program highlighted two success stories, recognizing the success of two Clovis businesses that worked with the SBDC. The businesses are the Clovis Furniture Exchange, owned by Randy and Jamie Petty of Clovis , and Range Movement, an exercise business owned by Megan Crawford and Brooke McDonald of Clovis.

Randy Petty said he has been working with the SBDC on almost a weekly basis through the COVID-19 pandemic to get advice on keeping his furniture business going.

"We kept going back and forth to keep the business alive," he said.

Petty said the business has begun a new $1-million franchise operation.

Range Movement surprised Taylor-Sawyer by starting a gym-based business during the COVID-19 pandemic, while masking and social distancing mandates were in place.

"We kept numbers small and observed mask requirements," McDonald said.

The business has succeeded, however, Taylor-Sawyer said.

Taylor-Sawyer also noted that she and Dominique Chairez, assistant director have joined forces with SBDC staff at Luna College in Las Vegas and Eastern New Mexico University's Roswell campus to keep the SBDC at Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari in operation since the death of Vicki Watson, Mesalands' SBDC director, on March 31, 2021.

Also in Thursday's meeting, CCC President Charles Nwankwo announced the college would be examining whether redistricting is needed for college board elections due to shifts in population from the 2020 U.S. Census from the 2010 census.

Nwankwo said that CCC's districts are the same as those for the Clovis Municipal School District (CMS), but the question of whether CCC's districts should be different from the CMS's is still open. Nwankwo said the college will explore options and report to the board in a future meeting.

Adjustments, if needed, must be presented by the end of May, Nwankwo said.