Northeastern Junior College won’t be changing its name for now. President Jay Lee announced at an Advisory Council meeting Thursday that as a result of a staff/student/community survey on the name change and the voting numbers, the Colorado Community College System, in conjunction with legislators, have determined that it would be appropriate for NJC to be withdrawn or amended out of a bill to remove the word junior from the names of three community colleges in Colorado.
“It hasn’t been done at this point, but it will be done I’m assuming sometime early next week,” Lee said.
The House Education Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on SB21-008 next week, at which time they will be considering removing the word junior from Otero Junior College and Trinidad State Junior College’s names only, not NJC.
Lee noted that NJC did the survey on the name change at the request of the two House sponsors of the bill, Representatives Donald Valdez (D-La Jara) and Richard Holtorf (R-Akron). However, those sponsors did not make the same request of Otero or Trinidad and it does look very positive that those schools will be able to change their names, making NJC the only “junior” college in Colorado.
Northeastern Junior College won’t be changing its name for now. President Jay Lee announced at an Advisory Council meeting Thursday that as a result of a staff/student/community survey on the name change and the voting numbers, the Colorado Community College System, in conjunction with legislators, have determined that it would be appropriate for NJC to be withdrawn or amended out of a bill to remove the word junior from the names of three community colleges in Colorado.
“It hasn’t been done at this point, but it will be done I’m assuming sometime early next week,” Lee said.
The House Education Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on SB21-008 next week, at which time they will be considering removing the word junior from Otero Junior College and Trinidad State Junior College’s names only, not NJC.
Lee noted that NJC did the survey on the name change at the request of the two House sponsors of the bill, Representatives Donald Valdez (D-La Jara) and Richard Holtorf (R-Akron). However, those sponsors did not make the same request of Otero or Trinidad and it does look very positive that those schools will be able to change their names, making NJC the only “junior” college in Colorado.
“I do believe that (CCCS) Chancellor (Joe) Garcia is interested in doing so, yes,” he told the council. “I think at this point it’s very early to say if there will be serious plans to move forward with it, but based on a conversation I had with him yesterday, I do believe that he would like to have that conversation after the current legislative session is over.”
One of the reasons Lee has given for wanting to remove junior from NJC’s name is because the college is suffering declining enrollment and some believe that’s in part because there is a negative connotation to the word “junior.”
NJC’s enrollment for the spring semester was down about 12% when the council last met in February and that has continued to be the case, though numbers did creep up a little bit later in the semester. Over the last 10 years, NJC has suffered a 30% decrease in enrollment.
“That’s just something we can’t continue to have happen and still be successful at this institution. So, focusing on enrollment is going to be key as we hopefully move out of the COVID era and back to a more normal approach to education,” Lee said.
Part of the plan to deal with the enrollment crisis is to provide a lot more scholarships to students next year, using stimulus funding from the federal government and an anticipated increase in state funding as incentives to help NJC with that challenge.
Students that are new to the college in fall 2021 can receive a scholarship of $1,500 for the semester if they attend full-time and live in a residence hall, which the college hopes will help it achieve its goal of filling all of the residence halls next year. Those interested in receiving the scholarship will have to fill out a small form, but it won’t be a rigorous application process.
Additionally, students that are attending full-time but living at home will be eligible for a $1,000 scholarship and students who attend part-time if they are three-quarters time can get a $750 scholarship and be prorated from there.
“We feel that, that’s a great incentive to try to bring more students to our campus,” Lee said.
There will be some scholarships available to returning students. But, because the college is using different funds from the federal level for that, they have to do a little bit more in terms of having students fill out an application.
Something else NJC hopes will help with enrollment is CCCS’s recent decision not to increase tuition next school year.
Lee also gave an update on the budget, informing the council that it appears the college will end this academic year with an ability to put money into its reserves, which was the goal from the beginning of this year.
“It’s not because of enrollment, but in large part because of the funding that we are receiving from the federal government through these different packages that started over a year ago and are continuing, and also some of the sacrifices that our faculty and staff, employees made,” he said.
Faculty and staff have taken furlough days and limited their operational budgets. NJC has eliminated about 70% of its travel this year; with the only people really traveling being student-athletes and that was largely after the spring semester started.
“We’ve managed to really bring our budget into check and to keep the numbers down, and because of that we believe we’ll be able to put some money into reserves, which is great news for us,” Lee said.
If NJC is able to have a positive impact on its enrollment through flat tuition and increased scholarships, they believe next year will be a sound fiscal year for them as well.
Additionally, at the end of his president’s report, Lee announced that Jack Annan, who was been with the college for almost 50 years and most recently served as executive director of the NJC Alumni Association, has officially retired from NJC.
“There will be more to come about Jack’s retirement, we do plan to celebrate his career here at Northeastern and put together a campaign to recognize his great service to this college,” he said.