DACC shuffles health programs in reorganization

LAS CRUCES — A reorganization of academic units will result in a structure to better support students at Doña Ana Community College in the accredited allied health, science, math and engineering programs, according to a DACC news release. The reorganization will be complete by summer 2016.

“The need for allied health employees, particularly nurses, is at a critical juncture,” said Renay Scott, president of DACC. “However, there is also a need for more STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) graduates. Bringing focus and leadership to these critical areas is necessary for this community college to do our part in building one of the most valuable assets in our county, our workforce.”

In addition to regaining accreditation for nursing and expanding student services to support student retention over the past year, DACC undertook a conversation about the structure of academic programs. This led to a proposal to reorganize the academic divisions to bring a stronger focus to STEM and health — industries that are most critical to the county’s economic development, the release stated.

This reorganization is unrelated to New Mexico State University’s staffing study, and resulted from initial guidance from DACC’s accrediting agency, the Higher Learning Commission. In their 2014 visit to the campus, the Commission recommended grouping the accredited health departments together in order to support their accreditation efforts and provide greater oversight of those efforts.

The former Health and Public Services division had grown to 15 different programs, including education and public safety programs. The new Health Sciences division will have only seven programs, all of which require accreditation from health organizations.

Accreditation among health programs has increasingly required more time and effort because of expanded reporting requirements, the release stated. By grouping these programs together, DACC hopes to share lessons learned from different accrediting agencies across accredited programs to better prepare all health programs for accreditation visits. Further, institutional resources allocated to support the preparation for accreditation reports and visits can be more focused and result in greater expertise.

“Accreditation is extremely valuable for academic programs,” Scott said. “Accreditation is a process that ensures that the faculty, staff, and administration within these programs are annually evaluating their work against a set of standards that ensure the students and graduates in those programs are well prepared for jobs in their fields.”

The approved reorganization resulted in the creation of a science, engineering and mathematics division. All three programs were previously in other divisions, but by bringing them together in one location, the programs gain opportunities to collaborate together to better support their students through focused advising, tutoring, and programming, Scott said.

“Bringing leadership and expertise to DACC to lead our efforts to expand science, engineering, and mathematics is the right thing to do if we want more STEM graduates,” Scott said.

The reorganization will require that DACC hire an additional division dean and three additional department chairs. This realignment will require approximately $98,000 to bring a vacant position to a division dean’s salary; and to extend three faculty salaries from 9-month to 12-month positions. The additional needed resources will be covered by reallocating existing resources, according to the release.

“During our fiscal 2015 budget year we changed our budgeting process to include an examination of areas where we could cut in order to reallocate those resources to support institutional priorities which included increasing the number of graduates in our allied health, engineering, career and technical fields,” Scott said.