Budget cuts are students’ loss

By Charlotte Hsu

Saturday, July 12, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The campus of the only college in this valley of about 10,000 people is a two-room modular building, cream blue, plopped in a parking lot behind the lone public high school.

Now the state’s budget quagmire is threatening to swallow this no-frills establishment that folks in the towns of Logandale, Moapa and Overton have relied on for 15 years.

This outpost of the College of Southern Nevada, which officials plan to close in June 2009, is a place locals turn to when they have a dream.

James Stump, 19, is taking classes at the former community college, determined to earn a construction management degree. A construction foreman, he hopes education will spare him from a lifetime of manual labor.

Brittany Hentzell, 20, plans to finish an associate degree this fall before transferring to Brigham Young University. She said she might not have started college had CSN not had its campus in Logandale.

“The service is one of those things that is not measurable in dollars and cents,” said Ronald Dalley, who has lived in the area for more than 60 years. “And it would seem to me that they should probably seriously think about what’s happening and what they’re denying the people of Moapa Valley.”

CSN administrators in Las Vegas said serving residents of Moapa Valley and other outlying regions is integral to the college’s mission. But the school simply can’t afford to keep the Logandale site open, they said. CSN is facing budget cuts that could top $28 million between July 2009 and July 2011.

Closing the Moapa Valley center will save an estimated $58,500 a year, most of which goes to salary and benefits for the campus’ single full-time employee. To cut another $579,000, officials plan to shutter five other branches — three in Las Vegas, one in Boulder City and one in Lincoln County. The figures do not include money the college spends on instructors.

“We are extremely regretful of having to plan the closure of (the Logandale) site, as well the rest of the sites on the closure list, and are frustrated that this budget-cutting process mandated by the Governor is forcing us into a position where we are not able to meet the needs of the community we serve,” CSN Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs Darren Divine said in an e-mail.

One factor officials used to determine which sites to shut down was how many people the centers served. Moapa Valley had 80 students enrolled this spring and 100 in spring 2007. In contrast, a campus in Mesquite, which is not on the closure list, had 240 students this spring.

On Tuesday, Divine will meet with people in Logandale to discuss ways his institution can continue serving the region. Expanding online offerings or finding money outside CSN to finance the local learning center are options, he said. But unless the state or other organizations can find more funding for CSN, Moapa Valley’s only college will be gone next year.

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To understand why the local college matters so much, you need to know a little about Moapa Valley, a whisper of civilization along the Muddy River about 60 miles from Las Vegas.

The next closest population center is Mesquite, about 35 miles away.

Many valley high school students take college classes. But if they had to choose between activities such as basketball and band or night classes in Mesquite, extracurriculars would win out, said Grant Hanevold, principal of Moapa Valley High School. In a place without big-city amenities, high school sports are central to community life. Parents and grandparents attend every game.

“A kid couldn’t be in football and drive to Mesquite every Monday and Wednesday night,” Hanevold said. “Those kids are going to choose football over college.”

In addition to sports, religion is a focal point in the lives of many residents. Many men who belong to the area’s large Mormon community leave home on religious missions at age 19. CSN gives these young people a chance to earn college credits before heading off, said April Krell, who lives in Overton and runs the center in Logandale.

The college is also a resource for older residents. Most Moapa Valley professionals, including firefighters and construction contractors, work in Las Vegas, said Vernon Robison, president of the region’s Chamber of Commerce.

As a result, you will find many people in the position of Anna Becker, 49, a special education teacher who earned an associate degree from CSN before earning a bachelor’s degree in elementary and special education at an Arizona college that allowed her to train under local teachers.

When Becker began her studies in 1997, she saw CSN as her only choice. Her husband, an electrician, commuted to Las Vegas, and her daughters, now 16 and 18, were young. With her husband gone 12 hours a day, Becker did not want to travel for school. Internet programs were not an option at the time because the family could not afford a computer.

“Had it not been for the community college being out here in the valley,” Becker said, “I would not be teaching today.”

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Krell said CSN administrators did not visit her center before announcing they were shutting it down. When Divine comes to Moapa Valley on Tuesday — he is visiting because Krell asked him to — Krell, Hanevold and others will have a lot to show him.

“If you look at where we’re headed, which they may not know, then maybe that decision would have been different,” Hanevold said.

It would have been nice, Dalley said, if officials had made the effort to learn more about the community before, and not after, deciding to take its college away.

Dalley said CSN began offering classes in Moapa Valley in the 1980s using high school classrooms. The college got its own building, the modular, about 15 years ago, locals said.

The Logandale center offers courses that fit into students’ regular high school schedules. Last year, just two subjects were available — English and math. In 2008-09, students will also be able to choose from political science, accounting, information systems and business.

The dual-credit program is open to juniors and seniors, and those who enroll receive high school and college credit. Last year, 17 took the English courses. This year, 43 have signed up.

“We just get going and they pull the rug out from under us,” said John Pulver, a professor of sociology who teaches at the Moapa Valley center.

CSN helps put Moapa Valley teenagers “on equal footing” with their counterparts in Las Vegas, who have access to college-level courses and magnet programs, said Dalley, who teaches English at the Logandale campus. Classroom instruction is crucial for high school students, who often struggle to stay motivated in online programs, Krell said.

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Stump, who has been working in construction since 2005, said he would have gone to college whether or not CSN had a campus in Logandale. Once he finishes general education requirements, he’ll have to head to Las Vegas to take construction management courses anyway.

Still, the Logandale campus is saving him a lot of money — good news for his parents, who have five other children ages 5-19. Commuting to Las Vegas in his pickup truck would have cost Stump hundreds of dollars each month in gas.

He said his earnings total between $30,000 to $35,000 yearly, and his father, a construction superintendent, told him an associate degree would raise that amount to as much as $50,000 right out of school.

Stump’s goals are not extravagant, and he’s set on achieving them. Many young people around town are less certain about their futures. And for those who do not have a dream, the valley’s only college is often the place where they find one.

“I’ve known a lot of kids who weren’t thinking about going to college,” Stump said. “But they felt comfortable with (CSN) and started taking classes, so that kind of drove them into getting a degree.”