As South Plains College has wrapped up their spring semester, the Board of Regents were updated during their May meeting with employee retirements and curriculum changes.
Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Ryan Gibbs highlighted this years’ service awards.
For the Spring 2025 semester, 70 employees were recognized for a combined 900 years of service.
This included 17 employees with five years, 25 employees with 10 years, nine employees with 15 years, six employees with 20 years, six employees with 25 years, two employees with 30 years, four employees with 35 years and one employee with 50 years of service. Spring 2025 retirees included Lorenza Macias with 20 years, Dennis Prindle with 16 years, Daniel Nazworth with 17 years, Susan Nazworth with 14 years, Philip Ricker with 37 years, Debbie Hale with 17 years and Delma Salinas with 42 years of service.
The seven retirees total 163 years of service.
Also recognized during the meeting were the Fall 2024 retirees. Five employees retired with a total of 123 years of service. This included Karol Albus with 11 years, Rob Blair with 29 years, Sammy Perez with 25 years, Norma Mendoza with 50 years and Liria Montez with eight years of service.
Between the spring retirees 990 years of service and the fall retirees’ 123 years of service, the total years of service are 1,113.
“We have a lot of dedicated people who have retired recently and have worked here for many years,” said Gibbs. We are very proud of them; we’re sad to see him go but we are happy that they get to go off into retirement.”
Continuing his update, Gibbs transitioned into recent curriculum changes that were made with the last academic council during the spring.
Gibbs informed the Regents that a majority of the changes are driven by the state as they dictate what the college should be doing and teaching.
“As you are aware, we are driven by the state in terms of the Academic Course Guide Manual,” explained Gibbs. “They tell us our courses, the content of the courses and how many hours they are.”
Also having a hand in those decisions is the Texas Common Course Numbering System. “We do not have a lot of wiggle room when it comes to that for community colleges in the state of Texas,” said Gibbs. “Universities on the other hand are not bound by that, but we are.”
Gibbs stated the department chairs and deans continue to work hard to make sure that the college’s course offerings are upto- date and accurate.
“They are keeping in touch with the state and those within the chosen field that the students are going into,” stated Gibbs.
SPC President, Dr. Robin Satterwhite also commented on the topic. Course fees have been a topic of discussion especially for courses such as welding where material prices fluctuate.
The issue of adjusting the fees for said courses has been the involvement of the governor’s office instructing institutions to not increase the fees.
Gibbs added that there were no course fee increases in what was being presented to the Regents and even some removals.
“Anytime that we have a raise in in our student fees it’s always directly proportional to how much it cost us to teach those courses,” said Gibbs. “The problem right now is we do not have the ability to do that and as you can imagine things cost more. It has been that way for a while, and I do not think it’s going change anytime soon.”
Following the presentation, the Regents unanimously approved the curriculum changes.
Vice President for Business Affairs, Teresa Green presented a depository bid during her portion of the meeting. The college received one bid from City Bank for 2025-2027. The college was previously with City Bank prior.
The contract consists of City Bank absorbing all of the service charges and fees associated with the college’s accounts.
For all interest-bearing accounts, the bank proposed an interest rate equal to the TexPool 7-Day New Yield of 4.35% at the time with monthly adjustments on the first business day.
The bid was accepted amongst the Regents with no issue.
Before closing out the portion for business affairs, Satterwhite took a moment to announce Green had given the college notice with her intent to retire at the end of August.
Satterwhite thanked Green for her outstanding work.
The Regents also added thanked her for her hard work and congratulated her on future retirement.