From the time he was a little kid, Odessa College’s Vice President for Academic Partnerships Jonathan Fuentes has always wanted to be a leader.
First he was going to be a school superintendent, but as he grew up his dream was to be a college president. Now that dream is becoming a reality with Fuentes being named president of Clovis Community College in Clovis, N.M. He starts July 1.
The college serves about 2,500 students and has about 200 staff members. OC has about 400.
At the same time, he has been connected to Odessa College from the time he was a student. Fuentes has been in his current role for five years. Before that, he served two years as executive director of extension areas. He left for a bit, but also served as an adjunct faculty member.
He also served as the Assistant Superintendent of Business and Support Services with additional service as Interim Superintendent at Pecos-Barstow-Toyah Independent School District.
In the 1990s, he was a dual credit student and an Upward Bound student. He took an English class before going to college and then served as an Upward Bound instructor and a residential assistant, “so I’ve been tied to Odessa College now for decades.”
Upward Bound is one of a group of federal programs referred to as TRIO. The purpose of Upward Bound is to give participants the skills and motivation they need to complete secondary education and succeed in postsecondary education, the ed.gov website says.
“I think that’s the hard part is that I love working with all the people. This is the area that I’m familiar with, so that’s really hard to give up, but I’m also looking forward to the challenge of leading a community college,” Fuentes said.
One of his goals is to increase enrollment, including that of dual credit students.
“That’s definitely where I’ve spent so much of my time here at Odessa College, so it felt like a really good fit. I’m interested in doing that. I’ll sit with the board and with the team there at Clovis Community College to figure out all the goals that they’ve set for themselves and we’ll work on setting those goals for the next school year,” Fuentes said.
He added that he didn’t want to move too far from this area.
“My children are at an age where I love having the extended family around. All the grandparents are in this area and so I didn’t want to venture too far away from my village, for sure. I felt like the distance from home was not too far away. It’s a region that I feel very familiar with and I’m interested in serving here. I think that’s the reason that I decided to apply to Clovis,” Fuentes said.
The interviewing process, he said, was fun.
“It was led by a national search firm. At times, it was a little intense. When you make the semifinal round, you go through the Zoom interview. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the questions that were asked and felt prepared for them. Then you go into the final round, and that is interesting, because it’s just an intense day of interviews. It was an 8 to 5 endeavor. You’re meeting with different groups and you don’t know what questions are going to come up. You have to be prepared for any question that may arise. You’re meeting with staff there. You’re meeting with the board. You’re meeting with community leaders. You’re meeting with students and you’re meeting with elected officials from across Clovis and the county, so it can be really intense,” Fuentes said.
Clovis Community College partners with Eastern New Mexico University in Portales on transfers.
“Clovis and Portales are right next to each other and so it just makes sense,” Fuentes said.
He added that he has enjoyed the people most at Odessa College.
“The people are the best here. I think we just assembled a group of people that really care about students and that’s what makes it so easy to serve here and makes me so passionate about the work that I get to do here because I’m serving next to like-minded people who truly care about students and want to do what’s right for students all the time and fight for students and have everything it takes to help make students successful here,” Fuentes said.
He said it’s a similar feeling at Clovis Community College.
“I felt at home there with all of the people I spoke to. It felt like it was just a really nice community, filled with kind people who cared about each other. Even as I interviewed over at Clovis Community College, it was nice to see that they had a lot of the same things implemented there. They had their own food pantry; they had a garden; they cared about the student and all of the holistic needs it takes to help students be successful. That was really nice to see. They also participated in some of the national organizations that we do like Achieving the Dream. They’re constantly working on their data and looking at their data in order to help students be even more successful. It felt like it was a place that I knew. They even had some eight-week courses and had been working in that direction and so doing a lot of the things that we do here,” Fuentes said.
He said they’re still in the beginning stages of offering eight-week classes while OC has implemented them fully.
“I’ll be able to take that experience with me and help move them more in that direction,” Fuentes said.
Located in an agricultural area near Cannon Air Force Base and not far from the Permian Basin, Clovis Community College has the opportunity to offer some Defense Department programming and oilfield programming.
“They have a tight partnership with the Air Force Base, so they do offer some programs, but I think in talking to them, they’re always looking to expand. They want to have more conversations with the Air Force Base and think about how they can help meet their training needs,” Fuentes said.
A native of Pecos, Fuentes earned a bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard University and his master’s and PhD in political science are from the University of Michigan.
“It was interesting, because people would often ask me about my major and they’d be like, oh, so you want to be a politician? The truth was I never wanted to do that. But I care about policy work and I studied education policy throughout all of my political science courses and trainings. That’s where you can see how I’ve I made my way into educational administration. We’re constantly working on policy. We’re constantly thinking about budgets and so I really am doing what I was trained to do, just specialized in education,” Fuentes said.
He said his family has helped him make this happen.
“This was a goal of mine from a very young age and they helped me make it happen. I’m first-generation and really they helped me get here,” Fuentes said.
As an elementary school age kid, Fuentes said they would play school and he would often say he wanted to be the superintendent.
“It was funny because we’d have a teacher and … I was either the principal or the superintendent, so I knew I wanted to lead in education. At that age, I didn’t know it was higher education until I got to about college and grad school,” Fuentes said.
That’s when he figured out he wanted to be a college president.
He and his wife, Alma Porras, have two children. Porras is a high school counselor at Permian High School.
“She’s loved it. She really has,” Fuentes said.
Clovis Community College Board of Trustees Chair Lora Harlan was pleased to welcome Fuentes as president.
“On behalf of the Board of Trustees, we are excited to have Dr. Jonathan Fuentes become the sixth President of Clovis Community College. We unanimously agree that he is the enthusiastic, friendly, visionary that will build on our strengths and serve us well as we transition into the future,” Harlan said in a news release. “Dr. Fuentes is already committed to our vision and mission. He is ready to strengthen and grow the service to our students, faculty, and staff. I believe he is ready to take the helm at CCC and become an integral part of our greater Clovis Community.”
