CHESS Frequently Asked Questions

The Collaborative for Higher Education Shared Services, or CHESS, is a nonprofit comprised of Central New Mexico Community College, Clovis Community College, Luna Community College, Northern New Mexico College, San Juan College, and Santa Fe Community College that employs a unique approach that will transform the student experience and streamline administrative operations through shared business processes. The presidents of each college form the CHESS Board of Directors. The CHESS CEO, COO, Communications Officer, and Communications Specialist make up the CHESS Executive Team.

The CHESS Enterprise Resource Planning initiative is a ground-breaking collaboration among independent community colleges – Central New Mexico Community College, Clovis Community College, Luna Community College, Northern New Mexico College, San Juan College, and Santa Fe Community College. The group has partnered to identify, select and implement a single, shared technology system to transform the student experience and streamline administrative operations.

The new system will:

• Provide students a network across member colleges so they may reach their potential more fully and more economically.
• Eliminate the stress associated with enrolling and completing a degree or certificate.
• Improve student recruitment, enrollment, support and transfer; continuing education, contract training and workforce development.
• Allow students to easily take courses and apply credits at multiple institutions.
• Provide more support, communication and interaction with prospective and current students.
• Eliminate the need for multiple applications for admission.
• Improve student processes and data for recruitment, application, advising, registration, financial aid and scholarships, scheduling, retention, transfer.
• Streamline student transfer among the colleges and to four-year institutions.
• Strengthen student employment opportunities and the economy through credit and noncredit programs: continuing education, contract training, and workforce education.
• Improve quality of life for students, their families, their communities.
• Provide the means for colleges to combine student registrations so that more classes meet minimum enrollment requirements, and more students can complete their requirements more quickly.
• Reduce duplication of student records (with college-specific restrictions as needed).
• Create a more agile, more intuitive interface/platform.
• Increase accessibility and mobility.
• Help increase enrollments and improve student retention.
• Feature a comprehensive, state-of-the-art ERP solution.
• Modernize the technology that serves students and employees across all colleges.
• Increase productivity and capacity with more effective and efficient operations.
• Streamline administrative tasks, financial services, and human resources management.
• Include a single, shared data repository that protects personal information and manages data in a secure environment.
• Provide academic programming and staff reinforcements when needed.
• Achieve cost-savings and contain technology costs by leveraging economies of scale, joint procurement, common licensing, maintenance, and support.
• Share staff and skillsets among the colleges to support hiring specialized technical talent across the state.
• Create a stronger collaboration where colleges can help students more as well as help one another.
• Prevent delays in continued service to students, faculty, and staff by providing support from other colleges to temporarily fill vacancies.
• Reduce the need for multiple, unaligned third-party systems.
• Allow each college to retain its unique, independent nature to continue to serve its local community and address the unique workforce needs in their respective communities.
• Enhance relationships with community members, business partners, public officials to connect students with local job and internship opportunities.

This collaboration is the first of its kind in the nation. A groundbreaking new initiative, with member colleges voluntarily collaborating on a single, shared technology that will allow more students to enroll in and complete classes, degrees, certificates, and programs at any of the participating colleges with a single student record regardless of which college they attend. In time, this partnership will extend to other collaborative projects.

Independent public colleges collaborating to align student services and key business processes and systems using a common, more secure, and more efficient ERP as the foundation.

Hundreds of faculty and staff members from Central New Mexico Community College, Clovis Community College, Luna Community College, Northern New Mexico College, San Juan College, and Santa Fe Community College.

A small group of presidents and senior administrators came together to explore the possibilities of a partnership. Part of the impetus came from frustration with existing systems that did not “talk” with one another, even if they were using the same vendor. The New Mexico Legislature wants higher education to collaborate more and to standardize reporting. The members had to start at the fundamental level of the ERP. For example, if a registrar leaves, it is especially hard in a small, rural area to replace that person. Now, when a member provides the appropriate security clearance to another college, they will be able to handle the other college’s processes and help with registrar responsibilities until a replacement is hired. The colleges have created trust among the members that allows them to expose their vulnerabilities and work collaboratively in order to find and implement the best solutions.

• New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham
• New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee
• New Mexico Higher Education Department
• New Mexico Department of Information Technology
• New Mexico Independent Community Colleges
• Governing Boards of the member colleges

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is process management software that uses a system of integrated applications to manage business operations and automate back-office functions related to student services, financial administration, and human resources.

A Student Information System provides a mechanism for education institutions to manage student data. Student information systems provide capabilities for registering students in courses; documenting grading, transcripts, results of student tests and other assessment scores; building student schedules; tracking student attendance; and managing many student-related data needs.

Shared services overall will be more efficient and cost effective. There will be potential cost savings over time. The economy of scale and the fact that colleges will be on a common “single instance” system further reduces costs. For example, each college will not have to staff an independent help desk, systems administration, or maintenance efforts. This means a significant reduction in current maintenance and operations costs for each college.

While there are no firm cost estimates for licensing and maintenance since the project is still in the RFP phase, it is known that modern cloud-based systems are much more cost effective.

The colleges have begun work using existing institutional matching funds. They have received some state funding and are in the process of seeking private donations.

Yes. Once implemented, other community colleges and four-year institutions will be welcome to join the collaboration, which will strengthen the network and further support students.

The colleges are able to collaborate remotely and have learned how well they work in this environment. The teams and committees meet more regularly because they can meet online. Systems have changed and are cloud-based. CHESS can set up the system the way they want it, instead of doing things the way that existing technology has required it. It can be done so much better using the most modern, best approach. Everyone involved will have the opportunity to create a system that is much improved and better for students, faculty, staff, and communities.