Is there a 'smiley, colon and then open bracket' in the CVSROOT setting line. An open bracket will probably cause problems. Or, was the smiley put in there by accident when you entered the post.
try this in a console
export CVSROOT=server:root@nmsu.edu:/usr/local/cvs-rep/
then env |grep CVSROOT
if not, try
export CVSROOT="server:root@nmsu.edu:/usr/local/cvs-rep/"
env |grep CVCSROOT
Both of the above work on my machine.
You can also just add the complete export to the bash_profile instead of
set, then export.
Also, instead of spawning a new console each time to test the bash_profile, you can
source .bash_profile
Hopefully, something in the above will help.
RO