Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig ccristorey.edu.do. NS
Answer
ccristorey.edu.do. 2 NS ns71.hostgator.mx.
ccristorey.edu.do. 2 NS ns70.hostgator.mx.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0