NMSU Regents search for new president

New Mexico State University (NMSU) Board of Regents met in a special session on July 14 where a measure to strengthen the university’s equity and diversity practices was passed.

The board also voted to name over 20 individuals to a search committee which will immediately begin its work to select the school’s next president. More public listening sessions on the next president are planned for the future.

NMSU’s president search, not chancellor

Regents approved the creation of a committee to immediately begin its search for NMSU’s next leader. Twenty-five individuals were selected with Ben Woods, former senior vice president for external relations, as chair.

Chair of the Board of Regents Ammu Devasthali told the board that the committee had “a slate of nominees who are from across the NMSU system, the state of New Mexico and alumni from around the country.”

“We worked very hard on putting this committee together,” Devasthali said. “We had a list of stakeholder groups who need to be involved in the search. I understand that the search committee is kind of large but when I looked at the list after we put it together … I realized that we needed every single one of those groups represented.”

Devasthali said that nearly a fourth of the committee is comprised of faculty members, students, staff, the community colleges and businesses. She’s confident the committee will choose an “outstanding president,” as a result.

She also clarified that the position will be deemed “president” not “chancellor” and that person will serve as the head of the NMSU system, returning to a previous title used in the school’s history.

In the meantime, public listening sessions will continue throughout the state to include various stakeholders in the search process with dates to be announced later. Hobbs, Española, Raton, Tucumcari, Deming, Carrizozo, Albuquerque, Grants and Alamogordo were listed for those sessions.

Shortly after the meeting, the Office of the Chancellor also announced some organizational changes that will align with the search for a new president. Among those changes is the selection of Monica Torres, Doña Ana Community College president, to serve as chancellor of NMSU’s community colleges, reporting to the president’s office.

Devasthali said the upcoming changes are an exciting time for the university to grow and expand its impact. She reaffirmed that the university has “changed the lives of countless people for the better” and will continue to do so into its future.

Goal 6 approved to NMSU LEADS 2025 

Regents unanimously approved Goal 6 – Build, Elevate, and Strengthen Sustainable Systemwide Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity Practices. The measure will be added to the university’s strategic planning initiative LEADS 2025 which aims to grow the school into a robust system that better serves the needs of faculty, students and the community.

Goal 6 will invest university resources and efforts to bring more equity and representation to the institution according to Vice President of Equity, Inclusion, Diversity, Teresa Maria Linda Scholz, who presented the proposal.

“Goal six we're emphasizing institutional excellence, a sustainable foundation for this work and shared responsibility,” Scholz said. “What's also really important to ensuring that we're effective in our equity inclusion and diversity work is that we work together as a community, it's collaborative, it's collective.”

Some of the key points under Goal 6 include:

• Embedding equity, inclusion, diversity and intersectionality into the university system.

• Increased representation and retention of underrepresented minorities, faculty, staff and administrators.

• Increase sense of belonging for underrepresented minorities and marginalized students.

• Cultivate a culture of respect that fosters a thriving inclusive community.

Scholz explained to the board that part of the proposal’s mission is to address areas of underutilization and inequities across the university. This could be from school positions to better recognizing and uplifting student skillsets. She said a big question the proposal will address is how the university can be more strategic.

“We want to ensure that the university campuses and the community colleges are retaining our students, but also retaining our faculty and our staff, who are really skilled and who bring incredible assets to the institution,” Scholz said. “A lot of the EID work is actually how do we tap into those assets, particularly that our students are bringing to our campuses.”

The proposal involves an overhaul of the university’s approaches to recruitment and retention of faculty as well. Board members expressed concern that pay and diversity within departments has discouraged people from seeking out positions. However, it is not limited to just those factors. Gaylene Fasenko, faculty senate chair, is one of those members who said during the meeting it goes beyond pay.

“It's not about salary, it’s about the culture and that's where it's going to be difficult right now to bring in people of color and minority because we don't have a lot of those folks,” Fasenko said.

Devasthali shared similar remarks to Fasenko by saying that the university has to start somewhere to make it more attractive for folks to want to work there and for alumni to want to come back. She said the university cannot achieve these goals without action, and passage of Goal 6 during Friday’s session is part of that action.

Ernesto Cisneros is a UNM NM Local News Fund Fellow covering education. He can be reached at ECisneros@lcsun-news.com Follow him on Twitter at @_ernestcisneros

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: NMSU president search underway