Q&A: New ENMU boss sees 'great market to grow'

Mar. 11—James Johnston in January became the 12th president and third chancellor at Eastern New Mexico University.

He talked with The News last week in his first extensive interview.

Tell us about your background. Where did you grow up, your education, and how did you make it to Portales?

I'm 58 years old. I was born in Slaton, Texas. I grew up in the Panhandle. I'm a first-generation college graduate.

I really had no plans for college until probably the end of my sophomore year in high school. My history teacher, who was also my basketball coach, was the one that encouraged me to go to college. From there, I went to South Plains College.

Initially, I earned an associate degree in radiologic technology and medical imaging. I'm very good in science and math, but there's this creative part of my brain. I started working at MD Anderson Cancer Center after I graduated, and we really found that I needed additional degrees as I went through my career.

That's what sent me back to college initially, and I moved into higher education at a community college. I finished my master's degree at Midwestern State University. And they recruited me there to teach and research and I just moved up through administration there and started working on a PhD as soon as I arrived.

And what made you want to be a university president?

I really love the administration part because it allows me to advocate for a university and provide resources to allow a very talented faculty and staff to do what they do to provide access and opportunity for students.

Really what landed me at Eastern and in Portales, I mean, this is a perfect fit for me. And people have heard me say this over and over, it really feels like I've returned home. The state line doesn't change the way the High Plains feels.

Tell us about your family.

My wife Stephanie and I are a blended family. We have four children together and 10 grandchildren. They live between two and four hours in pretty much any direction from Portales. So, it kind of puts us in the middle of all of them.

Give us some perspective on online classes at ENMU.

I've taught purely online courses, courses designed specifically to be delivered online. It's a very different teaching and learning approach. What I see today, we learned a lot of things from the pandemic, I think we improved a lot of the technology and how we deliver and teach.

I think we'll always be a market for distance education for online learning. Any public institution of any size that is not in that market is going to find themselves coming up short, so we have to compete there. And I think we do a great job.

We also saw (during the pandemic) that a lot of students struggled online. And that has always been the case, in my experience, too, that online learning is not for every student and not for every professor either.

I think there's a great market to grow and provide an outstanding in-person experience and online experience here. Right now, 1,240 undergraduates are what we consider face to face. There's 1,602 that are online that we consider purely online. Now, there's a different mix, and that number is changing quickly.

Is the movement to online learning a good thing or a bad thing? Is it important to keep a balance?

We'll always have a large online presence, but I think we'll see that face to face (increase) more rapidly, I think over the next couple of years.

There are, in my mind, different markets. Like there's that middle, there's that blend that we think we've seen in the past. And we'll always see that. Being strong in the distance and market increases our reach regionally, so we can provide high quality, higher education to students who for whatever reason, cannot move to Portales.

And we see that a lot in graduate school these days. A lot of students returning from graduate school are working full time, they have families, they have life obligations, and to quit their job, their lives, so to speak, and come back to school in person ... It's just not possible. I think, particularly first generations benefit greatly from an in-person, on-campus experience.

We'll remain competitive and still push to grow both (online and in-person).

What do you see as the trend nationally for enrollment, and how do those numbers compare to ENMU's?

We are all exiting the pandemic, if you will, at different levels. I think we're all growing and will continue to grow.

A lot of students may have put their college plans on hold because we were online and they struggled with that. ... It just depends on how the city or the state responded to the pandemic and the community's comfort with coming back to large in-person.

Tell me about sports leadership at ENMU ... New Mexico State and now Texas Tech are having issues in that area, causing suspensions and even cancellations of seasons. What does ENMU do to ensure coaches and players are representing the university appropriately?

I think the best way to frame that is the difference in Division 1 and Division 2 athletics. Not being on the inside of that I really can't comment on their problems and their response or lack of response.

Division 2 athletics provides opportunities for some talented students to use that talent to help pay for an education. It's just a more personal and family oriented environment to me.

Our focus, at least in my opinion, is certainly we want to be competitive, and we want to win, but we also realize that the students we serve, we want to provide them that quality access to education and opportunity.

The Department of Music and the ENMU theater department both had performances interrupted recently because of illness among students. We weren't told the exact nature of the illnesses, but the assumption is some kind of flu or covid outbreak. Are you seeing a large number of sick students and/or faculty in recent weeks?

Flu and covid and (other illnesses) reach a level where they're just always a part of our lives. I'm not seeing large outbreaks or anything reported to me. I think there's these pockets of illnesses, whatever that happens to be, it's kind of our norm.

Any consideration of returning to all remote learning until it passes?

Oh no, not at all.

There have been rumors coming from Tucumcari that Mesalands Community College and ENMU are considering some kind of partnership. ENMU Regents President Lance Pyle said "There have been no 'formal' meetings or conversations with ENMU related to Mesalands." Is something going on between the schools?

As Regent Pyle said, there's been no formal conversations with us about that. I saw that I think the Higher Education Department is working with Mesalands. I mean, we would talk with them if approached, but we're not pursuing anything like that.

Have you enjoyed your time at ENMU so far?

We have thoroughly enjoyed every moment ... It's hard to just put into words, the people, the culture, the area, the work that we do, it's kind of all of the above and it's ... to me, that perfect fit.

What are your goals for the university?

Broadly, you obviously want to grow the university, not only in enrollment, but its presence in the community, in the state, the region.