At a special meeting Friday morning, the New Mexico State University Board of Regents provided updates on the search process for the university’s next leader. Importantly, the university’s next top leader will be a president, not a chancellor. This change restores a previous title and structure the university has used throughout most of its history.
During the meeting, the board also announced the membership of the search committee tasked with helping find NMSU’s next president. That committee includes: Ben Woods – Chair, Georgina Badoni, Citlalli Benitez, Susanne Berger, Neal Bitsie, Wanda Bowman, Maria de Boyrie, Christopher Brown, Abel Covarrubias, Leslie Edgar, Gaylene Fasenko, Patricio Gonzales, John Heckendorn, Christian Hendrickson, Scott Hutchinson, Lionell Manlutac, Sabrina Martin, Donald Martinez, Enrico Pontelli, Marisa Sage, Steve Stochaj, Kimberly Stone, Mónica Torres, John Wenzel and Cynthia Wise.
This committee will begin its work right away. Ammu Devasthali, chair of the NMSU Board of Regents, said the members represent a diverse group of individuals who are dedicated to NMSU. Nearly one-fourth of the search committee are faculty members – a much higher percentage than were tapped for the university’s last leadership search. This group has additional representation from students, staff, the community colleges and businesses in the state.
“We are fortunate that Ben Woods, NMSU’s former senior vice president for external relations, has agreed to serve as chair for this committee,” Devasthali said. “I am confident the efforts of this entire committee will lead to the selection of an outstanding new president for NMSU.”
Woods worked at NMSU for 25 years, serving under multiple university presidents. He’s also deeply connected to the community, serving as a former president of the Board of Directors for the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce, and holding other positions on the MountainView Regional Medical Center Board of Trustees, the U.S. Bank Citizen Advisory Board and the Las Cruces Public Schools Foundation. Woods also served as an inaugural member of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority and as a member of the New Mexico Workforce Development Board.
NMSU has already hosted two listening sessions in Las Cruces as part of its search process, and over the next several weeks, other sessions will take place in Hobbs, Gallup, Española, Raton, Tucumcari, Deming, Carrizozo, Albuquerque, Grants and Alamogordo. The university will also work with the public opinion company Research and Polling to ensure feedback is gathered from as many people as possible.
“This is an exciting time for NMSU,” Devasthali said. “For generations, the work done at our university, and in service to our land-grant mission, has changed the lives of countless people for the better. Those efforts haven’t stopped – they continue to happen each day and will still be happening long into the future.”
Updates for NMSU’s presidential search process will be posted at https://nmsu.edu/president-search/.