New Mexico State University will celebrate the inauguration of its 32nd president, Valerio Ferme, during a public ceremony Thursday, April 24, on the Las Cruces campus.
Ferme’s investiture will start at 7:45 a.m. in Corbett Center Student Union’s third-floor ballrooms. It will feature a breakfast and student-led music and dance performances by NMSU’s ballet folklórico and Mariachi Orgullo de Nuevo México
Two former NMSU leaders, Garrey Carruthers and Waded Cruzado, are slated to speak, along with other esteemed guests and dignitaries, including Elizabeth Fenn, a Pulitzer-prize winning historian and a close friend to Ferme. Ferme will then deliver his inaugural address before the event concludes around 10 a.m.
NMSU invites all members of the public to join the festivities. Guests should RSVP at nmsu.link/RSVP_Breakfast before the inauguration, promptly arrive before the procession begins at 8:30 a.m. and kindly adhere to the business attire dress code.
Ferme officially began his tenure as NMSU’s president on Jan. 1 after a two-month transition period. He came to NMSU via the University of Cincinnati, where he served as executive vice president for academic affairs and provost and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Ferme has spent more than two and a half decades working in higher education as a professor and administrator. Before UC, he served as dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Northern Arizona University and divisional dean for the Arts and Humanities department at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he taught for 19 years in the Department of French and Italian.
A native of Italy with U.S. citizenship at birth, Ferme came to the United States as an undergraduate student. He attended Brown University and earned bachelor’s degrees in biology and religious studies. He then completed master’s degrees in comparative literature and Italian studies from Indiana University and received a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley.
Ferme’s first months as the leader of New Mexico’s oldest land-grant university have been busy. At NMSU’s spring 2025 convocation, he spoke about instilling a culture of unity and gratitude across the university’s system. Since then, he has met with deans, faculty, staff, students and stakeholders, seeking their input as he builds his vision for NMSU.
Ferme has emphasized student retention and enrollment management as top priorities for NMSU. He has tasked teams to implement university-wide strategies that promote positive outcomes for students and increase enrollment by encouraging students to pursue higher education credentials and seeing them successfully graduate.
Between January and March, Ferme navigated New Mexico’s 60-day legislative session, meeting with lawmakers and other public officials to make the case for NMSU’s needs while touting its success in teaching, research and public service. He also empaneled a task force to study the impacts of new federal orders and identify solutions to best serve NMSU’s diverse student population.
In February, he celebrated NMSU’s redesignation as an R1 institution by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, following a yearslong campaign to ramp up the university’s research and creative enterprise.
Since arriving at NMSU, Ferme and his husband, Giorgio Cordo, have quickly moved to make Las Cruces their home with their four grandchildren.
“I’m deeply grateful to be welcomed into this Aggie family,” Ferme said, “and I’m looking forward to getting to know more of the students, faculty, staff, alumni and supporters who help make NMSU the strong and vibrant community that it is.”
For more information about Ferme’s inauguration, call the President’s Office at 575-646-2035.
-30-
Cutline: New Mexico State University will celebrate the inauguration of its 32nd president, Valerio Ferme, during a public ceremony Thursday, April 24, on the Las Cruces campus. (NMSU photo by Josh Bachman)