The University of New Mexico has formally begun its search for a new president.
Regents on Monday selected a California-based executive search firm to identify presidential candidates. The board also announced plans to create an internal selection committee comprising regents, faculty, staff and students to select the candidate to succeed President David Schmidly when he steps down next year.
“This is the most important thing, in my opinion, regents can do,” Regent Don Chalmers said Monday.
UNM plans to pay search firm Storbeck/Pimentel & Associates about $300,000 to recruit qualified candidates, Regent President Jack Fortner said. The fee is budgeted to be paid through the 2008 general obligation property tax bonds.
Storbeck/Pimentel was selected from a pool of nine companies based on its experience in identifying female and minority candidates, Fortner said, as well as its work to find presidents at other research universities, including University of Washington and University of Nevada, Reno.
To start the search, “what we’re going to be doing is talking with the search firm, and they’re going to be giving us direction,” Fortner said.
Fortner appointed himself to chair the committee. History professor emeritus Jane Slaughter will serve as vice chairwoman. The committee also will include regents Chalmers and Jamie Koch, as many as eight faculty members, and presidents of the university’s graduate and undergraduate student governments.
The full committee, ranging between 20 and 30 people, will be named within the next two weeks. The first public meeting is expected to be held in July. Public forums on the presidential search will continue in August when students and faculty return to campus, Fortner said.
“… School is not in session, and you can’t rush things,” he said.
The committee will likely have the top five candidates identified between December and January, Fortner said. Only those candidates will be publicly announced.
Academic leaders say the decision to include a professor among search committee leadership is proof of improved relationships between faculty, regents and administration.
“It’s a really good exercise in the kind of shared governance we’re looking for,” Faculty Senate President Richard Wood said.
— This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal
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