NMSU searches for prez

At present, however, the wheels of the search process are beginning to turn in earnest with the publication of presidential job postings in national journals and the efforts of a private consulting firm to turn up suitable candidates.

This month, advertisements seeking applications from presidential candidates began running in several print and online publications, including Inside Higher Ed, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Hispanic Outlook and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the Washington, D.C.-based organization that Couture joined after leaving NMSU. The deadline for applications is March 20.

NMSU also has hired, at a cost of $90,000, a firm called AGB Search, an affiliate of the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities, to identify and gauge interest from qualified individuals.

“We are already in contact with a large number of potential candidates,” said Robert W. Lawless, a former University of Tulsa president and AGB Search senior consultant who is helping with the NMSU search. “I’m sure we will continue to get suggestions and nominations, and every single person who is nominated, we will contact.”

When NMSU announced the hiring of AGB Search in January, regents’ chairman Mike Cheney said the firm would “make a strong case to candidates who are not necessarily looking for another job, as these individuals frequently make the best hires.”

Those potential candidates may come from the business world, government or nonprofit organizations, according to a university spokeswoman.

Lawless said AGB will forward NMSU’s 17-member presidential search committee a complete list of all interested candidates, and the committee will pare the list down to five finalists. The committee plans to bring finalists to campus between April 22 and May 2 for interviews.

After a nearly four-decade period of stability when NMSU was led by three presidents, the land-grant university has seen five permanent presidents and four stints by interim presidents in the last 18 years. Couture, who was hired in late 2009 from her post as senior vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, left in what Cheney called a “mutually agreeable separation” in October after less than three years. The university gave her a $453,000 contract buyout.

Lawless said some potential candidates may wonder about the turnover in the president’s office, but he did not view it as a major deterrent. During a series of listening sessions regents held around the state to find out what alumni, faculty, staff and students want in the next president, a frequent theme to emerge was a desire for stability.

NMSU is facing many challenges, including dealing with tighter state budgets, attracting and retaining talented faculty, and finding a home in a football-playing athletic conference while taking the field as an independent in 2013.

But, in an introduction posted online for potential candidates, NMSU boasts that: it is among only 2 percent of colleges and universities classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a research university with high research activity and is ranked among the top 200 “best colleges” by U.S. News and World Report.

“There are challenges, but each challenge once solved becomes an opportunity, and there is tremendous opportunity at NMSU,” Lawless said.