Western New Mexico University announces presidential finalists

Five current university administrators, including one currently in New Mexico, were named this week as finalists in Western New Mexico University’s presidential search.

The Silver City-based public university’s presidential search committee selected the finalists and announced a schedule of campus visits for interviews with the school’s regents and community events for the public, beginning later this month.

Since last summer, the university has been led by interim president Chris Maples, a paleontologist with no previous history at WNMU, but has served in interim and permanent leadership positions at several higher education institutions outside New Mexico.

On Tuesday, WNMU named as finalists:

• Jose Coll, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Western Oregon University;
• Sharon Jones, vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Washington, Bothell;
• Mario Martinez, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Fort Lewis College in Colorado;
• Carlos Rey Romero, associate vice president for research at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro;
• Cameron Braxton Wesson, provost and vice president of academic affairs at La Salle University in Pennsylvania.

The regents also announced plans to reveal their selection for the university’s 16th president on March 17. The next president will succeed Joseph Shepard, who led the university from 2011 to the end of 2024.

Romero has served for nearly 10 years at New Mexico Tech, where he also teaches a course in public policy, following eight years in administrative roles at the University of New Mexico. He also has a teaching background offering higher education courses in business and economics. In 2018, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham named him to the comprehensive advisory committee advising the governor on regent candidates for five public universities in the state. He holds degrees from New Mexico Tech, New Mexico Highlands University and a doctorate in education science and leadership from the University of Santander, a private research institution in Colombia.

Martinez is a New Mexico State University alumnus, earning a B.S. in electric engineering with a minor in economics. He went on to an M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and a doctorate in educational leadership and policy studies from Arizona State University. A former professor at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, Martinez has held administrative roles at the University of Texas at Arlington, University of Redlands in California and at Fort Lewis College beginning in 2023.

Jones is an engineering professor who has served in administrative leadership roles since 2008 at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania and the University of Portland (Oregon)’s Shiley School of Engineering prior to UW-Bothell. She has also served on the American Society for Engineering Education’s ethics council and as a planning commissioner for the city of Bothell. Her doctorate in engineering and public policy is from Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania.

Coll is a professor of social work and social sciences who founded the San Diego Academic Center at the University of Southern California in 2008. He was also the founding director of the the office of veteran student services at Saint Leo University in Florida prior to administrative leadership roles at Texas State University and Portland (Oregon) State University before joining Western Oregon University in 2023. He holds a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the University of Florida.

Wesson’s scholarly background is in anthropology and archaeology, earning a doctorate in those areas from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has served in leadership roles at the University of Illinois-Chicago, University of Vermont, Lehigh University and Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania before joining LaSalle in 2023.

"These five finalists rose to the top of a field of highly qualified candidates with outstanding leadership and innovation credentials,” Maples stated in a news release. “Each candidate brings a unique perspective that aligns with our mission as a Hispanic-serving institution and our commitment to the applied liberal arts."

Public meetings with the candidates, which will also be livestreamed, have been scheduled at the J. Cloyd Miller Library at WNMU from 4 to 5:30 p.m. on the following dates: Feb. 25 (Coll); Feb. 26 (Wesson); Feb. 27 (Romero); March 3 (Jones); and March 4 (Martinez.)

Algernon D’Ammassa is the Journal’s southern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at adammassa@abqjournal.com.