UNM president offers update on AD search, seeks campus involvement

The University of New Mexico hopes to have its next athletic director named in little over a month and on the job working by the start of 2025.

And whoever that person is, according to a message from UNM President Garnett S. Stokes emailed to the UNM Campus community on Friday morning, will have have a “crucial role in shaping the overall direction and prominence of UNM Athletics in a turbulent national landscape for college sports” while also ensuring the place of Lobo Athletics in the local UNM, Albuquerque and New Mexico communities doesn’t get lost.

“The impact of this position extends beyond athletics,” Stokes wrote. “It enhances our university’s reputation, engages the community, and contributes to the overall student experience.”

Eddie Nuñez stepped down Aug. 17 after seven years as UNM’s AD to take the same position at the Big 12 conference’s University of Houston. His top assistant, Deputy AD David Williams, has held the position of interim vice president for athletics since Aug. 21.

Stokes also asked the campus community for their input in the process, including submitting names of people who should be considered for the job.

In a contract signed Sept. 9, UNM hired Atlanta-based Parker Executive Search to lead the national search for the position, which the University stated Friday in a news release will have a nomination and application submission deadline of Oct. 25.

Links for both are available on UNM’s Executive Search page: executivesearch.unm.edu.

Parker, which oversaw the search that landed both Nuñez in 2017 and has more recently worked with UNM in the December hiring of first-year Lobo football coach Bronco Mendenhall, will remain in close contact with the search committee UNM has formed and named publicly for the first time Friday.

It includes chair Del Archuleta, a longtime Lobo Athletics supported, former NMSU Board of Regents president and board member on nearly a dozen other public service related organizations through the years including having been appointed by governors of both parties through the years to high-level appointments. The rest of the search committee includes university leaders, faculty, alumni, and community representatives, who will review applicants forwarded by Parker and conduct interviews.

A recommendation will ultimately be forwarded to Stokes, who will make the hire.