ENMU president search begins

STAFF REPORT

Senior Partner Zachary Smith of executive search firm Witt/Kieffer presented Eastern New Mexico University Board of Regents with the upcoming phases in the search for a new ENMU president.

Current President Steven Gamble announced earlier this year his plans to retire in August 2017.

After visiting campus Thursday and obtaining information from faculty, staff, students and community members — what he called the “start up” phase of the search — Smith told regents at their Friday meeting that he and Associate Sophie Stava would compile a “leadership profile” — a roughly 20-page document outlining the qualities and characteristics the community would like to see in a new president.

“We take the themes that we hear, and we drop these things into the profile, and we also drop in information about the campus, about the community and try to paint a clear picture about what this position will be for the next president,” he said.

After developing the profile, Smith said that a Witt/Kieffer research team will help in finding candidates by sending recruitment letters, making phone calls and utilizing a network for possible recommendations. That process would likely take 8-10 weeks, he said.

Once candidates begin to show interest, a vetting process will begin through video interviews.

“We ask them a lot of questions that are specific to Eastern, and we will start making our own assessments and build a pool,” he said.

Feb. 15 will be the next time that the recruitment team will meet with the university’s search committee to review candidates and narrow down the pool to a group of roughly 8-10 semifinalists, according to Smith.

On March 9 and 10, the first round of interviews will be conducted, most likely in Albuquerque, he said. On the second day, there will be a meeting between the search team and the committee regarding which candidates will move on to finalist interviews.

The finalists will then be interviewed on campus a few weeks after March 10. According to Smith, the interviews will be conducted with a variety of constituents, including students, faculty and the board of regents.

The following were actions taken at the Eastern New Mexico University Board of Regents meeting Friday morning in the university Administration Building:

• In his report, ENMU President Steven Gamble expressed his gratitude at the passing of General Obligation Bond C, which grants the university $11 million.

“This gives us $26 million for the Golden Student Success Center. Dr. (Jamie) Laurenz and I and Scott (Smart) and a few other people from the university met with the architects yesterday, and we’re well on board,” Gamble said, adding that the new facility should be operational by either June or July of 2018.

Gamble also presented the fact that the New Mexico state legislature is $100 million short on the current year’s budget. He noted that the deficit could likely mean a 2.5 percent cut to the university, which is $600,000.

“Something could happen between now and January (the legislative session) to ameliorate this, but right now, that probably is the best case scenario. That will mean we have been cut an even 10 percent for the year,” he said. “Please know that fiscal year ‘18 has a life of its own. They also will set the fiscal year ‘18 budget in this January session. That’s probably not going to be pretty either.”

• In presenting his university’s report, ENMU-Roswell President John Madden expressed joy for the passing of Bond C, which granted $1 million to ENMU-R. He said that the funds will go toward upgrading classrooms.

He also announced that Pat Parsons was chosen as a new member of the university’s board after member Chad Hamill resigned.

Madden expressed concerns over the New Mexico Lottery Scholarship dropping in the future. According to Madden, the scholarship currently covers roughly 90 percent of tuition with ENMUR paying the difference.

“If this keeps dropping from 90 to 80 to 70 to whatever it’s going to go to, I don’t know if we can continue to do that or not. We are well over 70 percent first generation college students. We have students who need that money to go to school, or they will not be able to go to school,” he said.

Madden also said that he was concerned about possible rules being added to dual-credit programs in New Mexico.

Dual credit, which allows students in high school to take college classes and earn credit, is potentially in danger, Madden said.

“This could be devastating to us, it would be devastating to the students, and most of all, it would be devastating to the families, because dual-credit is a tuition-free college class. This is not a good thing that’s happening,” he said.

According to Madden, some of the new rules —proposed by the New Mexico Public Education Department and Higher Education Department — include limiting the number of dual-credit classes a student can take, limiting who can take the dual credits by age and restricting dual-credit classes based on a student’s grade point average.

Madden said that he would discuss the matter further with regents after the meeting.

• ENMU-Ruidoso President Clayton Alred reported that the most important business at the university was preparations for the spring semester.

“As you have heard from me previously, we have re-invigorated our recruitment efforts, and we’ve redirected those, reorganized a number of different things, and so we now have campus representatives at a number of community events and county events as well,” he said.

The passing of Bond C will give Ruidoso university $700,000, to go to the renovation of the student services area, he said.

An external evaluator is currently in the process of evaluating ENMU Ruidoso’s Title V (Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions Programs) Grant, Alred said, with encouraging results thus far.

“We do have some positive findings from that. In particular, the grant management and administration was viewed very positively by our external evaluator,” he said.

• Regents approved the 2017-18 holiday schedule.

• Regents approved a tuition and fees increase for the 2017-18 fiscal year.

According to Vice President of Business Affairs Scott Smart, the increase is 6.5 percent for undergraduate in-state tuition and fees. The resulting cost would be $176.52 for a full-time, in-state undergraduate student.

The same increase of $176.52 will apply to non-resident undergraduate students, an increase of 3.13 percent.

The cost of attendance for resident and non-resident graduate students would increase by $192.96.

• Regents approved a budget adjustment request for the 2016-17 fiscal year.

“As a result of the cuts in the special session, it’s necessary for us to adjust our budget, as you’d expect,” Smart said.

According to Smart, there were several reductions in revenue budgets, the largest of which being a total revenue decline in the instruction and general fund of $1.6 million. Other reductions were in-state funding to athletics ($104,600) and KENW Public Radio and Television ($59,000). Total reductions were $1.7 million.

Adjustments made to expenditures and transfers included a reduction to the expense budgets in instruction and general of $200,000, a drawing down of the research balance by $750,000, and increasing the capital outlay and renewals and replacements by $1 million each.

• Regents approved proposed room and board rates for the 2017-18 fiscal year.

According to Vice President of Student Affairs Jeff Long, the changes would increase rates for residence halls and apartments by 3 percent.

The changes would include increases for double rooms in Curry and Eddy Halls by $49, suites in Guadalupe Hall by $64 and suites in Eddy Hall by $62.

• Vice President of Academic Affairs Jamie Laurenz presented an update of the university’s Higher Learning Commission re-accreditation.

According to Laurenz, the university is currently in criterion three of the re-accreditation process, called “teaching and learning: Quality, resources and support.”

In criterion three, the HLC looks at “the individuals we have involved in teaching, the resources that we have and the support that is provided for the student,” he said.

According to Gamble, one of the requirements of the HLC is that the board understands the requirements of the five criteria.

“This is our way of satisfying that requirement,” Gamble said of Laurenz’s report.

• Regents approved a new policy and revisions to two others.

Policy 80-10 relates to the use of unmanned aircraft systems (more commonly known as “drones”) and prevents the use of a UAS over property owned, operated or controlled by ENMU, according to Executive Director of Planning and Analysis Patrice Caldwell.

“This may seem a little bit of an overkill, but as you know, these are becoming very common in every sector, public and private. By having a policy and having it comply with FAA regulations, we’re covered in case anything happens that we don’t want happening over property we control or own,” she said.

The amendment to policy 40-2 was made to describe professional employees who are eligible under the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, as well as to clarify the contract status of at-will employees and temporary, occasional and student employees.

According to Caldwell, under policy 40-5, “education and experience” was added as a category for salary determination.

• Regents approved four separate actions regarding the membership of the presidential search committee.

The first item established the creation of a sub-committee of the board of regents consisting of two regents for the purpose of selecting a search committee.

“The sub-committee’s role will be strictly advisory. It will only make recommendations to the full board of regents. It will have no authority to take any binding action,” said Board President Terry Othick.

The second item was to nominate regents Jane Christensen and Susan Tatum as members of the sub-committee.

The third item appointed Caldwell as liaison for the board of regents during the presidential search process.

The fourth item accepted the nominations of the members of the presidential search committee.

• Regents approved the 2017 regents calendar with an amendment.

Gamble proposed that a meeting in Portales on Nov. 3 be moved to Roswell due to a need to hold a meeting in Roswell at least once a year.

• In an update on Greyhound Stadium, Smart reported that an appraisal for the former stadium should be coming soon.

“All the final questions of the appraiser have been answered, so I expect I should receive that shortly,” he said.

Smart also said that lighting improvements at the new stadium are under way with pavement on the “home” side to come “a little bit later.”