Listening Sessions

We hosted hybrid listening sessions across New Mexico in July and August 2023 (please see dates below). The listening sessions provided members of the NMSU community an opportunity to participate in-person or virtually to share their thoughts about the qualities and experiences needed in the next president. All open forums were live streamed via zoom.

Listening Session Results

Candidate attributes: Who should our next president be?

Someone who understands how widespread and diverse the NMSU system is:

  • Understand, promote, elevate, and scale our Cooperative Extension Service; establish equitable, competitive salaries
  • Prioritize funding for Agricultural Experiment Stations and Research Centers
  • Understand that our community colleges are key partners and economic development drivers
  • Demonstrate complex understanding of NMSU as a Minority-Serving and Hispanic-Serving Institution
  • Understand that some campuses and communities struggle to meet basic needs and core services for students and community
  • Demonstrate exceedingly high cultural intelligence regarding the state of New Mexico and its mix of rural, tribal, Hispanic and other cultures

Someone who is present and accessible to stakeholders:

  • Be an engaging, authentic collaborator, a “salesperson” who broadcasts unique accomplishments of System statewide
  • Establish a regular, engaged presence at locations statewide – rural and urban
  • Be visible to students, faculty, and staff and regularly engage with all three groups
  • Tout our success stories through every NMSU media channel and partner media channels

Someone who is a key part of our recruitment strategy:

  • Prioritize and activate a systemwide recruiting strategy
  • Establish proactive, hands-on recruiting in all high schools, especially in rural and tribal areas
  • Recognize and elevate Cooperative Extension’s role in student recruitment

Someone with the experience and skills to help us grow:

  • Future-facing, tech-savvy, understands AI and its potential academic, workforce, and social impacts
  • Has higher education experience (not necessarily teaching; includes administration or policy roles)
  • Has ties to agriculture (broadly or specifically) and research experience in professional background
  • Experienced leading large groups through major change
  • Leverages their position to boost the visibility of faculty and staff accomplishments
  • Willing to engage in new and innovative ways (technological and otherwise) to meet upcoming generations of students where they are
  • Familiarity with basic adult education/learners’ needs – respects and supports curriculum (e.g., entrepreneurship) for literacy-challenged adults
  • Mid-career individual who’s committed to longer-term growth strategy

Top priorities: What should our next president focus on first?

Marketing and Messaging

  • Finding what makes us unique, like Cooperative Extension Service, AI, regenerative agriculture, soil health, and water issues
  • Creative, statewide, NMSU-owned messaging for Opportunity Scholarship and NMSU Global
  • Reclaim, reinvent, and broadcast revised NMSU system narrative
  • Continue to heavily market and expand NMSU Global footprint statewide (and beyond)

Recruitment

  • Establish major branding push to make NMSU a household name
  • Grow graduate student recruitment and engagement to align to NMSU’s mission and to reflect the state’s population
  • Focus on tribal recruitment and outreach
  • Establish recruiters at county events like fairs in coordination with CES agents
  • Comprehensive salary/compensation initiative for NMSU employees and competitive employee recruitment
  • For president level, explore options for longer contracts for institutional continuity

Other areas

  • Support campuses and CES in providing basic needs and core services to students and families
  • Actively engage alumni at all levels to help cultivate system identity and prestige – and elevate partnerships
  • Grow career and technical education programs to fill workforce pipeline needs in communities
  • Cultivate a culture of continuous improvement, including business and HR processes to optimize operational efficiency

List of Listening Session Dates and Locations

May 1, 2023
10-11:30 am and 6:30-8 pm Corbett Center Auditorium - Las Cruces, NM

July 27, 2023
NMSU Grants - 1500 N. Third Street, Grants, NM

July 28, 2023
Gallup Community Pantry - 1130 Hasler Valley Road, Gallup, NM

Aug. 1, 2023
Rio Arriba County Extension Office - State Road 544 House #122-A, Abiquiu, NM

Aug. 3, 2023
Quay County Extension Office - 216 E. Center Street, Tucumcari, NM

Aug. 8, 2023
Mimbres Valley Special Events Center - 2300 E. Pine Street, Deming, NM

Aug. 9, 2023
Colfax County Extension Office - 230 N. 3rd Street, Raton, NM

Aug. 10, 2023
CNM Workforce Center - 5600 Eagle Rock Avenue NE, Albuquerque, NM

Aug. 11, 2023
Lincoln County Extension Office - 409 Central Avenue, Carrizozo, NM

Aug. 15, 2023
NMSU Alamogordo - 2400 N. Scenic Drive, Alamogordo, NM

Aug. 17, 2023
Economic Development Corporation of Lea County - 200 E. Broadway Street, Hobbs, NM

Aug. 23, 2023
10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
Corbett Center Auditorium - Las Cruces, NM