Chancellor candidates field forum questions

PORTALES -- Over three days of sparsely attended community forums, the five finalists to become Eastern New Mexico University’s next president/chancellor introduced themselves and responded to questions from the public last week.

Most of the questions were asked by Charles Bennett, a long-time volunteer with the ENMU rodeo team, and Rose Robbins, president of the Greyhound Club, which assists in meeting needs of the college’s athletic teams.

Robbins noted that most of those who attended the public forums were associated with ENMU, with the exception of some county leaders who attended by video conferencing.

The ENMU Board of Regents is expected to make its final decision later this month.

The successful candidate will replace Chancellor Patrice Caldwell, who has postponed her retirement until a new chancellor is chosen.

Here are summaries of the public interview with the five finalists.

Larry Sanderson

Larry Sanderson, currently the vice president for institutional research at New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs, said he saw increased enrollment, especially in students who live on campus, as a major issue.

With declining enrollments affecting all colleges in New Mexico, he said, “It’s not a time to get comfortable” with student recruitment efforts.

The way to increase the proportion of students who live on campus, however, is not to reduce the share of students who work online exclusively, but to increase the number of students overall and encouraging in-person, resident students.

“We’ve got to create the quality of content that brings students to the campus,” he said.

Further, he said, “we’re not going to get there with the same programs and outreach. We have to charge up programs to attract students to the ENMU campuses.

ENMU, like many other colleges, he said, is in the post-COVID-19 recovery phase. Declining enrollments during the COVID-19 pandemic’s campus closing period merely worsened downward trends that had started before the pandemic.

Sanderson said he was glad to note that ENMU’s enrollment had actually increased by 2.3% this year, but noted more growth is needed to attain pre-COVID-19 enrollments.

Sanderson said the most popular majors in colleges currently are business, health care and liberal arts, and suggested that might be where ENMU would want to focus its recruitment efforts.

Sanderson also said he was pleased to note there is a student on the ENMU Board of Regents. That alone, he said, gives students significant power at ENMU.

Sanderson was asked about relations between ENMU and the Portales community, with the questioner pointing out the community forum was held at 4:30 p.m. when most Portales residents were at work and that only two of 14 persons in attendance were not affiliated with ENMU .

Sanderson said the relationship of a four-year institution with its host community is different from that of a community college.

Four-year institutions, he said, tend to be more independent of the communities that host them.

“Some get along with the local community and some don’t.”

It starts with admissions, he said, and the number of local students who can enroll in the local four-year college.

Since his background has focused on two-year colleges, he said, the relationship with the local community is important to him, and he intends to keep strong ties with the community.

“My whole life and career is the community,“ he said.

One of his first moves, he said, would be to visit local coffee shops in the morning to talk to people about the community and ENMU matters.

Sanderson was asked about his vision for ENMU. He replied that if he cannot develop a vision soon after taking the job, “I should not have applied.”

Sanderson was also asked if he would bring in his own team of leaders from outside ENMU.

Sanderson said he would work with existing staff to find and develop the talent needed.

He said he also respects independence of faculty in choosing curriculum and study materials, but he seeks to work closely with them.

James Johnston

Like many ENMU students and the other finalists, James Johnston, currently provost and vice president of academic affairs at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas, represents the first generation of his family to attend college.

As a result, he said, his values center around “compassion and service,” and his goal as an administrator is to “create access and opportunity for as many students as I can.”

At ENMU, he said, he sees an “opportunity to connect with a community and advance the mission of the university.”

He said even after COVID-19 he sees a strong desire among students to return to the on-campus experience.

In addition, he said, students are looking at advanced certifications or degrees seeking “a mix of upskilling and reskilling for changing careers and changing focus of careers,” which creates opportunities to connect with communities and community colleges.

When asked about student diversity, he said he had been working to “level the playing field” for all students. In the past, he said, he has worked to bring more men, especially men of color, into nursing careers.

He said he looks for shared values in the workplace, and has learned from workers who received awards for 15 years of service to colleges that a sense of shared values motivates them to devote much of their lives to careers.

When he served as interim president of Midwestern during its transition to joining the Texas Tech University system, he said he sat with campus and community leaders to distill their shared values into a single statement that would guide the transition effort.

Values, he said, “must be more than just wallpaper.”

He said he also believes in “shared governance,” in which the university regents, administration, faculty, students and the community have a voice in how things are done on campus.

For example, he said, the community can work with ENMU to create opportunities like internships for students that can be mutually beneficial.

The college can work with community farmers markets to help redcuce food insecurity among students.

“Places like this are a great collection of intellect and talent,” Johnston said, “and why shouldn’t we take advantage of that?”

He said he has a strong sense of family at ENMU.

“They have each other’s backs,” he said, and are a team that members “would put their hand in the fire for.”

He added, “that’s the kind of environment I’m looking for.”

With colleges including ENMU in transition as they face declining enrollments, he said, it’s time for some new thinking.

He cited a speaker who said “you really have to choose your new Day One.”

Students, he said, want the in-person experience.

He said he does not want to import talent.

“I like to work with them to keep them here,” he said.

Johnston was asked about attracting high school students through the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarships. He said the scholarships’ requirement of maintaining a 2.5 grade point average in every course taken is an opportunity to showcase ENMU’s focus on student success.

It’s a focus “to help students walk across that stage” for graduation, he said.

The key to increasing enrollments, he said, is marketing. A key marketing tool is the website, he said, and search optimization, in other words, making sure that the ENMU site comes up prominently in web searches by targeted students.

Once on the site, a web user stays on a particular site for about 90 seconds. The key to keeping them on the site is learning what is most important to students and making sure that’s what they see first.

He said the students ENMU should target are those who have some disadvantage, such as being the first generation in their family to attend college. For first-generation students, he said, marketing should target parents, who are heavily involved in the decision process.

Dual credit is also a great marketing tool, he said, especially if high school students have the opportunity to take classes from college faculty on-campus.

Melveta Walker, a former ENMU library director, asked Johnston about working with state legislators.

Johnston said he has worked extensively with state legislators and local decision makers.

“I never leave campus without being prepared (to discuss) needs, opportunities and the positions of our university, because you never know when these will come up in conversation,” he said.

In Portales, he said, he was happy to note that its welcome signs include the phrase “Home of Eastern New Mexico University.”

James Williams

James Williams recently retired as senior vice president of student affairs after serving as associate provost for enrollment management and vice president of strategic partnerships at Emporia State University, Emporia, Kan.

He told the ENMU Community Forum on Wednesday that he does not believe in “imaginary borders” around a college campus. Colleges and communities should not be separate from each other.

For example, he said, at Emporia, he invited a local church to help bring traditional Hispanic celebrations to Hispanic students.

He said he personally would like to see college return to having only in-person classes with students living on campus, but said times and students have changed.

“Our students are different and their needs are different,” he said. “We have to be adaptive.”

He said he would want to develop a strategic plan within his first year as ENMU chancellor, in consultation with students, faculty, staff, the community, and alumni.

“The worst we could do is be secretive and non-inclusive,” he said.

The key to the next five or 10 years, he said will be to “embrace entrepreneurial solutions, and focus on your region and your quality of life.”

He said he would work with campus and community leaders.

“I can have ideas,” he said, but as the university system leader, his ideas would not be as important as the results of collaboration.

“Bringing in a variety of people and their ideas brings a richness and wealth of ideas,” he said.

Student retention at ENMU is an issue that should be addressed from many viewpoints, he said.

“Many students don’t stay after the first year,” he said, “and we should find out why they don’t stay.”

ENMU has programs like sports and other activities, he said, “but how do they come together to get the outcome we want?”

ENMU should consider recruiting students from beyond the immediate region and should “think a little broader,” he said.

“Why shouldn’t ENMU be the choice for all New Mexico students for focused, high-impact learning?” he asked, especially for students who find the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University out of reach.

He also said student learning should incorporate community service, because it allows students “to articulate what they learn.”

As chancellor, he said, he believes he should be active in the community, as well.

At Emporia, he said, there was a focus on bringing in international students. A program that helped them meet the $10,000 in tuition costs boosted the international student population from 150 to 500, he said.

International students, he said, keep all students aware they face a global world when they graduate.

Emporia started requiring advisers for all first-year students, he said, and that helped recruitment and retention. The college hired advisers to supplement faculty advising.

If a student has a problem with math, he said, scheduling can be adjusted.

Freshman orientation that introduced new students to Emporia as well as to the campus also helped student retention, he said.

Teacher education has been revolutionized, he said by programs that allow student teachers to get paid so they can focus on learning how to teach.

To promote the campus to the community, he said he would want to host a weekly radio program to communicate what the college is doing.

Portales has a huge role in educating students, he said, from paying rent to landlords to working with city businesses.

Williams also said he would try to ensure that events and meetings involving college and community members were organized to accommodate the schedules of community members.

On shared governance, Williams said many of his decisions were informed by meetings with faculty to learn what was going on in classrooms, as well as various community groups, so he could get many perspective of other groups.

Williams said his decisions, as a result, were informed by all stakeholders.

One questioner said many ENMU students on campus do not have cars and there is no system of transportation to stores for shopping, and asked how Williams would respond.

Williams said he would work with community members and businesses to help ensure students had access to shopping in the community.

He remembered when first-year students were not allowed to have cars on campus, and parents worried about the safety of students when they found ways to ride in cars.

Williams also said he would be willing to consider classes in listening, time management, and coping with change for employees and students.

He said during his first year, he would prioritize working with state officials, improving student morale, partly by individualizing instruction where possible, and rewarding faculty for curriculum changes that help students.

Bruno Hicks

Bruno Hicks, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Dalton State College in Georgia, said his top priorities at ENMU would be to ensure the campus is financially well grounded, part of which would include increasing student enrollment.

That can be achieved by “making sure we have a wide variety of studies,” which would draw more students, he said. “When they think about going to college, we want them to think about Eastern.”

At Dalton, he said, “we’re still working on retention” of students past the first or second year.

“We improved it by only 1% but every student counts,” he said.

At ENMU, he said, the first-year retention rate of 61% is “not bad, but the rate after the second year is only 49%.”

He said that record could improve if ENMU could find better ways of “working with students with barriers.”

Biology and chemistry, he said, can involve math, which can bring disaster if a student’s math skills are not strong.

“We should learn to bring resources to these students before they have trouble,” he said.

When asked about his view of shared governance, he defined it as “authentic conversation with people. Are you listening, do you care about what they say.”

Shared governance, he said, “has a lot to do with the end product you are making and everyone knowing what the decision is going to be.”

He used his actions when he had to present budget cuts to faculty members at Dalton as an example of shared governance.

He conferred with faculty to reduce summer session classes, which saved some money, and worked with data books and faculty members to reduce two positions in liberal arts and 1 1/2 positions in the business college, he said, and he restructured pay systems so “some positions got a little more, some got a little less.”

He was asked why he chose to apply for the chancellor job at ENMU.

“I think I would be a good president here because I know what small, rural comprehensive campuses do,” he said. ”I think my leadership style and my resume show I can move things forward, and I want to work in a rural area. In Portales and the region, I understand what they’re trying to do, and it’s a good place for us.”

Hicks said he sees two challenges affecting ENMU’s future. One is that “there is a group of people challenging the value of higher education. They don’t see the importance of climate change, alternative energy, and sustainable environments.”

The other, he said, is bringing more students to study on-campus. Education students, for example, he said, need to do hands-on work while in college to have the skills that “make them ready to teach on their first day.”

Asked about how he would assemble a management team, Hicks said at first, he would assume Eastern employees will “do well at what they’re doing.”

He said the key to good relations between ENMU and Portales is that “people need to feel they’re in an authentic conversation with you.

“I will hear what the issue is,” he said, “and I don’t hesitate to have conversations. If there are hard feelings, I want to get them out on the table.”

In addition, he said, people should learn what they have and don’t have control over.

He was asked what he saw that might need immediate attention.

“Nothing stands out that has to be done tomorrow,” he said. He said one of his first tasks will be to sit with the Board of Regents and community leaders to learn what is urgent to them.

Enrollment management, while an urgent issue, will take a lot of work he said. “You can’t just jump in.”

Gary Liguori

Gary Liguori, who currently works as the founding dean of the college of health sciences and professor of kinesiology at the University of Rhode Island, spent a long time introducing himself before he asked for questions.

In addition, he serves as the coordinating dean of the URI Academic Health Collaborative, a partnership of the colleges of nursing, pharmacy, and health sciences.

He said he and his wife left Laramie, Wyo., 20 years ago, and have been wanting to return to a similar area since then. Portales fits their needs, he said.

He earned his three college degrees, including a master’s degree and a Ph.D in very different parts of the U.S.

Like other candidates, he said, he was the first generation of his family to attend college, and he discussed some of his difficulties in adjusting to college, which led him to help other students after he did achieve collegiate success.

As a faculty member, he championed learning beyond the classroom. he said. He did this by taking students to conferences, and calling them in to help with academic projects.

He said he also invited undergraduates to help with teaching and to join research teams, as well as working with faculty outside the classroom.

He has also worked for student diversity by focusing on high-risk students, and today, he said, his college at the University of Rhode Island serves “a large proportion of under-prepared students.”

When asked what he would do about the problem of declining enrollment, Liguori said he would find “compelling reasons for students to come to Eastern.”

He said he would use data to find out what has worked, what hasn’t worked and “what hasn’t been listened to.”

ENMU has invested in billboards, for example, but it is difficult to measure their success, he said.

When asked about hiring professional advisers for students, he said, “I have a bias toward advising.” Faculty members, he said, are pulled in many different directions, and professional advisers are known for competence and consistency.

He also said there should be enough advisers to allow time for consultation throughout the school year, not just have students go in and out of a single session with an adviser, which is “not enough time to move them forward,” or to learn where students’ passions and fears are.

On student retention, he said ENMU is “missing something after the first two years” so that ENMU falls behind in four-year retention.

Professional advising, he said may help improve retention.

When asked how at-risk students are identified, he said they are identified through advising, early absences and missed assignments.

These “red flags” are noticed after enrollment, but Liguori said it would be better if at-risk students could be identified before the red flags are raised.

He said most employers look for verbal and written communication skills from new employees, and ENMU should emphasize those skills.

Another concern, he said, is mental health. In entrance essays, he said one out of four students wrote about mental health issues. Waiting times for mental health consultation can be as long as 40 weeks, he said.

Other major concerns in higher education, he said, include wavering support for higher education and the need for more communication about the value of higher education.

“In New Mexico,” he said, “you’ve got good support for higher education.” In Rhode Island, education funding is so low that the only solutions are cutting costs and raising tuition.

Liguori was asked how ENMU could increase enrollment and become a leader.

He said the university will need to decide where to make investments, adding “just because the train is going that way doesn’t mean we have to get on.”

ENMU should find strong programs that would attract students. For instance, he said, if a student would know that if they go to ENMU, their chances of getting into a veterinary medicine school would be strong, they would be likely to enroll at ENMU.

He also said ENMU should consider more potential ways to tap into dairy farming. South Dakota State University, he said, has a successful dairy farming major.

When asked about internal and external communications, Liguori said, “communications is the bane of leadership.”

No matter how much communications occur, he said, someone is always going to claim it wasn’t enough, but, he said, “you have to communicate until people tell you not to.”

He added, “nobody gets upset about too much communication.”

Communications with students, however, are changing, since the way people consume communications is changing, he said.

On shared governance, Liguori said he uses it with his unionized faculty. “I include faculty in all my decision making,” he said.

He said he would address campus vs. community issues by “meeting people where they are to find out what they think the university has done well and what it could do better.”

The university and the community go hand in hand, but, he said, full cooperation is not always going to happen, so “I can’t over-promise.”

He said he would always work with state legislators and local elected officials to advocate for ENMU, and would always go with facts and figures, and show them exactly what ENMU would do with funding, “and then follow through.”

ENMU should accept all the support it can get from local leaders, he added.

Liguori said his major challenge is that he is sometimes too ambitious. Sometimes, he said, teams are not ready to accept the risks he has asked of them. He said he needs to work with team members who are not afraid to disagree with him.

When asked whether he would seek more degree programs at ENMU, Liguori said he would conduct market analysis to determine demand for a new degree program. Some, he said, might require strong community partnerships.

He said research that seems to show a 97 percent satisfaction rate with student life needs to be reconciled with a retention rate of only 60% among first-year students.

“Is that survey not capturing students who don’t stay?” he asked.

When asked about a perception that some departments act in silos, Liguori said he would want to find out why people feel that way, and work to make communications more transparent.