Locals weigh in on ENMU chancellor candidates

PORTALES – Five candidates from five different states interviewed for the chancellor/president job at Eastern New Mexico University last week.

All five engaged in forums specifically for ENMU staff, faculty and people from the community and university, traveled to the ENMU Roswell and Ruidoso campuses and were interviewed by the university’s Board of Regents.

A water main break in Portales caused some interviews to be conducted virtually, but Regent Phillip Bustos said he thought the interviews went well despite challenges.

The water outage “probably wasn’t the best for the candidates or the institution,” Bustos said.

Another issue was traveling between three campuses.

“It’s hard to move five different candidates between three campuses in the time we had,” Bustos said. “But thanks to Karen Van Ruiten, Patrice Caldwell and Benito Gonzales it was accomplished. They did an incredible job to tackle the logistical challenge.”

The candidates are Larry Sanderson from New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs; James Johnston from Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas; James Williams of Emporia State University in Emporia, Kan.; Bruno Hicks from Dalton State College in Dalton, Ga.; and Gary Liguori from the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, R.I.

Regents have said they plan to select the successor to Caldwell by month’s end.

The News reached out to two area residents who attended forums for their reactions.

Geni Flores attended the faculty forums.

Flores, a member of the ENMU faculty, is an instructor of bilingual and English as a second language education.

“Each candidate has specific qualifications that would meet the needs of at least part of the job,” Flores said.

Flores said some candidates appeared much more qualified than others, but she declined to name her preference.

She estimates attendance at the in-person sessions to be around 30 to 50 people.

“Hard to tell since some were in person and others on TEAMS (online),” Flores said.

Flores said she is optimistic about the possibility of a new chancellor/president at ENMU.

Charles Bennett is a Portales businessman and longtime ENMU supporter.

Bennett began his involvement with ENMU when his daughter came to the school in 2003 to be in collegiate rodeo.

“I started taking care of the ground in the rodeo arena, and then just got further involved in the university,” Bennett said.

Bennett has worked with the Greyhound Club, a support club for ENMU athletes, for about 12 years.

“They gave the community one hour with each candidate and I was there for all five forums,” Bennett said.

Bennett said he asked a lot of questions, he got copies of candidate resumes, he made lots of phone calls, got information on the candidates so he’d have a better idea of their reputation where they came from.

“My personal opinion is that there are three of them I just don’t think are qualified to lead our university,” Bennett said. “They seem like extremely nice people, probably very successful in the position where they were but just don’t have what’s needed to be chancellor and president.”

Bennett said he believes there are two candidates who are “extremely talented” but in different areas.

“I think there’s one guy who’s really good to go meet people and be the fundraiser,” Bennett said.

“Another guy is very technical. He seems to have a really good hold in analyzing situations. I believe he understands how students think (and can) analyze why we’ve been losing students.”

Bennett said he believes if one of the men were to be hired as president and the other as chancellor, ENMU would have a good combination. The chancellor oversees the entire ENMU system, including campuses at Portales, Roswell and Ruidoso.

“The two of them would be an excellent combination,” Bennett said. “But either one holding the job alone? I think you would be overloading either one to be both chancellor and president.”

Bennett said he believes it’s unrealistic to have one person do both jobs.

He also declined to name his preferred candidate.