Romero makes case at NMSU as cabinet secretary questions process

On Monday, Arsenio Romero made his case to staff, students and the community for the leadership of New Mexico State University, the first of five candidates to appear in person and by video conference this week to make statements and answer questions about their qualifications and vision for the job.

Romero appeared in a dimly lit auditorium in the Corbett Center Student Union on the Las Cruces campus, where stage lights remained off and low overhead lighting mostly lit the stage behind him, leaving him in silhouette before an audience of faculty, administrators and staff.

Romero’s candidacy was itself backlit by controversy over his candidacy and NMSU’s selection process. Romero was forced by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in August to choose between his post as New Mexico’s Public Education Secretary and his pursuit of the NMSU job; choosing the latter, he abruptly resigned.

Romero is among five candidates comprising a second slate of finalists, after regents decided in March not to hire anyone from its first group of candidates and to start over. Romero is the only candidate from New Mexico, a graduate of NMSU and also a former regent who served with some of the present board members from 2020 to 2023.

Over the weekend, Romero’s recent colleague in the governor’s cabinet, Higher Education Secretary Stephanie Rodriguez, called on the university board of regents to hit reset a second time on its selection of a president to succeed Dan Arvizu, who left amid disarray in 2022.

In an op-ed, Rodriguez argued that “the search as conducted by the Board of Regents has produced two separate slates of finalists without the background or experience befitting the unique character and history of NMSU.”

Pointing to controversies and high leadership turnover at the land grant university that followed a period of declining enrollment and revenue, Rodriguez stated, “This job is not a stepping stone, and leading a large public college is not a job you learn on the fly. I have directly asked the regents to once again take up the work of generating candidates who can effectively chart a course for this proud higher education institution.”

The other candidates are Valerio Ferme, executive vice president of academic affairs and provost of the University of Cincinnati; Brian Haynes, vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of California, Riverside; and Monica Lounsbery, dean of the College of Health and Human Services at California State University, Long Beach.

Augusta University provost Neil MacKinnon withdrew his candidacy last week after accepting an appointment elsewhere.

Responding to Rodriguez, NMSU’s former chancellor and president, Garrey Carruthers, pushed back in an op-ed of his own, defending the selection process and calling Rodriguez’s article “an attempt to direct, intimidate, and/or embarrass the regents of NMSU into changing their ongoing process in selecting the next president.”

Carruthers wrote, “Having a governor, or a secretary of higher education, try to influence the search process for a university’s next leader opens a dangerous door and allows state politics to guide how institutions of higher education are run.”

Rodriguez’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and a spokesperson for NMSU declined to comment on the exchange.

Romero took the microphone at 10 a.m. in a business suit and shoes that squeaked on the wooden deck, prompting him to stand on the carpeted lip of the stage where he was closer to the audience but not lit. Romero recounted his upbringing in Belen, his arrival at NMSU as an undergrad and the beginnings of his education career in Las Cruces. He repeatedly emphasized his roots in Las Cruces, connections he had made across the state and his confidence in his ability to negotiate the challenges confronting NMSU.

“This is my home,” Romero said in pledging to stay for a decade or longer if selected, to stabilize leadership across the university, replace long outdated infrastructure and improve faculty and staff salaries which employees have called noncompetitive.

Yet Romero has hopped to several leadership positions over the past decade, from the Las Cruces Public Schools and Roswell Independent School District; stints as superintendent of Deming Public Schools and Los Lunas Schools; a turnaround leader for the state Public Education Department and NMSU regent; leading to his appointment to head the PED in February 2023, a position he held just over a year and a half.

Romero said he had forged relationships all over the state, including with lawmakers and philanthropies, that would help him bring in money for capital improvements, improved salaries and research funds. He said his prior experience negotiating with unions would help ease negotiations with a new faculty bargaining unit.

NMSU graduate student workers have a separate collective bargaining unit, formed during Romero’s time on the board of regents.

“You have a commitment from me that we're going to be a team together,” Romero told faculty and staff. “I promise you, I will not be a leader that sits in my chair in the office. I'm going to be the type of leader that you're going to see all over campus.”