Valerio Ferme tapped as next NMSU president

New Mexico State University’s next president, and first permanent leader in a year and a half, will be Valerio Ferme.

Ferme is currently executive vice president of academic affairs and provost at the University of Cincinnati, a position he has held since 2021. He is the former dean of that university’s college of arts and sciences, and had previously held leadership positions at Northern Arizona University and the University of Colorado Boulder.

The board of regents governing the university made the highly anticipated announcement during its business meeting, closing an extended executive search that followed the departure of Chancellor Dan Arvizu in April 2023, which came after regents voted to seek new leadership after his contract ended.

Since then, the university has been led by two consecutive interim presidents: Jay Gogue, followed by Mónica Torres.

The regents appointed Torres in March after they threw out their first slate of finalists for the job and began their search anew. Five new candidate were announced in August, including four from out of state and one from New Mexico: Arsenio Romero, the former New Mexico Public Education Secretary.

The candidates met with regents last week in between public sessions on and off campus where they introduced themselves to faculty and staff, students and the general public with question and answer sessions.

When Romero’s candidacy became public, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham pressed him to withdraw or resign from his cabinet post, as confirmed by the governor’s office. Romero chose to pursue the job at NMSU, where he had served as a regent and was an alumnus. In a statement shortly following the announcement, he said he had no regrets about that choice.

"After 28 years of service to the great state of New Mexico, I remain deeply honored by the opportunity to have been considered for the presidency of New Mexico State University," Romero wrote. "Though I was not selected, I have no regrets about taking the risk. I love New Mexico, I love Las Cruces, and I'm an Aggie through and through. I fully support President Ferme in his leadership and look forward to helping NMSU continue to thrive in any way I can."

Shortly afterward, New Mexico Higher Education Secretary Stephanie Rodriguez wrote an opinion piece calling on the regents to restart the search yet again, criticizing the second slate of finalists. Garrey Carruthers, a former chancellor and president of NMSU, wrote a rebuttal defending the regents and stating, “it is critical the regents conduct their constitutional duty of selecting a president without interference or political pressure in the process.”

Valerio Ferme was raised in Italy and came to the United States to study biology and religious studies at Brown University, graduating in 1984. He went on to complete Master’s degrees in comparative literature and Italian studies at Indiana University in 1992. He was Fulbright scholar at the University of Turin in Italy, and completed a Ph.D. in comparative lierature from the University of California, Berkeley in 1998.

Ferme began his teaching career in Boulder in 1998, teaching Italian, comparative literature and later film. He eventually served as dean of the college of arts and sciences before moving to Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff as dean of its College of Arts and Letters. In 2019, he moved on to the University of Cincinnati as a professor and dean.