NMSU chief expected to be chosen Monday
New president to replace Couture
LAS CRUCES — New Mexico State University’s next president is scheduled to be selected Monday, four days ahead of schedule.
The Board of Regents meeting, at 4 p.m. in the Corbett Center Student Union auditorium, will follow a closeddoor executive session when the five regents are to meet for final deliberations before selecting a new leader. The regents had been expected to name a new president May 10.
The search process began seven months ago with what Regents Chairman Mike Cheney called the “mutually agreeable” departure of former president Barbara Couture after less than three years on the job.
Couture was the latest in a string of five permanent presidents since 1994 to leave NMSU after less than four years on the job, following a nearly four decade-long period under three presidents.
Couture’s exit was controversial because neither she nor the regents provided a public explanation for her abrupt departure, both sides signed a settlement agreement barring them from criticizing each other and the regents agreed to give Couture a lump sum payment of $453,000 after her employment officially ended and she had taken another job in Washington, D.C.
Over a 10-day period starting April 22, five finalists for the presidency have visited with and answered questions from the regents, faculty, students and members of the community.
They are: David B. Ashley, engineering professor and former president of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas; Guy Bailey, linguistics professor and former president of the University of Alabama and Texas Tech University; Garrey Carruthers, former Republican New Mexico governor and current dean of the NMSU College of Business; Daniel J. Howard, biology professor and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado at Denver; and Elsa Murano, food science professor and former
president of Texas A&M University.
A story in Thursday’s Las Cruces Sun-News reported Cheney saying the regents planned to select the president by today, negotiate a contract over the weekend and announce the choice Monday.
That prompted the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government to send Cheney a letter warning him that the state Open Meetings Act requires regents to vote for the presidential candidate in a properly noticed public meeting, before contract negotiations can begin.
However, an official with the state Attorney General’s Office said Thursday that, according to NMSU’s general counsel, the regents will vote on the presidential choice Monday and the hire will then be finalized when a contract is agreed upon.
While many faculty have believed Carruthers had the inside track, in part because of his deep roots in New Mexico’s political and business communities, he has come under fire for his chairmanship of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition during five years in the 1990s. The
organization was formed by a public relations firm working for tobacco giant Philip Morris to sow doubt about the scientific studies fueling stricter smoking regulations after the EPA declared second-hand smoke a carcinogen.
Following publication of a Journal story about Carruthers’ role with TASSC, four Democratic state representatives from Doña Ana County — Jeff Steinborn, Nate Cote, Bill McCamley and Phillip Archuleta — issued a statement Thursday expressing “serious reservations” about a Carruthers presidency.