New leaders at NMSU for joint meetings

Faculty members criticize creation of two-person leadership team at school

Incoming New Mexico State University President John Floros and Chancellor Dan Arvizu are on campus this week for meetings with faculty, staff, alumni and business leaders.

The joint visit, their first since they were hired hired 11 days earlier, comes as the NMSU Board of Regents is scheduled to ratify contracts today for the twoperson leadership team created to replace Chancellor Garrey Carruthers.

But some professors question how the university can afford two top administrators when it struggles to hire and retain faculty and staff.

“I was very surprised to see them split the position,” said Christopher Brown, outgoing chairman of the NMSU Faculty Senate.

“My concern is there will be three positions rather than two: chancellor,

the president, and the yet-to-benamed provost,” he said, noting that Provost Dan Howard will retire Aug. 1. “The salaries are considerable.” The salaries for the two positions are not public yet. Carruthers is paid $385,000 a year.

“I don’t think that the NMSU system is large enough in any way to merit having a separate position of chancellor,” said Jamie Bronstein, an NMSU history professor.

“I think it’s a terrible idea. It sends a demoralizing message to the NMSU community.”

Both the new president and chancellor said they are committed to increasing pay.

“My hope is that over the next year or two, we can start turning things around financially so we can provide raises to the faculty, raises to our staff and really use merit as one of the ways to keep the best people and reward them,” Floros said. Arvizu agreed. “We’ll need a little time. … We can’t just turn around and give everybody raises, which I think would be very appropriate. We simply don’t have the resources to do that.”

The newly created roles of chancellor and president are still being defined, but both men said they will work together to find new funding sources.

“We cannot continue to do more with less,” Floros said. “We cannot continue to do the same with less. We have to figure out how to bring more resources in.”

Arvizu plans to draw on his private-sector experience to tap into new revenue sources, including forming public-private partnerships.

“We’re not going to sit idle,” he said. “We’re not going to wait until we have the perfect solution to go get things. We’re going try things and start immediately.”