NMSU announces new finalists for president job

EL PASO, Texas ( KTSM ) — The New Mexico State University Board of Regents has announced five finalists for the university’s next president, the university announced on Monday, Aug. 19.

This is the second time this year that the university has announced finalists for the president job. Back in March, the Board of Regents scrapped a list of five finalists after an initial nationwide search and announced it was beginning another search.

The new finalists are:

• Valerio Ferme, Ph.D., executive vice president for academic affairs and provost, University of Cincinnati
• Brian Haynes, Ph.D., vice chancellor for student affairs, University of California, Riverside
• Monica Lounsbery, Ph.D., dean, College of Health and Human Services, California State University, Long Beach
• Neil MacKinnon, Ph.D. professor, School of Public Health, immediate past executive vice president for academic affairs and provost, Augusta University
• Arsenio Romero, Ph.D., secretary of public education, State of New Mexico.

The new finalists were selected from a nationwide pool of candidates with the assistance of search firm WittKieffer and an internal presidential search committee led by Regents Chair Ammu Devasthali.

Devasthali said the next phase of the presidential search will include campus visits from each candidate beginning in early September, allowing opportunities for members of the NMSU community and the public to hear from the candidates directly about their vision for NMSU, the university said.

The schedule for those visits and forums will be announced in the near future and will be available online at nmsu.edu/president-search , along with more information about each finalist, links to webcasts of each public forum, and feedback forms to provide comments to the board.

“We cannot complete this process without the help of all our Aggie community. I hope you will join us for the candidate forums, and I hope you will choose to attend in person if possible,” Devasthali said. “This is an incredibly important decision, and we need your feedback to help us find the best leader for NMSU.”

For additional information about the presidential search process, including updates about next steps, visit nmsu.edu/president-search .

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