WNMU fourth presidential candidate , Mario Martinez on March 4, 2026

Western New Mexico University Regent Dean Reed introduced the last candidate for WNMU president. "This is Mario Martinez. He is from Fort Lewis College. Mario will give us his 15- to 20-minute introduction."

"I have a couple of reminders for you—the survey on all four candidates. You submit one for each candidate." He pointed out the QR code. "Please submit your feedback. It is crucial. It's very imperative for the regents here, community, faculty, staff and students. The other thing is that the survey closes at midnight tonight. All of that survey data, goes to Anthem, the executive search firm, they scrub it, quantify it, and they will hand the regents tomorrow, sometime around 10 to noon, their summary of each candidate, the rankings and what input is summarized the regents will meet three to five o'clock in Executive Session. I can tell you this will be a a very difficult choice, exactly what we wanted. So we're very, very pleased. It's been a great two weeks. Excellent candidates. We appreciate your participation again. Dr Martinez will give us about a 20 minute participation update on who he is and after that, it will be a one-on-one interaction. Welcome, Doctor Martinez, welcome to Western New Mexico's public open forum.

"Thank you, sir," Martinez said. "Thank you for having me. What I'd like to do is spend about 15 minutes introducing myself and telling you how I see this alignment between my candidacy and why it's perfectly aligned, given my career arc and my personal experiences and what you need in the next president. One of the things that I think is critical for the future of Western New Mexico and its next president is a combination. First, you need a president who understands New Mexico culture, north to south. I'll talk a little bit about that. But it's also important to have a president, given the times that we are in, in higher education, the landscape is changing. There are lots of dynamics. You need a president who has different experiences in different states with different types of institutions and can bring that to bear collaboratively as we think about the future of Western and its association in this rural community with Silver City. I understand enough that the years ahead will be predicated on trust, building relationships and shared governance. I also fundamentally believe, given my experiences and my successes, that a rural institution and its vitality and liability is built on partnerships in the community and in the state. So I'll share a little bit about that as well. I do want you to know that for my spouse, Sara and I, this is really not a career step. It is a capstone experience. We are looking for alignment with an institution that we hope will be a decade at least, as we work together on our next chapter in collaboration with community and with institution. I have 16 years as a professor of higher education, much of that studying New Mexico policy, New Mexico higher education that I've written about, but I also have 12 years as an administrator that administrative experience has produced results and impact, and I will tell you that it was also a product of choices along that journey that Sara and I made during the 12 years that I have been an administrator. We are in the sandwich generation. We have made choices to care for our aging parents and to prioritize our growing children along the way and through my administrative career, when my youngest son was a senior, I didn't miss a football game when he was a junior, I did. These are the choices that we made along the way that made us better people, but there are also choices that I would make all over again. But we are now at a point in our lives where that chapter is behind us. We still send our kids our Wordle results every day from the New York Times, but we are a different chapter now. We are ready to commit and really seek a capstone of contribution. Western New Mexico University, as a public institution of higher education, is the right fit for us at this time, for many reasons. First and foremost, Western represents a type of institution many people don't realize that serve 50% of this country's college students. Western New Mexico represents a type of institution that gave me and my three siblings, first generation students, the opportunity that only higher education can provide. This is alignment. From our perspective, this is a fit. We believe that the institution is at a point to write its next chapter as a chapter of resilience. I was sharing a little bit earlier that I am just finishing up for the second time, Seneca's Book on Letters. And one of the things that Seneca said 20 centuries ago is this, setbacks and challenges are the road to prosperity. That is a story of resilience that Sara and I would bring to Western New Mexico. That is the attitude that we would bring to your campus. We believe it will be a story of resilience. Really. It's pretty simple. It's hard work, honest, work together, and it's heal and build, plan and execute. That's how we would approach this. I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about overlapping and intersecting areas that are important for you to know about a potential next president. Number one, my bathroom. Number two, why have I chosen to make higher education my vocation and life's work? Number three, what qualifies me to be your president? And number four, why do I believe that you should select me?

"Let me start with my background. Because, like any institution, any person knowing the background and the history is essential and critical. I grew up in Penasco in New Mexico. We were just talking a little bit about, do you know where Yamada (?) San Juan is? Penasco, and the broader area has about 4000 people. Where I grew up in Yamada San Juan. Last census, I checked 150 people. That's where we grew up. And this is an area that is rich in history. 31% of my ancestral lineage is indigenous. It is informed primarily by the Taos and Pico tribes. 55% is European, of which 38% is Iberian, and that means Spain and Portugal, who eventually became world powers and was involved in the colonization of northern New Mexico. That's my heritage. It's what I embrace. On my mother's side, Geronimo Pacheco was one of the first European settlers by modern day Española, New Mexico. I still have relatives who live in Los Alamos, New Mexico. These two lines are described by historical documents for my family as indo Hispano New Mexican. I understand northern New Mexico, but don't worry, I also understand southern New Mexico. I was a college student at New Mexico State University, and I started my career at NMSU. So this idea of the blend of understanding the New Mexico culture is important because I believe that it will give me a seat at the table in terms of representing Western New Mexico and all that it does in terms of the state higher education policy environment.

"But why have I chosen higher education as my vocation? It goes back to my background and my wife's background. We both grew up in families where our parents did not have the opportunity for a college education. Sara is from East Los Angeles. Her father was literally beaten for speaking Spanish in school. Both of my parents were discouraged from speaking Spanish in school. We saw struggle, both of us, as we were growing up in our families. Higher education doesn't solve every problem that we have, but it gives us tools and opportunities that are certainly helpful. We believe so much in higher education because of the opportunities that we have had. I mentioned that Sara grew up in East Los Angeles. She was, literally thinking about safety every day that she walked to school in her neighborhood. One day, she ran into a teacher when she was just about to go into high school who was a math teacher, and his name is Jaime Escalante. There was a movie about him many years ago, and the impact that he had in East Valley, I called him up years later, and we got a chance to visit with him. But Jaime had such an impact, along with other influences, that Sara went on to leave East Los Angeles, she earned a degree from Cornell University, an MBA where I met her in Texas, and then a law degree and a doctoral degree. You all have seen my material, so you know my educational background.

"But here's the point I want to make by giving you a little bit of my background. In my history, higher education has had such a profound impact on who we are as people and the past that we have had opportunities for that we now have a sole purpose, to provide service, personally to our kids and professionally, to serve in higher education, to give back some of what we have been given over the years. That is who we are as people, just because of all that has been given to us. I will also let you know, and again, using my materials, I have served in several Hispanic-Serving institutes, as I've gone through my career, I now serve in a Native American, non-tribal serving institution, at Fort Lewis College, 38% of the students are Native American or indigenous. And you'll notice that serving at aHSIs perfectly matches my self, Indo-Mexican.

"This is not coincidental. This is who I am. This is where my service is ready. I believe that Western New Mexico will be served well by the authenticity of this background and what we will bring as we work together toward a thriving future. Now, an important question with all this background is you still need a qualified president. Let me talk about three areas that are really important that I can set the foundation for success for at least 10 years and hopefully longer going forward. It is about leading culturally and through shared governance. It is about creating not just the surviving but a thriving institution of higher education. It is also about the idea of saying that we can work together with our community, which is especially important in rural communities; we can work together to make this a successful community and a successful institution of higher education, and build on the same story.

"Now I do want to pause and ask my spouse and my partner to raise her hand there in the back. I have to do that because we were just talking about our backgrounds. But as we think about this first area of cultural building, what I call building and shared governance, I want to let you all know that I bring credibility with 16 years as a faculty member in higher education. Six of those years were at New Mexico State University. I understand what it's like to be a faculty member and to work with our faculty as an administrator, I have learned and understood what it's like to work with our students and with our staff as well. These experiences have to be predicated on the foundation of trust, building cultural healing and shared governance.

"I will tell you that at Fort Lewis College, I have learned so much about the importance of culture. It's different at Fort Lewis College. The history of Fort Lewis College is it was formerly a federal Indian boarding school. We are going through a process of what we call reconciliation at Fort Lewis College now. It is not ignoring the past. It is acknowledging that whatever cultural healing has to take place at an institution, it's acknowledging, it's listening. It's growing together every day I experience here, and I agree to that. The other thing that's important to know is that I have actual experiences in working with and engaging with faculty, everything from directly asking for faculty feedback on my own performance, which is transparency and getting honest feedback, to working with campus on issues, for example, that deal with salaries. For example, I just signed two months ago out of the Academic Affairs Budget a 10% raise for our lowest paid faculty, visiting professors and adjunct professors. The reason why I was able to do that is because I have responsibly stewarded over the $36 million budget that is under Academic Affairs, and now I am able to address these things in earnest. Culturally, I think it is important at the state level to acknowledge that you need your president who will earn and have a seat at the table and be accepted to have a seat at the table. I had mentioned both my northern roots and my southern NMSU roots. I believe that will be a facilitator to have when meeting at the table in important legislative discussions and with other institutional presidents. For example, I am well aware of Senate Bill 482, which is the idea of a collective online hub in New Mexico. That is not in the best interest of Western New Mexico. You need a president who can respectfully but assertively articulate the online delivery for 60% of your students here at Western is best delivered through academic excellence, not consolidation. I have the experience in other institutions and the ability to articulate that with a seat at the table. That's just one example, but I will do that. In October, we had a higher education learning commission visit, which is the accreditation of our entire institution. I presided over that process, and on March 31 we are expecting a passing report. Accreditation is allows you to operate as an institution of higher education. Just last week, we had our business school accreditation, and I, as provost, and the dean and the president presided over that. In the next couple of years, the Higher Learning Commission, which governs over accreditation for Western New Mexico University, will be monitoring. They will have questions as a result of the last few years, I have the experience with accreditation to answer their questions and to work with them collaboratively as we ensure the quality and the ongoing operations of Western New Mexico.

"Now let me talk a little bit about thriving and not just surviving. This is the idea that we should build for a stronger vision and for a thriving vision not to survive. It is possible. It can be done. The idea, for example, at Fort Lewis, when I got there three years ago, is our retention rate for our students was 59% today, it is 65%. That's a huge difference. In three years, your retention rate at Western is 54% what if we work together and in five years, bring it to 65% Can you imagine the impact on the students who come to Western for an educational, life-changing experience. We've done it at Fort Lewis, and we can do it here. Some of the mechanisms may be different, but I have invested strategically so that we can make that happen for our students. We have invested, for example, here in educators, not for academic success, but so they can connect with our campus, so they can connect with other groups so they could feel like they belong, and this would be true both for your on-campus students and your online students. We have invested in support specialists who focus on our most vulnerable students to understand their experiences and what supports they may need to be successful. These are all things that we have done so that we can help our students be successful, and that, I believe is possible here. The number one goal and priority coming into an institution of higher education is student success, and that involves community partners and community members and all of us working together to help our students be successful. We have also been stabilizing the last couple of years. We're working with our high schools in dual enrollment, graduate online and aligning programs that we choose to invest in that are aligned with labor market needs, business analytics, GIS.

"We have a lot of support because they align with the labor market needs. This is the sort of strategy and the sort of thinking that we would come to and that we must discuss. I believe that your current strategic plan has some strengths. I also believe that we should have a collaborative conversation with campus and community as to whether we reaffirm that we reboot it or we completely redo it, and that should be a collaborative conversation. I bring strategy expertise to you as well. There are four areas that every institution of higher education should be paying attention to, because again, we live in turbulent times, in an uncertain environment, from demographics to technology. The four areas are this: number one, performance of our academic programs, whether they're on campus or they're online, how are our academic programs serving our students, our community, labor market needs and the traditions that are so cherished in higher education.

We need to have a conversation with faculty, staff, students in our community about that productivity. Productivity has to do with supports, the support functions of an institution. Is our infrastructure outdated? Does it allow us to answer student questions and support them in the ways that we need. What about it?

And emerging terms like the data stack or the technology stack, you need a president who at least understands to some degree these sorts of things so that we can invest wisely and strategically in the future of the institution. If you're still doing things by paper, for example, we need to fix some of that. These are the things that we need to talk about in terms of supporting. And supporting is not just the infrastructure that runs the institutional operations, but it could be things like academic advising or student services and how students know whether they have an overdue balance and they can resolve it. These are real things that affect real students and you can work on them.

"There is the third area—incubation. This is the idea that any institution that wants to thrive and not just survive, must invest in innovation, pilots and experiments and explorations. These are small bets. You plant 10 seeds, eight of them may not grow. The two that grow, one of them may have some promise, and the other one may have some really good promise for scale. But even the eight that did not grow, if we learn something from them, then we're better off for it. That's incubation,

"And then finding the fourth area that institutions of higher education need to pay attention to, including Western, is our Is there a big bet that we should make collectively? Again, this is a campus conversation, and it's just not solely a presidential conversation or decision. But is our big bet upskilling our credential platform and workforce credentials? Is it figuring out how to better make our different degree levels, from associates all the way to Masters, work better together in a way that we can explain to people? Is it the investment in technology and the strategic integration of programs of AI into programs that will enhance delivery, while some programs that won't work, and we think about that in a thoughtful way. These are bigger bets, but they are bets that could transform an institution.

All four of these areas are important. I have expertise in all four of these areas to bring to bear in conversation with you. Now, I do also want to talk about because you are from the community, and I do want to talk about the importance of partnership and community. This is an area where I am very proud as provost, that I have been very successful in. Everywhere I have been, even as chair and the dean, I have drawn on putting together, whether it's an alumni board or an advisory board, to give input into decision making and just general advice that we're better for. That draws from the community. I have been successful at Fort Lewis, though, in elevating the visibility in the brand of the institution. On December 16 of this past year, I worked with the Chamber of Commerce and our Economic Alliance in our communities and we co-hosted a technology campaign on our campus. It drew 587 people to our campus to network and to talk about important issues. 70% was community members. 30%, campus. What an opportunity for our campus. What an opportunity for our advancement, too. It was just amazing, and I've done it three times since 2024 these are the things that we not only do for visibility and brand building, but to honestly and authentically create spaces and avenues for partnership. And for conversation with our community. I can't tell you how many times my phone rings because of that conference that we held in December. There is just so much opportunity that we can create here as well, following perhaps slightly different avenues and different topics, but the same ideas. I have also been successful working with our community in raising funds. I worked with the president's office and the Advancement team to get a $900,000 donation for Career Services and workforce that all reside under Academic Affairs. I raised $150,000 for our technology and AI work. I also have a $522,000 map from the NIH for which I am the assisant with the principal investigator. And that grant is specifically to address health disparities in rural communities among different populations, along mental health, cancer and heart disease. These are real things. These are experiences that I can bring as we collaboratively discuss, how do we connect with our community more strongly? I know you already have foundations built, but how can we build them even higher?

"Now I want to conclude before we all break and shake hands. We don't have 15 questions, so that's nice for me, and I'll get to meet many of you. But I want to conclude by saying this: Sara and I firmly believe that Western New Mexico University is a mission-driven institution. The work that it does is key and important. Rural higher education is fundamental to opportunity in this country. This for us, let me repeat, is a career Capstone, not a stepping stone. We want to find a place to grow, to learn, to work together and hopefully to have the chili contests. This is what we see. You have so many strengths as a community, you have so many strengths as an institution. The Applied liberal arts is a distinct strength that you have. There are institutions across the country now that are trying to brand themselves as applied liberal arts, but it's superficial. You're actually doing the work. You have degrees from credentials to associates to bachelor's to masters. In California, there's a big fight going on right now. Four-year institutions want to offer two-year degrees, and two-year institutions want to offer four-year degrees. Guess what? You're doing it already Now we can build on that strength, so many strengths that you have so many strengths that can come out. My plan is simple. It is to heal and to build. It is to plan and to execute. If I were to be selected your next President, I would suggest that this would have to be a conversation, not a performative 90-day plan, but one that goes deeper. Yes, the listening has to take place. The conversations have to take place.

"But I would also propose and suggest that we form a presidential transition committee that is comprised of community members, students, faculty and staff. The purpose of that is so that we can collectively discuss this transition. We can network together. You can help introduce me to local policy makers and business owners at the state and local level, and even stakeholders here on campus. That's the value of something like a presidential transition team. I would also propose that it would be up for discussion, have to be agreed upon. One of the number one things that you find in organizations is that internal communication, or communication with stakeholders, is lacking. A formal communications plan will ensure that we are communicating with our community, with each other, and with our accreditors and with the state legislature. And I would commit and suggest that if we all approve that we actually have a formal communications plan.

"These are just some of the ideas and some of the thoughts, but I wanted to give you a sense of who I am as a person, and some draft ideas. They could change depending on the collective will and the execution of shared governance as we have this conversation of trust building and cultural buildings.

" Thank you for the opportunity to share with you why Sara and I believe that western Mexico is in perfect alignment for this time, for us and for where we want to be and hope to be for the long term. In addition to the qualifications and all that I have said to you, I want to assure you that I will be a quick study. I will engage with energy, humility and humor, and most importantly, I will lead with values.. Thank you very much.

John Wertheim thanked everyone who attended and especially those who attended all four time. - deeply appreciated. "But I do want to add in another pitch for the surveys, that again, the information will be anonymized and summarized by our consultants. But for those of you who've been here all four times, and it's most of the people in the room, we're going to have a tough decision to make tomorrow, and your input is critical in our ability to do that. So as Dean said, the survey closes at midnight tonight through the QR code. If you're comfortable doing handwritten ones, we've got those available. And so please do fill them out. We're going to take them very seriously. And again, thanks for showing up these four times. It's a critically important thing. It's been an honor for for me and Dean I know, to work on it. And so thanks. Thanks for coming out so consistently."

The Beat spoke briefly to Sara Martinez. She said, if they come to Western, she plans to use her law education to help those needing legal help. She had heard About SASS, Sexual Assault Services of Silver City, and thought she might be able to be of service to their clients. "I am coming here to give."