WNMU Regents meet in Santa Fe during legislative session

By Lynn Janes

On January 29, 2026, the board of regents held a virtual meeting at the legislature in Santa Fe. The board consisted of Steven Neville, chair, Joseph “Dean” Reed, John Wertheim, Gregory Trujillo and WNMU student regent Keana Huerta. Dr. Chris Maples, interim president, also attended.

After coming out of executive session, the board said only items listed in executive session had been discussed. It had been primarily pending litigation.

The board approved the agenda with the removal of item B (pending litigation) and minutes.

Presidents search update

Maples turned the update over to several others first. Carlos Carranza, student government president, had joined online but had been in Santa Fe the day before lobbying. Six had come up and he said it had been a wonderful experience. They will be looking at the student fees for the next year and will be having hearings with the budget office helping. Carranza hoped to have it ready for the regents by the end of February.

Gregory Robinson Guerra, faculty senate president, joined online and said the first three weeks of the semester had started with enthusiasm and were running smoothly. The availability of eight-week courses has helped sustain enrollment in comparison to last year. They will be revising the faculty handbook and updating the language. The proposed changes have been submitted to the president for consideration.

Bartholomew Brown, staff president senate, wanted to highlight some recent successes happening at the university. First, he mentioned the men’s basketball team with a fourteen and four winning season so far. He went on to mention other sports. He acknowledged the work of the budget office and financial services staff that will be preparing for the upcoming year. “Their work is extremely complex, time sensitive and critical to our institutional stability. The diligences of the team often go unseen.”

Maples said it has been well known that the university has been moving towards legislative consideration to acquire the Sixth Street School and have a college of education in the early childhood development center. It will be much less of a cost than building a brand new building and have a lot of square footage. It will connect the university to the town and fill a building in the historic district.

The work the business office had to do to pull all the records together for the special audit had been a herculean task. They need to bring things to a more modernization of their records to be able to access records more quickly..Senator Jay Block stopped in to say hi. He had become familiar with Western New Mexico University a year ago because of all the things happening. “You have the best regents in the state. I am so impressed with all of them.” He said they had done a phenomenal job putting Western on the right track. He hoped they would find a great president and heard they had three to five solid candidates. Block said he would be trying to help them with some capital outlay, even though they would not be in his district. “You are building back a lot of credibility.” The regents spoke to some of the projects they hoped for the legislature to fund and told Block about the Sixth Street School they hoped to acquire and how the cost would be far less than a brand new building. Block spoke to the problems of the rural areas and how they needed a lot of help.

Maples said what he really appreciated about Western has been how small it is and being able to get to know the people and individuals that collectively make it a wonderful place. He wanted to acknowledge Kevin Perez Marquez, who has been doing a dual degree program between WNMU and Universidad de Sonora. He has been accepted to Queen Mary University in London to pursue a master’s degree and had represented WNMU at the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities in Colorado.

The staff award winner had been Amy Peterson, the human resource specialist recruiter. “Her professionalism, empathy, and genuine desire to help others succeed truly makes a difference across the campus.” Maples acknowledged Dr. Chis Taylor, assistant professor of English, who had attended the international medieval congress at the University of Leeds and has had a book published.

Neville thanked Maples for his report and said they had picked a good interim president.

New business

Reed had an update on the presidential search. The search committee consists of fifteen people. He and Wertheim had joined the committee and spent five hours going over what Anthem[the search company] had provided them. The committee had provided twenty good candidates, and they narrowed it down to ten people. In the next week he and Wertheim would be joining the committee again and have Zoom interviews with each of them in a two-day period. At that conclusion they will narrow it down to five as required by the state. At that time Anthem will vet the final five and make sure they will still be interested.

After that they will have all five come to the campus February 25, 2026, through March 4, 2026. At that time, they will solidify the top three and then down to the top two by March 10, 2026. They will not be announcing this and giving time for Anthem to negotiate with the top picks. He thanked the committee for all their hard work.

Kelly Riddle, vice president of business affairs, had a fiscal year 2024-2025 audit report. The audit had been submitted to the state, and they had received a response asking for some corrections and clarifications. Her office will be turning it back in within the next day or two. Since they have not had a final approval from the state they can not report anything about the audit. She said by the next meeting they would be able to have the independent auditor present the audit to the board. She asked that it be tabled for now and the board agreed.

Riddle had presented the board with the second quarter financial action report. She had also provided them with a comparison from this year to last year. She went over the report and provided explanations. The board had a few questions she addressed. The university had lost income due to enrollment decreases attributed to the cyber-attack. The board approved the reports presented.

Riddle presented the five-year capital outlay plan and infrastructure capital improvement plan (ICIP). They had made a revision due to the early childhood project. Originally it had been for a brand new building, but now they will be looking towards the purchasing and renovation of the Sixth Street School. The board approved the revision.

Reed wanted to comment on the additional housing that they will have in the Mustang Village forecasted to be $30 million. He brought up the reacquisition of Rich Hall at some point and that renovation would only be $10-$11 million. He asked if this should be on the list. Riddle said they push for the first three on the ICIP, and it would be updated for the next legislative session.

Riddle said the Deming Student Center had been successfully lobbied by the students the prior year and it will be for a portable building for student life activities or tutoring. The board approved the project.

Howie Morales, lieutenant governor, joined the meeting. He said the governor would be out of state that day and tomorrow, so he had a different role. He thanked them for all the work they do and efforts for collaboration. He brought up some  of the priorities of the university and digitizing of information will be needed and thought they had solid support for that. The board thanked him for his support.

Riddle presented the staff handbook changes to the board and they approved it after a presentation from Brown. He said the changes had to do with payroll and leave updating the language and making clarifications. Riddle has some clarification that new employees would be paid on the new schedule, and the others would continue to be paid multiple times in a month.

Betsy Miller, vice president of student affairs, had a request for approval to grant Susan Russell staff emeritus in recognition of her long time standing. She has been employed by WNMU for thirty years. Miller went over her work history with the university. The board approved the request.

Melody Rose Ph.D., senior partner at Witt Kieffer, came to present to the board on shared governance. She specializes in higher education and leadership and came with a long resume and expertise in the subject. She would be training them on what university shared governance would look like. Rose had provided a packet and slide show for the training. In her past positions, she had served on both sides of the aisle of shared governance and shared some of those experiences.

The full scope of the training continued for well over an hour and a half. She cited a book by Stephen Bales that extensively addresses shared governance, the challenges and stressors. He points out four different misperceptions of the goal of shared governance. One was the idea that shared governance ensures equal rights. Secondly some say it will just be a system of consultation. The third misunderstanding is it will just be for rules of engagement. The last it will provide you with agility because everyone knows their role. She addressed each of these with comprehensive explanations.

Representative Luis Terrazas came to address the board. He thanked the board for their hard work and added thanks to Maples and Riddle. “We know Western is a gem we have in the southwest and I am a big supporter. I am requesting $3 million for you to digitize all records.” He thanked Rose for allowing him to interrupt her presentation briefly. Maples said they greatly appreciate all his support.

Rose continued her presentation on shared governance. She addressed how important the process will be and if done correctly leads to them being able to move more quickly. Rose went over the process and how it would look. Everyone must understand their role.

Senator Gabriel Ramos came to address the board. He apologized for the interruption. He had some really great feedback from the employees at WNMU. He told them how much he appreciated all what they have been doing. “There were some really hard times and it’s time to get over that hump and start moving forward.” He spoke to wanting to bring back baseball, and that it had been a great program. He thanked them again for all they have been doing. Maples thanked him for all his help.

Rose continued her presentation. They had been discussing impediments to a well functioning shared governance. The corporate process would be very different than that of higher education. She went over these differences and similarities in detail.

Wertheim asked what they should be looking for in the potential presidents they will be interviewing. Rose said this would be a great time to be evaluating their shared governance processes and being in dialogue with the faculty about areas for improvement. Rose said she knew Maple has knowledge of both sides of shared governance and has a wealth of knowledge. He has seen where it worked very well and when it fell short. She went into a long explanation for the answer and cautioned about assumptions. “I am a big fan of behavior questions that ask what you have already done as opposed to your knowing what I would do. Real life is messy and complicated, and it tells us more about a human being than a hypothesis.” She suggested asking them when they had experienced shared governance not working well and what they would have done to correct it.

Jack Crocker, executive vice president of academic affairs, said in his experience presidents have been reluctant to give up decision making. In the model she presented it would bring board members into decision making and day-to-day operations. Rose said no but was not sure exactly what he had been referring to. Crocker continued to explain what he meant. She was glad he raised this because it demonstrated to her that the university has not been in alignment about their proper roles and different understandings. It will be one of the challenges to shared governance and now agreeing on who has authority under which conditions. She said you can ask 100 people on campus if they believe in shared governance and all will say yes but 100 will have a different answer to what that would be.

Dean expanded on the questions about who would make some of the decisions. He pointed out how hard it can be to have two people agree much less a group. Rose said they would need to start with an evaluation of the current state of play and went over what that would look like in depth.

Robinson -Guerra said his vice president of the faculty senate had put together a proposal for shared governance and he had been glad to see this conversation started. Rose said they needed to share that with everyone and start with Maples and expand out through there.

Huerta asked about the first-generation students. She had experienced a big learning curve and asked about ways students could be supported in this process and have them be involved. Rose said she had been a first-generation college student, and it had been intimidating. People tend to think the biggest challenge would be financial and that may be true. It had been for her, but the bigger challenge had been cultural and not knowing the language and how things happened. The student government should be helping by setting up some training. She continued with the passing of knowledge and keeping information flowing. Huerta said she had seen a lot of frustration from the students and confusion. She thought the training would be helpful. Rose said she knew the language could be confusing and probably still is for first generation students. They don’t know what to ask. Those in positions of authority have the responsibility to share their knowledge.

Crocker said he always goes to the administrative assistants because they know more about what has been going on across the campus than anybody else and spoke to the union coming in. He knew that would have questions about authority from the union. He asked for her comments on that. Rose said it would be important from the onset for everyone involved to align in their language. “A union is not a governing body.” Unions would not be about governance but about employment which would be very different. It will be important that the leadership at every level will be making that distinction and it will be critically important. That can be sorted in the foundational documents for the union. She assumed that would be put through legal review. Her biggest advice would be that the first collective bargaining agreement be one they can support because it sets the tone for years to come. Better done right than quickly.

Neville thanked her for her presentation and thought they had a lot of great ideas.

Public comments none currently.

Tony Trujillo, registered lobbyist for WNMU, said he had also graduated from WNMU and called it the Harvard of the Gila. “It is my university, and I love it to death.” He said Maples had made a very positive impact on the university. This thirty-day session has been for the budget, but the governor has said she still had a lot to do before her term ended. He went over what she said she would accomplish. The capital outlay would be in flux for the next week, but he hoped they would start seeing some numbers after that. Last year the senators had received $4 million, the representatives had received half of that, and the governor had received the main chunk. He said they would have less money this year. If they walked out with some priorities, they should see it as a success. He had asked for $1.5 million due to the shortfall from enrollment. They have been addressing the acquisition of the Sixth Street School. It will probably be next year but will be a priority item down the road.

Meeting adjourned.