Dear Colleagues,

This is my first message as your Interim Provost. Thank you for your messages supporting me, thanking me, and congratulating me. I felt honored and excited to be given this responsibility. I am eager to work with our Interim President Jay Gogue and with the new Interim President Monica Torres, to bring about a sense of stability, consistency, transparency, and engagement on campus. With very short time to transition into this new role, I did quite a bit of walking all over campus last week visiting with offices and people that I typically do not do as a Dean. After listening to multiple constituencies, I felt it to be essential for me to be directly interacting with a broad range of faculty/staff/student leadership committees and support services as I move forward. I will provide more details in the coming weeks as I begin doing this.

With Interim President Gogue's concurrence, I have decided to relocate the Office of Academics to the first floor of Guthrie Hall which has big enough space to accommodate all key academic affairs personnel together at one place. Facilities has helped me quickly by preparing the offices for occupancy this week.

I thank Provost Shoho for establishing this practice of Monday messages. I will follow his practice with the simple purpose of relaying important events, timelines relevant to all aspects of academics, my priorities and reflections.

I am eager to use this as an opportunity to introduce to you, Mr. Sergio Chavez. He is our custodian for Goddard Hall, and he has been one of my sources of inspiration recently. Every time I use our sink on the second floor of Goddard, I see a beautiful drawing done by Sergio displayed next to the sink. I found out that it was Sergio's drawing. He posts there a new drawing every few weeks. His work keeps our floors impeccably clean, and he brings a sense of dedication to his work. He completes his work in the mornings before many of us even begin our day, as though he doesn't need our acknowledgement or recognition of his work. I stopped him in the hallway one day to thank him fo this work, and to express my appreciation for his drawings. He gave that humble look and quickly directed his attention back to his work. Last week, he shared with me his beautiful drawings in a file. Next time you see Sergio on campus, ask him about his drawings.

Sergio is one of many on our campus. Excellence and dedication shown in silence with utmost humility. This is who we are. We are NMSU.

I know there are so many Sergios on campus in every rank and in every office. I salute all of them as I take up this new role. I will continue to draw inspiration from them.