Dear Colleagues,

We have completed our move to Guthrie Hall. I want to thank our IT and facilities staff who have worked hard to accommodate us. Special thanks to Ms. Kerry Forsythe, Ms. Laura Grant, and Dr. Patrick Turner and his graduate students, who put up with the inconveniences caused by this move as they had to relocate to offices elsewhere.

From my numerous conversations and meetings last week, three ideas have gained interest. I would love to hear your comments on these:

1. We have abundant data identified and collected, especially in the context of accreditation and assessments, in several forms and in various offices. Some offices are using the data to make useful and strategic decisions. We need to assemble fragmented data to construct a coherent whole and inform our decision-making. HLC Quality Initiative could be used as a great opportunity to bring the various offices together and synthesize our data.
2. In my meetings with the Office of Institutional Equity, the idea of using ombudsperson(s) had come up, which involves providing informal assistance to resolve issues and minor complaints. I will consult other constituencies including faculty senate leadership in the near future to determine its feasibility and effectiveness. I was told that we did have ombudspersons in the past at NMSU till about 2010.
3. There is quite a bit of interest in having Provost Office play a greater role in facilitating: i) Operational/process efficiencies, and ii) Faculty/staff success. I want to identify resources in the near future to have faculty/staff leaders help me in these two areas (at least in part-time roles). I will seek advice from our administrative teams and faculty/staff leadership on these job descriptions before moving forward.

Earlier in the week, I received news that I am so excited to share with you: NMSU's Model United Nations student organization received the Outstanding Delegation award this past week, placing the team in the top five percent among over 100 universities. The NMSU team consisted of 12 students from different majors, who were assigned to simulate the Federal Republic of Somalia delegation on various committees. Additionally, student members Angel Amabisco, Autumn Reid,a nd Jasmine Recinos were recognized for their Position Paper awards: Angel for his paper at the UN High Commission on Refugees, and Autumn Reid and Jasmine Recinos for their join position paper for the Committee on the Status of Women. The team president, Liam Mitchell, was recognized with a Peer Delegate Award by a vote of the other student delegates in his committee for his work and diplomacy during the conference in the UNEA committee.

Congratulations to Dr. Neil Harvey (Professor and Head, Department of Government), Faculty Advisor, Model UNM 2023-24. NMSU has a long and successful history of participating in this conference since the early 1990s.

World leaders are whom we prepare. This is who we are. We are NMSU.