Alan Shoho, Provost & Chief Academic Officer Alan's Monday Message for April 17 | New Mexico State University - BE BOLD. Shape the Future.
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Alan's Monday Message for April 17

Alan's Monday Message for April 17th

NMSU Provost and Chief Academic Officer Alan Shoho

Good Monday morning Aggies! First of all, I want to thank everyone who has warmly welcomed me to New Mexico State University. It is humbling to assume this tremendous responsibility and serve as your Provost and Chief Academic Officer. For 22 years as a faculty member, I studied and prepared others for leadership positions in K-12 schools. I had the privilege of serving as Associate Vice Provost for Academic and Faculty Support at the University of Texas at San Antonio for two years and then as Dean of the School of Education for almost six years at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Through these experiences, I believe it prepared me to meet your high expectations to help NMSU reach its potential as a great HSI/MSI land- and space-grant institution that serves and improves the quality of life for all New Mexicans. At the same time, I realize I cannot do this alone and I need your support to work as a team across the campus. I expect you to hold me accountable and advise me along the way.

This is the first installment of a weekly communique I intend to send to the NMSU community every Monday to keep everyone updated on issues I am grappling with in academic affairs, along with my on-going activities, as well as a means of recognizing our faculty and staff for their invaluable contributions. I am going to ask the assistance of the Deans, Associate Deans, Department Heads, Associate Provosts, and Chancellor’s Executive Team to send me any items for inclusion in the weekly communique (by Friday at the close of day for inclusion in the next Monday) that highlights all the great work of our faculty and staff. I will also pick things from the NMSU newsroom to highlight each week.  

I have asked my administrative assistant, Cindy Garrett to work with the Deans and Department Heads to schedule a day and time when I can visit, introduce myself, and exchange thoughts with each respective academic unit (College and Department level) in Academic Affairs as well as across divisions in student success; equity, inclusion, and diversity; strategic system services; athletics, and any other units who would like me to visit with them. I reached out to the Deans and Department Heads a few weeks ago to initiate these meetings. I also plan to visit the Alamogordo, Dona Ana, and Grants campuses to meet with their faculty/staff, and leadership. Given the timing of the year, most of these meetings are likely to occur in the fall semester (given there are fifty-four departments and another eight plus Dean/leadership team meetings), although I already have a scheduled meeting at the Alamogordo campus this coming Friday morning and I met with the Department of Computer Science last Friday. I want to thank Department Head, Dr. Son Tran for organizing and welcoming me to the CS department. At last count, I believe Cindy Garrett, who is a genius with managing my calendar and scheduling meetings, had already 24 confirmed meetings before the end of the spring semester.   

This past Friday midday, I had lunch with the Deans and Chancellor Jay Gogue. We had a nice exchange of thoughts. The one thing I really appreciate about the NMSU Deans is they are very honest and candid and I know they will advise me well moving forward. And we are so fortunate to have Chancellor Jay Gogue to serve in the interim. His experience and wisdom will set NMSU up for success as we welcome a new Chancellor in 2024.  

After lunch, I was escorted by Neveah, a freshman student from Albuquerque who works for Student Success to the Hardman and Jacobs Undergraduate Learning Center to give a few remarks to the participants of the Data Tools workshop. Neveah is a CS major and wants to work in cybersecurity. I shared with her how I met 4 faculty members earlier in the day who were cybersecurity experts. This summer Neveah is hoping to get a paid internship at Sandia Labs. When I arrived at the workshop, I was so impressed by the commitment of the people I met to use data to help our students become more successful. How can you not be optimistic about the future of NMSU? While we may have our challenges, when we have people who are passionate about helping students, there is no doubt in my mind that we will succeed. As one of my former colleagues used to remind me, it is “attitude over aptitude” and hire for attitude and train for skill. Meaning, you can educate and train people about knowledge and skill, but it is much more difficult to change one’s attitude.  

Afterwards, I walked back to my office and participated in a zoom debriefing of the search committee for the Graduate School Dean search. It sounds like we are going to host finalists in late April/early May. I encourage all interested stakeholders to make sure they take time to attend each finalist presentation and share your feedback. This is a critical hire and I want to thank in advance, Dean Lakshmi Reddi and the rest of the search committee for the work they have done thus far. Searching for new colleagues is arguably one of the most important things we do to elevate the institution.  

Following the search debrief, I went to the Corbett Center to attend the Undergraduate Student Research and Creative Activities event. Unfortunately, I was too late as the event had ended earlier than I thought. I hope to attend next year’s session. Since I missed the event, it gave me some time to walk around the Corbett Center and see what is there. As you can imagine, as a newcomer, I walked around with my trusty NMSU map in hand.  

At about 3:20pm, I walked to Pete’s Patio to interact with the participants from the Data Tools workshop. It was so empowering for me to listen about the work happening across the system from DACC’s Sunland Park campus to policy initiatives happening throughout the system.  

At 4pm, I drove to Kent Hall and attended a panel discussion organized by Dr. Fumi Arakawa, Director of the Museum and Anthropology Professor. The panel discussion was entitled, “Humanhood in the Organ Mountains: Prehistory.” The auditorium was packed with interested attendees. What struck a chord with me is one of the Zuni Elders referenced a study indicating within 100 years, most indigenous languages will be lost and as a result, a major piece of their culture. This was heartbreaking to hear and it got me thinking, how can NMSU help prevent this from happening. I went home and e-mailed some people to see what we have available and how we can make a difference. I firmly believe we can help our tribal brothers and sisters to help avert the loss of their native tongue. HEST Dean Yoshi Iwasaki shared with me there is a Tribal Education group, who may be interested in developing an app for electronic devices to support language development. I will learn more about this at an upcoming meeting. Later on, all the Deans weighed in and mentioned the support their respective colleges may be able to provide. This is so refreshing for me to see a major problem and then our academic team coalescing to work together to find solutions.  

To end the week, on Saturday morning, I attended the NMSU American Indian Arts and Crafts fair at Kent Hall in the morning. I want to thank Fumi Arakawa and Michael Ray for organizing this great event. The Zuni dancers and drummers were outstanding. As a person with two left feet, I always marvel when I watch young people display their talents. It really is true that music/dance bring people together. 

As I on-board and start officially today at NMSU, one of the things I have heard consistently is the need to build a better culture at NMSU where everyone is respected, valued, and appreciated for what they do to contribute to the mission. As part of building this culture, I encourage everyone, when possible, to support your colleagues and attend their events. Like me, you will definitely learn something new each time.  

Sometime this summer, I plan to travel across the state with ACES Dean Rolando Flores and American Indian program Director, Michael Ray to see some of our extension facilities as well as do outreach work with the tribal nations to explore and enhance any partnership opportunities to advance pipelines for our academic programs. I will share much more about this work each week and I intend to involve relevant academic personnel to assist me in these endeavors. I envision each year taking colleagues with me to meet with local leaders throughout New Mexico to see how NMSU can better serve them with our academic programs, research, and community engagement activities. I will be counting on everyone to help me connect and advocate for NMSU across the state. I look forward to meeting everyone and getting to know more about your work and how I as Provost can support you to advance NMSU’s mission. Go Aggies! 

Upcoming Weekly Activities 

            Each week, I will share some of the major activities of the week, so you get a sense of what I am doing to advance academic affairs and NMSU’s mission. As you read my Monday message, if something resonates with you, please reach out to me and share your thoughts. I hope you will find each Monday message informative by giving you a glimpse into what we are doing to advance student, faculty, and staff success at NMSU. I also plan to use my Monday message to recognize all the good work happening across the campus (our unsung heroes). New Mexico State University is a diamond in the desert and I am passionate about what is possible here. Next week, I will share my vision for what I see is possible for NMSU to accomplish over the next 3-5 years and some of my own personal goals and why I was so interested and excited to join the NMSU. Like many higher education institutions, we often don’t celebrate all the good things happening across campus. I am hopeful, during my tenure as your Provost, I can help foster a culture of support for success and highlight all the impactful work NMSU is doing to fulfill our mission as New Mexico’s land- and space-grant Hispanic serving/Minority serving institution. Some of you may have read my op-ed last week in the Las Cruces Sun News. It gives you a glimpse of the hope I see in NMSU. I can’t wait to meet and work with everyone to deliver on NMSU’s tagline to “Be Bold. Shape the Future.”  

NMSU’s Unsung Heroes 

            As noted above, I want to highlight what I call, NMSU’s “unsung heroes.” For my first two unsung heroes, I want to thank Deans Rolando Flores and Enrico Pontelli for helping identify two people. To me, humility is one of my cherished values. It probably emanates from my Japanese culture and my upbringing. As such, I want to recognize those people who do not seek out the limelight, yet they do an exemplary job and operate under the radar and contribute to NMSU in untold ways. These are people we may often take for granted, because they always think of others before thinking of themselves. So, with that, my first two unsung heroes are:  

Pamila Miller (ACES Administrative Assistant - Special/Executive to the Dean) – As Dean Flores shared with me - Pam is a very dedicated individual that knows her job very well and is very proud of it. Pam is a source of information for the college and other units in NMSU. Above all, she is a team player and understands very well her role as entry point in ACES for customers and students. She mentors student workers by being an example of efficiency to get things done. I can also attest that during the Provost search process, Pam was a delight to work with. She was highly responsive whenever I e-mailed her and she made a great impression on me as one of the first people I interacted with. Thank you, Pamila, for what you do for ACES and NMSU! 

Kim Seckler (A&S College Professor in the Department of Government) – As Dean Pontelli shared with me - Besides being an excellent teacher, Dr. Seckler constantly goes out of her way to help students succeed and advance in their studies. She often develops instruments for students to graduate on time while facing challenges with specific classes. She is a valued mentor and advisor; she helps students understanding their desired professional dreams and guides them on taking the proper steps. She is a natural leader and she helps the department operate successfully while not seeking the spotlight. Kim, I look forward to meeting you in person. As Dean Pontelli noted, you exemplify what an unsung hero does. Thank you, Kim, for being someone who helps students believe in themselves! 

Kudos 

This past Friday, Luis Cifuentes informed me that Dr. Patricia Sullivan and the Office of Strategic Initiatives were successful in capturing a $10 million award, which will be known as the South-Central Environmental Justice Resource Center. Each of the technical assistance centers will receive at least $10 million to remove barriers and improve accessibility for communities with environmental justice concerns. With this critical investment, these centers will provide training and other assistance to build capacity for navigating federal grant application systems, writing strong grant proposals, and effectively managing grant funding. In addition, these centers will provide guidance on community engagement, meeting facilitation, and translation and interpretation services for limited English-speaking participants, thus removing barriers and improving accessibility for communities with environmental justice concerns. Each of the technical assistance centers will also create and manage communication channels to ensure all communities have direct access to resources and information. The EPA selected the following 14 organizations to serve as Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers, along with their partners: 

  1. University of Connecticut 
  2. West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc. 
  3. Inter-American University of Puerto Rico-Metro Campus 
  4. National Wildlife Federation 
  5. Deep South Center for Environmental Justice 
  6. Research Triangle Institute 
  7. Blacks in Green 
  8. University of Minnesota 
  9. New Mexico State University 
  10. Wichita State University 
  11. University of Arizona 
  12. San Diego State University 
  13. Willamette Partnership 
  14. University of Washington 

In addition, EPA has selected three national organizations that will provide additional assistance across the country, with particular capacity to assist Tribes, including: 

  1. International City/County Management Association 
  2. Institute for Sustainable Communities 
  3. National Indian Health Board