Alan Shoho, Provost and Chief Academic Officer Alan's Monday Message for April 24 | New Mexico State University - BE BOLD. Shape the Future.
Skip to main content

Alan's Monday Message for April 24

Alan’s Monday Message for April 24th 

NMSU Provost Shoho talking at the welcome party for him.

Wow! What a great first week at New Mexico State University. Everyone welcomed me on Monday afternoon by wearing aloha attire. This is my choice of attire on Fridays, because in Hawaii, Fridays are called Aloha Friday where everyone shares their aloha spirit (i.e., be kind, helpful, and friendly to others). I want to thank everyone who came to Hadley Hall to welcome me. I really appreciated the turnout. I also want to thank Interim Provost, Dee Dee Campbell for leading academic affairs through a challenging time. Her guidance and steady leadership made the transition smooth. NMSU is grateful for Dee Dee’s service. This week is Dee Dee’s last week with NMSU, so if you have time, please send an email to personally thank her.  

Throughout the week, I had various meetings with direct reports and others. It was nice to meet and see people in their offices rather than coming to Hadley 125. As I have shared with my assistant, Cindy Garrett, I need to be visible around campus and learn about the environments where everyone works.  

Some people shared with me that my first Monday message was too long. To cut it down a bit, I am deleting the section on upcoming activities and will only report on my past week’s activities.  

Of note, on Tuesday morning, I attended online the Higher Education Board of Finance meeting for the proposed Ph.D. program in Transborder and Global Human Dynamics to lend my support. The Board of Finance (BOF) approved the proposal unanimously. Congratulations to the Arts and Sciences team for preparing a wonderful presentation. As Carol Flinchbaugh noted afterwards, Rani Alexander, Glen Fetzer, and Neil Harvey were the faculty that used their expertise and professional contacts to create a multidisciplinary program that was incredibly well-received by the Board, and one that is much needed in the current climate of our state and region. Special thanks for Neil Harvey for presenting the proposal and providing thorough answers to the BOF questions. His acknowledging how NMSU will have the first such PhD program in the U.S. was greatly valued by the board. Joe Lakey did a great job guiding the team through all aspects of the program design to help the program move forward. And thanks to Enrico Pontelli for providing personal and financial support from the college. And, for his willingness to chauffeur the group to Santa Fe in the wee hours of the morning. 

Later in the morning, I met with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) external site visitors for the College of Business’s accreditation review. We had a productive conversation and unofficially, they are recommending full accreditation for the College of Business and the Accounting program. My kudos go out to Dean Bryan Ashenbaum and Department Head Kevin Melendrez and their team for doing an outstanding job of presenting the College of Business and accounting program. 

At noon, I had lunch with NMSU Regent Chair, Ammu Devesthali. We had a productive lunch and talked about moving NMSU forward. I appreciated Madame Regent Chair taking the time to meet and exchange thoughts. To end Tuesday, I visited the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agricultural Business in Gerald Thomas Hall. I want to thank Interim Department Head, Steve Fraze for hosting me. Afterwards, I walked to the ACES Dean’s suite and had fun meeting everyone. It was nice to see people smiling and enjoying one another’s collegial spirit.  

On Wednesday, I attended the bi-weekly Strategic Executive Budget Team (SEBT) meeting in the morning. The SEBT is where the executive team reviews requests for funding and makes decisions for funding priorities. Afterwards, I met with Shelly Stovall and Dee Dee Campbell in Institutional Effectiveness (OIE). It is going to take me some time to get used to all the acronyms. Mahalo to Ken Van Winkle and Ruth Johnston for sharing some reference sheets to assist me until my brain gets used to the meaning of all the acronyms. Afterwards, I went to lunch with Steve Stochaj, Interim Department Head of the Klipsch School of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the West 100 Café in Gerald Thomas Hall. It was the lst time I have been there and it was fantastic! I was so impressed by the students. They are learning by doing. If you have not been there, I highly recommend it. It is open on Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the fall and spring semester and you can make reservations online at their website. They will be open for two more weeks.  

            For the rest of the day, I met with Luis Cifuentes, Alisha Giron, and Dee Dee Campbell online to discuss base+supplemental compensation and then I dealt with administrative items for the rest of the day. 

In the evening, I attended the College of Arts and Sciences retirement party for Associate Dean, Jim Murphy at the Stan Fulton – 3rd Floor Danny Villanueva Victory Room. There was a great turnout of Jim’s colleagues and it was nice to hear people share their thoughts about how Jim has made a positive impact in his 25 years at NMSU. He will be missed. We wish him and his family all the best as they move to Huntsville. 

On Thursday, I started my day by attending and kicking off the launch of the Sustainability Policy and Oversight committee (SPOC) daylong meeting at the Corbett Center. Due to meeting conflicts, I had to pop in and out throughout the day. One of those meetings was crucial for me to better understand the Provost’s budget with Lourdes Alvarado-Salas and Kim Rumford. The other meeting I attended was the UPAC, which is the University Program Approval Committee. They review proposals for academic degrees.  

Following the UPAC meeting, I drove to the NMSU golf course to participate in the Teamwork Celebration. It was the first time I had been to the golf course. Following this celebration, I drove back to the stadium to watch part of the spring football scrimmage and listen to the marching band. As a former marching band parent, I enjoy listening to the marching band perform. I also got to meet Wave, one of Steve Stochaj’s dogs who retrieves the football kicking tee after each kickoff. Wave is one smart dog! 

On Friday morning, I drove to NMSU-Alamogordo and met with Mark Cal, Director and Vice President for Academic Affairs and then met with the faculty and staff. It was nice to see and learn about all the good things NMSU-Alamogordo is doing to support students. I took some notes on issues to improve. I hope to visit all the two year campuses at least once a year.  

As I mentioned last week, I want to share what I envision NMSU accomplishing over the next 3-5 years. Here are five things I want NMSU to make progress on: 1) student success; 2) improving the organizational culture; 3) creating new pipelines and increasing enrollment; 4) increasing the diversity of our faculty and adding depth to the number of faculty with external funding; and 5) re-achieving the R1 status.  

First and foremost, the number #1 priority for me is to improve student success. Bar none, student success will garner my utmost attention. Having met with VP for Student Success, Renay Scott during my transition visit, she informed me, our current 1st to 2nd year retention rate is around 71.4%, although it has improved to 72% now. We must do better and I expect us to improve into the 80% plus range. Alongside retention, our 4- and 6-year graduation rates must improve. LEADS 2025 provides a roadmap to assess our progress. I anticipate we will start planning for a new strategic plan in 2024 to pick up where LEADS 2025 ends. As I shared with the Data Tools participants 10 days ago, it is critical to understand the data we have and to dig below the surface to identify areas for improvement. For example, our 72% first to second retention rate is our overall rate. Yet, we have equity gaps with certain sub-population of students. If we can make major progress on the sub-population of students, our overall rate will improve. And as someone at the workshop shared and I fully agree, we need to ask our students what is preventing them from being successful and not just assume we know the answers.  

Second, given what I have heard and observed to date, I believe we need to work on our organizational culture. We must get away from a mentality of “us versus them” or an environment that adds drama and theatrics to already challenging situations. This hinders our efforts to move forward. We are all on the same team. To be a winning team, where everyone contributes in different ways, we must strive to value, respect, and mutually support each other. In 2018, NMSU identified five core values. We must live these values. In my role as Provost and Chief Academic Officer, I hope to create the conditions for people to be successful. I hope to set an example for the type of culture I want to see NMSU develop by valuing and respecting people’s perspectives, even when we may disagree with each other. I also want to set a tone of appreciation and recognition and to minimize, if not eliminate the drama and theatrics that distracts us from our core mission to educate students, research and foster innovation to improve the quality of life, and to engage and be responsive to the community and state we serve. As I shared with the Deans, we must stay above the fray, be laser focused on our core mission and not get distracted. 

Third, it is critical for NMSU to grow enrollment to generate new revenue. I would like to see NMSU grow from its current 14,000 to 15-16,000 over the next 5 years. NMSU Global has a goal to serve 10,000 students over a similar timeframe. These are bold goals, yet they are achievable. I am well-aware of the challenges we experience with salary inequities and compression as well as with our graduate assistant issues. At the same time, in order to advocate effectively to address these issues, we need to generate new revenue (i.e., barring legislative appropriations). Related to enrollment growth, one of my personal goals is to grow our Native American undergraduate student enrollment to 10%, so NMSU can become the first Native American Serving, Non-Tribal land-grant institution in the country. I have been informed NMSU is currently around 2.9% Native American. Getting to 10% is a “Be Bold, Shape the Future” goal. Given the state of New Mexico is comprised of 10.9% Native American, I know we can accomplish this goal if we build win-win relationships with the tribal nations and deliver academic programs are responsive to their needs. 

My fourth goal is to diversify the faculty ranks as we launch searches in the coming years. By working with Vice President for Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity, Linda Scholz, I know we can make progress on this goal by re-thinking how we conduct faculty searches to be more proactive rather than taking a reactive, wait and see approach of who applies. By activating our professional networks and doing front end legwork, I know we can make major strides on diversifying our faculty ranks. In addition to faculty diversity, we need to deepen our pool of faculty seeking external funding. I am committed to working collaboratively with Vice President for Research (VPR), Luis Cifuentes to advance our research enterprise by providing the requisite support and infrastructure, so our faculty can be successful.  

And finally, if we make progress on the previous four goals, the fifth goal of re-achieving the R1 status will be in our grasp. With a new Graduate School Dean working with each academic college and the VPR’s unit, I am confident our collaborative efforts will yield NMSU the R1 designation it desires. For your information, the Carnegie classification is currently based on three factors with an adjustment for the institution’s size: external expenditures, doctoral student graduates, and post-docs. I know Carnegie is looking to add a fourth factor involving social and economic mobility. NMSU may benefit from this new factor. However, as they say, the devil is in the details and we will see how it is rolled out.  

NMSU’s Unsung Heroes 

            This week three people were identified as NMSU unsung heroes. Before you read about their exploits, I want to share a story on the CBS Evening News from this past Friday. As I watched it, it resonated with me about why it is so important for us to believe in others and provide hope. It was gratifying to read about how our unsung heroes provide hope to our students and contribute to moving NMSU forward.  


Avis James (A&S Associate College Professor and Faculty Advisor) – Dean Enrico Pontelli described Avis James as the face of Biology for many majors and other students taking Biology classes. In spite of large classes, Avis gives attention to each individual student and is constantly innovating her pedagogy to respond to the shifting needs of students. Beyond her outstanding work in the classroom, she leads all advising activities in the department, spending many hours working with each student, providing not only academic, but also professional advising and mentoring. Avis, I am looking forward to meeting you in person. As I have shared with people, everyone contributes differently on a winning team and you are doing a great job by helping our students be successful. Thank you, Avis, for advising and mentoring students.  

Luci Ortiz (Library Specialist, Senior in Access Services Department) – Dean Kevin Comerford shared; Luci Ortiz is definitely an unsung hero of the library. Luci manages the student employees at the circulation desk and provides important services to our student library patrons every day. She’s also on the front line to receive complaints and deal with challenging community users. She is uniformly pleasant and supportive of our students and is a wonderful ambassador of NMSU to the public. Luci, you are a great example of how a welcoming attitude and kindness supports our students and makes NMSU better.  

Dr. Hansuk Sohn (Interim Dept Head for Industrial Engineering) – As Dean Lakshmi Reddi noted, Dr. Sohn is an unsung hero. Industrial Engineering had lost faculty and is currently in the process of rebuilding. Hansuk has been a silent hero trying to do what it takes to run the department without making leadership feel worried about all the day-to-day difficulties of having to find adjuncts, faculty to mentor students, etc.. Dr. Sohn exemplifies the quiet leadership required to re-build a department and its culture. He illustrates a leader whose cumulative efforts are making a difference. Thank you Dr. Sohn for all your efforts. We appreciate what you are doing for the Department of Industrial Engineering.  

Kudos 

This past week, College of Engineering Dean, Lakshmi Reddi shared with me a
national award the College of Engineering’s Student Council received recently at the University of Pittsburgh. This demonstrates the council’s efforts in promoting leadership, community service and academic excellence among engineering students. As Marie Ruiz, NMSU Engineering Student Council vice president noted, “Being selected as the Best Large Council of 2023 wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the unmeasurable support from our college, professors, community, but most importantly from our peers. With the hard work of every member and officers, we were able to take home an award that showed it. I am proud to be a part of New Mexico State and I am proud be a part of the Aggie Engineers family.” The Engineering Student Council plans to host next year’s Summit in Las Cruces and is working closely with the College of Engineering leadership staff to make it happen. These are the types of experiences NMSU provides its students and I want to congratulate the College of Engineering’s Student Council on this coveted award.  

Congratulations to Drs. Michele Schuster (PI), Antonio Garcia, Enrico Pontelli, and Louiza Fouli (co-PIs), for their recently awarded three year, $3 million NSF Grant: NMSU-MAS, Mejorando las Aulas en STEM/Improving STEM Classrooms. With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Program, this project aims to enhance the success of a diverse population of students through faculty professional development focused on equitable and inclusive teaching practices. This will increase the number of Hispanic, first-generation, and low-income students who complete STEM degrees and are prepared to successfully enter the workforce or pursue advanced training. This is important as it will contribute to a more diverse, and therefore more innovative and productive, STEM workforce and develop role models for future generations of students. This is fantastic news and I wish the team all the best as they launch this grant award this year.