Dear colleagues,

During last week’s meetings, three key themes emerged: integration, coordination, and communication. We have several outstanding initiatives across the campus that have yet to be communicated to all stakeholders and many require integration or coordination. Our collective goal is straightforward – to help our students.

We have outstanding student-centric initiatives on campus. There are about 40 campus-wide programs according to one count, all dedicated to helping our students. The challenge we face is to integrate these efforts where possible and coordinate the wealth of services we offer, ensuring they are accessible to the students who need them. With proper integration, coordination, and communication, we can create a more cohesive support network that better serves our students.

Currently, our recruitment and marketing/communication strategies across various levels – undergraduate, graduate, and NMSU-Global – are lacking system-wide integration. To address this, I plan to form a team in the coming weeks to explore ways to integrate key tasks related to academic affairs on campus.

It is disheartening to see some of our students facing disenrollment due to financial challenges. At the same time, our Foundation has informed us that a significant amount of donor funding remains unspent. While donor criteria can be restrictive, there is an opportunity for academic units to work closely with the Foundation to communicate with donors who may be open to modifying their criteria. By coordinating the efforts of accounts receivable, the Foundation, academic units, and student services, we can better support students at risk of disenrollment and ensure that available resources are utilized effectively.

Communication remains a persistent challenge we often overlook, yet it requires constant attention. I am finding instances where important administrative initiatives are not communicated promptly and accurately at all levels – faculty, staff, department heads, and deans/provost/VPs. I am reminded that there is a possible lack of communication in the other direction as well – that problems in need of administrative solutions are not always relayed accurately and promptly. I have found stories of faculty and student success that are not communicated to the right audiences.

As we begin the new academic year, let’s commit to focusing on integration, coordination, and communication. We excel in providing a variety of student-centric services; integration and coordination of these services will contribute to greater level of student success. We are NMSU: we have great stories to communicate about our student and faculty successes.

Lakshmi N. Reddi
Interim Provost
New Mexico State University