Dear colleagues, 

Interim President Torres and members of our leadership team attended last week's "Excelencia in Education" forum, which focuses on highlighting programs, intuitions, and individuals making a positive impact on Latino students and their communities. A key component of this effort is Examples of Excelencia, a national initiative that systematically recognizes evidence-based programs that are successfully increasing Latino enrollment, persistence, and graduation rates. These initiatives serve as a model not only for Latino students but also for improving outcomes for all underrepresented groups. 

The 2024 Examples of Excelencia finalists validate the various initiatives we have on our campus and highlight areas where we can further improve. These include: 

• Increasing affordability through dual enrollment, scholarships, stipends, and other financial aid initiatives. 
• Addressing academic barriers by supporting multilingual students with relevant, contextualized curricula, and offering student-centered professional development. 
• Creating safe spaces that foster a sense of belonging through individualized, culturally responsive instruction, advising, tutoring, and mentoring.
• Expanding experiential learning opportunities.
• Offering wrap-around services such as financial aid counseling and cultural enrichment activities.

What stood out to me was the significant increase in persistence rates – 18 to 20% – among Latino students at these Examples of Excelencia institutions. These numbers underscore the importance of our efforts at NMSU.

Two major research initiatives on campus recently attracted National Science Foundation program directors to visit NMSU. First, the new interdisciplinary DREAM (Distributed Resilient and Emergent Intelligence-based Additive Manufacturing) Center, led by NMSU, is the first NSF EPSCoR Research Incubators for STEM Excellence Research Infrastructure Improvement (E-RISE) project funded in New Mexico. It was a pleasure to attend the kick-off event for this new center, which will receive $7 million in funding over the next four years. Congratulations to Dr. Jay Misra, Center Director, and his project team for this achievement.

Second, the New Mexico Alliance for Minority Participation project, which has received 32 consecutive years of NSF funding, brought students and faculty from across the state’s public colleges and universities to our campus for its annual research conference. This well-attended event continues to inspire with stories of minority student success. Congratulations to AMP Director Jeanne Garland and Co-PI Dr. Paola Bandini for making this conference an NMSU tradition year after year.

Both of these major projects bring statewide leadership to important themes and contribute to workforce needs in the State of New Mexico. These are solid examples of academic excellence at NMSU and they make us all proud to be associated with NMSU. We are NMSU.

Lakshmi N. Reddi
Interim Provost
New Mexico State University