LAS CRUCES, N.M. -- A New Mexico State University search committee has whittled down the list of candidates for the school's next president.
The 12-member committee forwarded the names of five finalists, including one from Utah, to the Board of Regents on Friday. The committee hopes to hold public forums in late April to introduce the candidates and offer university faculty, staff and students a chance to question them.The next president will succeed William Conroy, whose contract expires June 30. Conroy, a former executive vice president, was promoted in 1997 after the regents fired his predecessor, J. Michael Orenduff.
The search committee selected the five finalists. They are:
Rodolfo Arevalo, provost at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburgh, Texas.
Jill Beck, dean of the School of Arts at the University of California-Irvine.
John Burns, provost at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.
Eugene Garcia, dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of California at Berkeley.
Jay Gogue, provost at Utah State University in Logan, Utah.
Committee member and engineering dean Jay Jordan said the Board of Regents faces a difficult choice because "each of these individuals brings something unique to the table."
Arevalo has been provost and vice president for academic affairs at UT-Pan American since June 1998.
Beck has been dean of arts at UC-Irvine since 1995. She has a doctorate in theater history.
Burns was vice provost at Texas Tech before becoming interim provost in 1996 and provost the following year.
Garcia has been dean of Berkeley's Graduate School of Education since 1995. He was director of the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs at the U.S. Department of Education.
Gogue has been provost at Utah State since 1995. He was vice president for research at Clemson University in South Carolina from 1988 to 1995 and served as vice president and vice provost for agriculture and natural resources at Clemson.