Office of the President
Monday Morning Memo
October 6, 2008
Dear NMSU Campus Community:
Good Morning! This week I would like to share with you observations and opportunities from two important higher education conferences. Last week, professionals from around the state gathered at the Governor's Summit on Higher Education. The summit, titled "Rising to the Challenge of Access and Student Success," focused on three interrelated themes. First, we need to do a better job of educating our citizens if we are to achieve a strong economic future for our state. Second, we must enhance our efforts to provide access to our students so they receive a quality higher education. Third, we must ensure that once our students enter our colleges and universities that they complete their education and graduate. The summit allowed us to share lessons learned and to develop collaborations on important topics.
This week, we will continue this conversation at the NMSU Dona Ana Community College during the annual Community College Roundup on Friday, Oct. 10. The Roundup will include faculty from each NMSU campus (Alamogordo, Carlsbad, Dona Ana, Grants, and Las Cruces). It is rotated to a different community college campus each year and it gives us a chance to gather for training, socializing, and sharing ideas and projects. It is a great opportunity to celebrate "The Power of One University" and to discuss topics of relevance that help us in strengthening our communication and our culture of continuous improvement.
This year's theme - "Conversations in Education" - will be highlighted with many interesting presentations including virtual learning, strategies for student success, general education assessment, student diversity, curriculum transition, grants information, ethics, as well as updates from the Promotion and Tenure Alignment Project, and a Community College Council meeting.
The keynote speaker will be Dr. John Roueche, director of the Community College Leadership Program at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Roueche holds the Sid W. Richardson Regents Chair in Community College Leadership, the first endowed faculty position in the field. The Leadership program at UT Austin focuses on the problems confronting community college leaders and the special issues of at-risk students in an open-access organization. This will provide a strong foundation for the discussions on that day, which includes a presentation by Dr. Reed Dasenbrock, Secretary of the New Mexico Higher Education Department. To learn more or to register for the event, please visit http://dabcc-www.nmsu.edu/roundup. I hope you join us.
At NMSU, we are determined to achieve our goals of ensuring access and excellence in higher education. I know those reading this message feel passionately about these issues and I thank you for all your past and future efforts in advancing our common goals.
Have a great week,
Waded Cruzado
