The sign read “Welcome to New Mexico – The Land of Enchantment.” For daily travelers it is like any other road sign in the hundreds encountered through a long or short commute. But for Waded Cruzado, interim president at New Mexico State University, the marker became a symbol of a calling - perhaps a special message. You see, Cruzado is from Puerto Rico, the “Island of Enchantment.”

“That was like a magical experience to me. Perhaps this is a sign,” she says. “The next day I woke up and saw the Organ Mountains and I was absolutely mesmerized. I thought to myself, this is a place I want to be.”

Cruzado’s experience in 2003, while traveling into Las Cruces for her job interview as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, was a moving one. And since that day, she has kept NMSU in her heart and kept her focus on fulfilling the university’s mission of reaching out to the community. In 2005, Cruzado provided the leadership to establish the J. Paul Taylor Social Justice Symposium, which is a yearly effort to bring together scholars and experts to discuss the social justice issues affecting the surrounding communities.

Her appointment as dean was short-lived as Cruzado moved forward to become executive vice president and provost of NMSU in 2007. Her work as provost did not go unnoticed, and when President Michael Martin left to become the chancellor of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Cruzado was asked to step in as interim president.

The regents’ selection of Cruzado as interim president made her the first woman ever to serve in that position. And she is only the second Hispanic to hold that spot in the 120-year history of the university. Her administrative experience goes back to 1999 when she served as the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the land-grant University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez.

She attributes her drive and confidence to succeed on her educational upbringing through parochial schools in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.

“I think that modeled my education in a dramatic fashion. I look back to my childhood and I’m very thankful of what those teachers did for me. They really gave me a good, comprehensive education,” she says.

Cruzado graduated from the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez with a bachelor’s in comparative literature. She continued her studies at the University of Texas at Arlington, earning a master’s in Spanish and doctorate in the humanities.

Cruzado also attributes her success to having been given opportunities and believes those opportunities should be paid forward by giving others, especially the young, the same chance.

“When we are successful ourselves, pay back, and when possible pay forward. Make sure that you go back to your community and open doors for everybody,” she says. “I believe in the transformational power of land-grant institutions. When I arrived in 2003 and I noticed that the annual per-capita income in Doña Ana County was $14,000 – I said to myself, there is much to be accomplished here. There is much to be done. That’s what we’re doing here at New Mexico State – one student at a time – giving them the opportunities to be successful throughout their lives and go back to their communities and transform lives.”

Of NMSU’s faculty and staff, Cruzado says that “not a single day goes by that I am not impressed by the outstanding quality of our faculty and by the devotion and dedication of our staff. The most wonderful thing about our faculty members is that they have a sense about the importance of serving the institution and putting the students at the center of what we do.”

NMSU’s alumni are the “jewels in the crown and they exemplify what the institution is able to accomplish in the way we prepare professionals and individuals who will have an impact on society,” she says. “Our alumni are our best ambassadors and they are living proof of what we accomplish in our classrooms, in our labs and in our communities.”