FROM THE PRESIDENT Dr. Jay Gogue New Mexico is a big state for a land grant university to serve, but thanks to new technologies and innovative faculty and staff, the boundaries of time and place don’t loom as large as they once did. A case in point: Our Cooperative Extension Service recently dedicated its first distance-education learning center, in Clayton, 414 miles from the main campus. An online news conference demonstrated the Internet technologies the learning centers will use to bring university courses and training opportunities to communities throughout the state. Sometimes pushing the boundary is a matter of offering programs at a more accessible time. New Mexico State’s Master of Business Administration program is now offered entirely at night, and the change has been a boon to people whose job and family responsibilities make it impossible to take classes during the day. In making the change, the College of Business Administration and Economics worked closely with its Business Advisory Council, composed of business and professional people from around the region. These initiatives are building on the successes of similar, more established programs. A graduation ceremony was held at the Boeing Co.’s headquarters in Seattle in December for a group of Boeing employees who earned master’s degrees in mechanical engineering and industrial engineering by distance education. And at the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon in Monterrey, Mexico, we recognized the first 11 graduates of a master’s degree program in industrial engineering that we began in 1997 to help improve the competitiveness of industrial plants in Mexico, both Mexican-owned and U.S.-owned. As you can see, the boundaries are being expanded in a variety of areas and the changes are driven by specific needs. That’s how the university’s ventures into distance education and other innovations began and that’s how they will grow.

Ackerman, Amador receive honorary docorates

Two New Mexico State University graduates who have distinguished themselves in business and medicine – Public Service Company of New Mexico Chairman Emeritus John T. Ackerman, ’71, of Albuquerque and retired neuro-surgeon L.V. Amador, ’41, of Los Angeles – received honorary doctorates at NMSU’s spring Commencement ceremonies Saturday, May 12.

For the first time, the university divided its Commencement into two parts to reduce the length of the programs and better accommodate large audiences. More than 1,500 students were candidates for degrees. Ackerman attended the morning and afternoon cere-monies in the Pan American Center. Because of illness, Amador was unable to travel to NMSU. Ackerman, who received a master’s degree in electrical engineering in the electric utility management program at NMSU, was honored for his professional achievements and contributions to business and civic affairs in New Mexico. Ackerman joined PNM as a junior engineer and had worked his way to senior vice president of operations by 1984, when the company acquired the Gas Company of New Mexico. He served as president and chief operating officer of the Gas Company of New Mexico until 1990, when he was elected president and chief executive officer of the parent company. He took on the additional role of chairman of the board in 1991. He served as president, CEO and chairman until 1994 and continued as chairman until 1999, when he was elected as the only chairman emeritus in PNM’s 82-year history. At NMSU, Ackerman is a member of the Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Academy and has served on several advisoryboards. He helped to create the PNM Professorshipin Utility Management within the Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

John T. Ackerman, recipient of an honorary doctorate, is congratulated by student Regent Antonia Royal at Commencement May 12.

Amador

Amador, a native of Las Cruces, received his bachelor’s degree in biology with honors at NMSU and his M.D. from Northwestern University in Illinois. He was honored for his distinguished career as a neurosurgeon and medical educator, during which he earned inter-national renown as a leading authority on brain tumors in the young. In the 1950s and 60s, Amador was a research associate for the Rockefeller Institute for Research in Europe, lectured in Sweden and Germany as a Guggenheim Fellow, and served on the medical faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago. He later joined the faculty of Northwestern University, served for many years as medical director of the Research Foundation for Spastic Paralysis and Related Diseases of the Central Nervous System, and was a visiting scientist at the Brain Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles. He is the author of Brain Tumors in the Young and a contributing author of the three-volume Atlas of the Brain. Karl Hill

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