The UNM Board of Regents voted Tuesday to appoint a new regent, Maria Griego-Raby, to head the Presidential Search Committee, even though Griego-Raby has not been involved in the current search process.
Larry Willard, the board's president and a search committee member, nominated Griego-Raby to replace former Reg. David Archuleta as head of the committee. He said that as Griego-Raby was a participant in the last UNM presidential search, she was well qualified for the position.
The only dissenting voice among the regents was Reg. Sandra Begay-Campbell, who is also a member of the search committee. She voted against the appointment, nominating Willard instead. Begay-Campbell said that it made more sense for one of the two regents already on the search committee to take over chairing duties.
After the meeting, Begay-Campbell said that she did not object to Willard's decision to nominate Griego-Raby. Instead she felt that the board should have made two motions: one to nominate a new chairperson and another to nominate Griego-Raby to the search committee.
She added that despite the change, she didn't think the search committee would falter in its duties.
"I doubt there will be any lack of cooperation," Begay-Campbell said.
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Griego-Raby said that she wants to continue the committee's mission, which is to "hire the best possible candidate."
She pointed to her previous experience on the 1998 Presidential Search Committee, when she was the community/alumnus member, as something that will help in her future duties.
Griego-Raby added that she doesn't anticipate that her appointment will cause a stir, despite the search being well into its third phase of candidate selection.
"I don't think it will disrupt the process," she said.
Griego-Raby, an Albuquerque native and president of Contract Associates, Inc., is one of Gov. Richardson's four new regent appointees. The other three include Donald Salazar, James Koch and Andrea Cook, the student regent and the 2001-02 Associated Students of UNM president.
Tuesday's meeting was the board's first full meeting of the semester and the four new regents were welcomed with presentations from UNM President Chris Garcia and the University's five vice presidents; Richard Holder, deputy provost, in place of Brian Foster, provost and vice president for academic affairs; Julie Weaks-Gutierrez, vice president for business and finance; Eliseo Torres, vice president for student affairs; Philip Eaton, vice president for health sciences; and Judy Jones, vice president for advancement.
The administrators gave 15-minute presentations on what their job descriptions were and then answered the news regents' questions.
