UNM's School of Law is looking to hire a dean this semester.
Four finalists will interview for the position on campus this month and next. Provost Suzanne Ortega is heading the search committee, and Deputy Provost Richard Holder said a decision should be announced around March, two to four weeks after the interviews are finished.
Interim Dean Leo Romero oversees the School of Law, but he is not in the running for the permanent position.
The four candidates are Gregory Hicks, Kevin Washburn, Michael Olivas and Antoinette Lopez.
Hicks serves as an interim dean at the University of Washington School of Law. He also served as an associate dean for faculty and associate dean for academic administration at the University of Austin.
Washburn is a professor of law at the University of Arizona's James E. Rogers College of Law.
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Olivas is the chair and director of the Institute for Higher Education, Law and Governance at the University of Houston Law Center.
Those three candidates were not available for interview, but Lopez, who is a professor at UNM's School of Law, said she has already seen what issues she would need to deal with if selected for the position.
"Student scholarships are a big priority for the School of Law," she said. "We need to be able to recruit the students that are being admitted to UNM because there are a lot of other schools that are able to offer really attractive scholarships, and the School of Law needs to be there."
Holder said the next dean will have to take care of some old business.
"The new dean of the department will be addressing a lot of issues. One of them, for example, will be the budget that affects the law department," he said. "Declining state revenues from UNM is something that the law department has had to deal with in the past. In the future, the law department is going to want to avoid things like that."
Holder said the next dean will have to show strong internal leadership. "The new dean is going to want to strengthen all of (the current) programs as well as the whole law department," he said.
Romero earns $225,000 per year, and Holder said the salary is not likely to be raised due to the University's financial situation.
"The University has only so many resources to try and provide more resources for the law department," he said. "We'll be looking toward things like private fundraisers, etc."
Leon Howard, a law student and member of GPSA, said that whoever is chosen should focus on carrying on the School of Law's traditions and ensure students have an encouraging atmosphere to work in.
"It's a very diverse learning environment, so when it comes to what someone would look for in a dean, I think the new dean would have to be supportive," he said.
