For many at the University of New Mexico — and throughout the state — President Garnett Stokes’ name looms large. Stokes joined UNM as its 23rd president in 2018, the first woman to hold the position after previous stints at the University of Missouri, Florida State University and the University of Georgia.
In September 2025, Stokes informed the Board of Regents that she would be retiring at the end of the 2025-26 academic year.
Stokes was inspired to take her first real trip to the state after reading a novel by another big name in New Mexico, author Tony Hillerman, a UNM professor who taught journalism and served as an assistant to two University presidents.
“I mean, I’d been through New Mexico before, but I was reading his books, and I decided I wanted to spend spring break in New Mexico when I was living in Athens, Georgia,” Stokes told the Daily Lobo.
Stokes was studying psychology at the University of Georgia at the time.
“So I had a little pop up camper, and I got a friend to come out here with me, so Tony Hillerman was actually the reason I wanted to explore the state decades ago,” she said.
Shortly after beginning her term, she and her team embarked on a statewide “listening tour” to “really get to know the state.”
“It was fascinating, and I didn’t just have meetings. It was partly an exploration of the state,” she said. “I met a UNM biologist to take me on a short hike in the Gila Wilderness to tell me about that part of the state. We went to Carlsbad Caverns and got a tour of that. I have this memory of standing in front of a very big pistachio.”
On top of seeing the sights, Stokes said she met with administrators from all of the other four-year colleges in New Mexico and some community colleges during her listening tour, and spoke with members of the communities she visited on what kinds of questions they had about the University. Healthcare access and campus safety were among the top issues discussed, Stokes said, along with how UNM was helping to build the economies of areas far away from Central Campus.
When asked what advice she would give to the president succeeding her, Stokes said she would recommend a similar exercise, but that it was important at all times to be open to hearing out those concerns.
“I think there’s real value to being known as someone who actually is willing to listen and learn, and not assume that one knows what the issues really are,” she said.
Stokes said her biggest focuses when starting out as president were stability and transparency.
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“I understood that the University had really felt unstable, and there was a lot of anxiety around that instability, and there are lots of reasons why all of that happened, but I would say that my goal in coming in was, in fact, to create greater stability,” she said.
Before she arrived, Stokes said UNM was often in the news due to a number of audits or investigations, events that she said could prevent a university from moving forward and having a positive impact.
“I came in really wanting to address those things and to create what I hoped would be greater transparency, because we were being challenged for holding back information,” Stokes said. “And that’s a challenging thing to be, but transparency was something I really wanted to promote.”
After she departs in July, she’s excited to see the new School of Medicine and Center for Collaborative Arts and Technology come to fruition, but that one of her “big desires” as president that she’d like to continue to be promoted was breaking down barriers between the UNM Health Sciences system and education community, Stokes told the Daily Lobo.
The so-called “Lomas divide” — named for the road that separates the north and central campuses — causes people on both sides to miss out on key opportunities for “better effectiveness and efficiency,” Stokes said.
“I believe that universities that have the good fortune to have academic health centers are able to be stronger because they’re able to do scholarship and education that crosses boundaries and strengthens what we do in health care, but also strengthens some of the disciplines that exist on our Central Campus,” she said.
Elliott Wood is the editor-in-chief of the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at editorinchief@dailylobo.com or on X @DailyLobo
