New Mexico State University Activity Report October 21 – 25, 2013 President – Garrey Carruthers, Ph.D. The Board of Regents met on Monday at the Dona Ana Community College. If you haven’t been to the East Campus of DACC drive by and visit. It is a very attractive campus. The Regents, by separate but less than unanimous votes, indicated the Administration could apply for liquor licenses for the Pan American Center and the School of Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Management. We already serve alcohol (beer and wine) at both facilities but we are dependent at the Pan American Center on the use of picnic licenses from local businesses. In addition, I briefed the Board on the Mission Specific Performance Funding model which all of the Presidents of higher education institutions are supporting and asking that it be used for higher education funding in the future. There has been some push back from the Higher Education Department because this model does not have their requested 5% of budget at risk. I met with the Town and Gown Committee and updated them on activities at NMSU. Topics of discussion included our new tag line – NMSU, it is all about discovery, Aggie Pride Fridays with an encouragement for the business community to dress in Aggie gear, a report on the first 100 days of this administration, and an enrollment update. The Regents Real Estate Committee met to review a consultant’s report on how we should manage our real estate assets. Principle findings included greatly improving our student housing to include new facilities and the prospects of a new Greek housing area along University Avenue, an aggressive effort to improve the University Avenue corridor, and the hiring of another consultant to plan the development of NMSU land on the east side of the Interstate Highway. Several officials of NMSU met with Scott Verhines, the New Mexico State Engineer, regarding proving up about 8,000 acre feet of NMSU water rights. We need to do this by 2020 or we will lose the rights. Scott was very helpful and suggested some work we might want to do in water banking. I will be visiting with the Mayor and City Manager soon as they could have a major role in perfecting our 1890 (very old) water rights. At the request of one car rental company, we will issue an RFP for car rental services to see if there are savings by reducing our fleet and/or by sending all of our rental business to one vendor. It was wall to wall Homecoming Activities. I attended the following events: 1. The NMSU Foundation Board where I discussed our discovery theme and related to them that a good distribution of effort for them would be 10% allocated to managing our investment portfolio, 30% to Alumni relations, and 60% to fund raising. I proposed a $125,000,000 major campaign but most Page 1 of 17 there wanted to have a much more aggressive campaign. We continue to disagree over a centralized versus mixed model for engaging all in the fund raising activities. 2. The Honors College picnic which was very well attended. 3. Class of 1953 reunion, which was a real hoot as we remembered NMSU in the good old days. One 1953 graduate had not been back to the campus since his graduation. All were surprised to see all of the changes at NMSU over the years. 4. The ACES Alumni Breakfast where I was honored as the Distinguished Alum from the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agricultural Business. 5. The Alumni International Board, where we listened to what works in bringing alums together in several cities. 6. The College of Business Scholarship luncheon where donor Bobby Lutz and student Zach Quintero both received standing ovations for their presentations. 7. The Provost and I attended alumni receptions at Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Business, and Education. 8. The Homecoming parade where I did show off my 2002 fire engine red Thunderbird. 9. The Golden A’s luncheon for all having graduated 50 years or more ago. I was delighted to see an old friend Dick Johnson who graduated from NMSU in 1936. He was still up and after them! 10. The football game where our team prevailed but it was a heart stopper. Congratulations to the team and coaching staff. Executive Vice President and Provost – Dr. Dan Howard Attended the Board Meeting of the Arrowhead Center. Among items of discussion were possibilities for future development of the Center, a fundraising initiative to generate more venture capital for the Center, and the workforce needs of the city, region, and state. The Arrowhead Center is the only regional commercialization center in the state and has become quite sophisticated in helping to bring intellectual properties to the market. Vice President Bernadette Montoya and I met to discuss a number of issues, including: admission standards, loan repayments, and the importance of rigorous preparation in high school for students seeking an NMSU degree. Met with several people over the course of the week to discuss distance education. The vision the President and I have is quite straightforward. Incentivize and build complete distance degree programs in high demand areas. We are particularly interested in incentivizing master’s degree programs. We are willing to provide incentives to currently existing programs, as long as they are completely online, are QM certified, and will be expanded so as to bring in new students. Also discussed the development of a pre-orientation program with a number of individuals. The purpose of such a program is to enhance retention of our first year students. One model endorses bringing incoming first year students onto campus a Page 2 of 17 week early and having all of them take a basic college survival course and one course relevant to their major. A broad, common theme will help students to form a more cohesive community. Spent the latter part of the week going from one Homecoming Event to another. All in all, it was great fun. Especially memorable events were the Class of 1963 reception and dinner, the Homecoming Parade, and the young alumni brunch. SVP Administration and Finance – Angela Throneberry Employee Action Council – A&F has established an Employee Action Council which is comprised of a representative group of employees working together to increase staff engagement and support a culture of pride across the division. The Council provides a path for division staff to participate in decision making feedback, promote staff visibility, foster a supportive work environment, and help develop a sense of community among all employees within the division. Members of the A&F Employee Action Council are: Esther Amezquita, Candace Aragon, Leonard Banegas, Ben Boone, Lorraine Cisneros, Phillip Cordero, Michelle Corella, Bruce Ernst, Araceli Hernandez, Kathy Linville, Samantha Lish, Jennifer Montes, Omar Moreno, Joni Newcomer, Debbie Paz, and Michelle Stark. Bags to Benches – A&F participated in the City of Las Cruces Plastic Bag Recycling Challenge sponsored by Trex Co. A&F had a Bags to Benches Competition between the four units: Auxiliary Services, Business Affairs, Facilities & Services and Information & Communication Technologies (ICT). The Bags to Benches Competition ended on October 18th. A&F was able to save 3228.7 pounds from going into the landfill and was able to collect enough plastic bags to make 3 park benches for the city. The competition winner was ICT which collected a total of 1601.4 pounds of plastic bags. We had amazing participation and effort! Page 3 of 17 Auxiliary Services Adding to the success of the Tough Enough to Wear Pink Week on the Las Cruces campus was a great “Pink Luncheon” put on by Sodexo-Campus Dining. Great job!! Sodexo would also like to congratulate these prize winners: Julian Monjaras and Haley Smith won 2 tickets to anywhere in the US, Mexico, or Caribbean that were supplied by Coca-Cola for their early purchase of a Voluntary Meal Plan. Patrick Pellitier won a Microsoft Office tablet for his amazing bank of knowledge on Brain Teaser Trivia Night. Information and Communication Technologies As stated above, ICT won the competition with its staff contributing 1601.4 pounds. The staff was great about bringing in bags on a daily basis. The results were Page 4 of 17 announced on Campus Sustainability Day October 23rd. A special thanks to Norene Hammond and Christine Quintana for being the ICT coordinators and Suzanne Montes and Joni Newcomer for being the overall coordinators. Thanks to all that participated for keeping 3228 pounds of plastic out of the landfill. NMSU’s existing Aastra (Ericcson) telephone system which was purchased in 1991 has been designated as end of life by the manufacturer. This means that the existing phone system will stop being supported in 2015. Because of this situation ICT is in the early stages of migrating from the Aastra to a new CISCO Voice over IP (VOIP) solution. This new VOIP system will have a new integrated voicemail system as well as many other features. A few buildings have already been converted during the pilot phase. The next step will be a building by building migration. ICT will be contacting departments to coordinate the migration. This process will take approximately two years to complete. ICT will be sending out a campus wide communication describing the process. We are looking forward to enhancing and improving your voice experience. ICT takes the responsibility of securing University data very seriously, and it is never ending activity. One of many ways of enhancing protection and ensuring compliance with various data-privacy regulations such as FERPA, FISMA, etc. is via the enforcement of technical password security policies via our network active directory (AD) authentication system.