LAS CRUCES, NM (AP) – A two-person leadership team will replace Garrey Carruthers when he retires as chancellor and president of the State University of New Mexico.
The regents of NMSU announced on Friday the double surprise selection of Dan Arvizu as chancellor and John Floros as president.
Arvizu was a senior official with the US Department of Energy, while Floros is dean of the agricultural university at Kansas State University and the K-State Cooperative Extension.
Flores will focus on the operations of the main campus of the university in Las Cruces. Arvizu will oversee the entire NMSU system and will be tasked with addressing the overall vision and strategy of the system in general, the regents said.
They were among the top five candidates in a national search for the next chancellor.
Las Cruces Sun-News reports that Regents President Debra Hicks said she discussed the possibility of dividing the job titles with both men after the regents agreed on Monday to adopt that approach.
Regent's Vice President, Kari Mitchell, said it has been clear for some time that NMSU would eventually have to take the new leadership path to face the challenges facing the university, such as declining public funding.
"We were forced to start thinking about how the university could overcome these challenges, given the fact that the university has had problems on some of those fronts in the last decade," he said.
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