Western New Mexico University Regent and Vice Chair John Wertheim called the meeting to order
Before everyone rose to pledge allegiance to the American flag, Wertheim said: "I want us to pause for a moment to keep in mind our soldiers, sailors and airmen in combat right now."
Regents Wertheim, J. Dean Reed, Student Regent Keana Huerta, and online participation from Chairman Steven Neville, Gregory (Greg) Trujillo approved the agenda and minutes of the Jan 29, 2026 and March 5, 2026 meetings.
With no one having submitted public comment online or coming forward at his meeting, nor there being any old business, the meeting moved into Section six of the agenda.
The item considered possible action regarding Sixth Street elementary school property acquisition from Silver Consolidated Schools.
Interim President Dr. Chris maples presented the report. "What we are looking at is Silver Consolidated School District is consolidating more, and they will be leaving the Sixth Street School, and that makes it available for us to be able to use potentially, if we acquire it and do some renovations and go through the process that we need to go through with the state.
"Everybody's been extremely supportive of our act of acquiring this, using it for Early Childhood Development Center, as well as the School of Education. Collectively as a whole, it will centralize a lot of that, and it will come in at roughly twice the amount of square footage and roughly half the cost of trying to do a new building, and in a much shorter period of time. Because, as you all probably know, doing a new building takes years. So this is all it's great for the city. It's great for us and for our students and faculty.
"Everything looks good about this," Maples continued. "The Silver Consolidated School District has talked about it in open session. They are very supportive. The higher education department is very supportive. So we feel like we have the ability to really move forward and take a look and see if this is going to work out the way we hope it will. We will do a lot of due diligence related to that."
Neville thanked Maples for the work hd has been doing, along with Vice President of Business Affairs Kelley Riddle and Silver Schools Superintendent Will Hawkins. "I know it's been a long, tedious process navigating the state waters, but job well done, and a great solution that saves taxpayers millions of dollars. And thanks to Jack Crocker, who pointed out that this was a possibility for us in the location of Sixth Street School."
Wertheim made a motion to authorize Maples and staff to continue negotiations and documentation to finalize the details of this. "There will ultimately have to be a purchase and sale agreement. We're not at that phase yet, and when you do that, we will have another public meeting sometime fairly soon, probably before graduation."
Wertheim cautioned that it was just an authorization. "The deal is not done yet, and so when that happens, then we'll have a totally public vote on that at a future date."
All regents voted to approve the motion.
"And now for the item that some people in the room are waiting for," Wertheim said "the final action on selection of a new university president and contract terms. Regent Dean Reed has been our fearless leader throughout this entire process. I'm going to turn it over to you. "
Reed said he wanted to give some historical background and noted the institution began in 1893 as New Mexico Normal School to educate teachers. "The first semester, we had 50 students, and they paid a $10 tuition fee in 1893. In 1963 the institution changed its name to Western New Mexico University, and we proudly offer over 70 programs in person and 67 online. We are an Hispanic-serving institution with an open enrollment. We take full advantage of the Opportunity Scholarship and the lottery scholarship, and our enrollment has grown in the last year. Last year, we hired Maples for interim president's position, which he has fulfilled beautifully for the last eight months, and continues to do so under our new president, who will start on July 1 this year."
He continued to prolong the anticipation of those assembled in the room, but saying: "I want to give recognition to the Presidential Search Committee. There were 14 members. If you are part of that committee, would you please stand? They had the arduous task of working many hours to review 22 initial candidates that were chiseled down to 11, that eventually were chiseled down to five, and that eventually led, in late February and early March, to four of those candidates being on campus for their interviews online. We also have Michael Ballou (spelling?) from Anthem (the search firm). Michael, we want to thank you, and Scott. Anthem did an incredible job navigating the process, clarifying the process, and keeping us on track to hire our new president."
"I also want to stress and the presidential search committee knows this.," Reed continued. "Regent Wertheim and I had zero votes during that process. It was the Presidential Search Committee that chose these candidates, and we had zero vote. Anthem also said it was the tightest grouping they had seen in seven or eight years of the top five. So that's how good it was. If you were here and you watched the four candidates on campus. You know the quality was there. It was a tough decision. Anthem also received over 588 feedback forms through the QR code or manually, and that is a tremendous response, and it was a great guiding light for the reasons to discuss on March 5 in our closed session is where we rank the candidates.We still have to vote for president. We will do that here in a moment, during that process as well. I have to thank Alejandra and Jean who took four days of chaos and made it look graciously easy, and we thank you for that.
Dr. Jose Coll at his candidate forum 022526"We are ready to announce and we have the new president online. We have not confirmed a vote for president until today. This is the final action. We did meet at a prior meeting in executive session where we ranked our preferences. We negotiated the contract with the person I'm going to announce in the motion. I move to approve the negotiated contract with Dr.Jose Coll to be our next president."
Happy, boisterous applause and smiles broke out in the filled room.
Reed said Coll is being offered a three-year contract, with an automatic two-year renewal, after successful completion of year one. So in totality, Dr Coll could be a five-year tenure. He will receive a salary of $310,000 and a negotiated benefit package.
Regents approved the motion.
Coll read a prepared statement: "To Regent Reed and the entire community, I'm so excited to be here with you this morning. A few words. Thank you, Chair Neville, members of the Board of Regents and Western New Mexico University community. I'm deeply honored to be selected as the next president of Western New Mexico tUniversity. Thank you for your trust and confidence in my leadership. I am eager to partner with you and advance the strategic vision of this remarkable institution, as we ensure the continued service to our region and with distinction across the state. To the President's search committee, I want to extend my sincere gratitude to the search committee for their due diligence and enormous work, and to all the entire community of Western for their time out of their busy schedules to attend various candidate forums Your active participation in selecting the next president for this pivotal time, speaks a lot about your dedication to the future of our institution.
"I would also like to express my deepest thanks to Dr Chris Maples for your unwavering leadership as interim president, your steadfast guidance and dedication have been invaluable to our institution during this pivotal time, and I'm incredibly grateful for the strong and stable foundation you're passing on as we make this transition.
"I'm eager to roll up my sleeves and work alongside our collective community. I look forward to collaborating closely with a dedicated team of professionals at the university, local, regional and state partners to help us make our work possible for the incredible students, faculty and staff and our alumni. I'm so excited to officially join the Mustang family.
"As I transition into this role, my absolute first priority will be to listen, to learn and to collaborate with you all as we build upon the rich history of this remarkable institution. Its purpose was singular but profound, to educate teachers who would in turn build the future of the growing territory from those frontier roots. A distinct philosophy of education was born at Western New Mexico University, one that views learning not merely as a path of personal advancement, but there's a deep civic responsibility and a catalyst for community resilience.
"For over 130 years, Western New Mexico University has stood that true education must engage not only the whole person, but al adaptive realities around the entire world. My approach to higher education is anchored in this history. I believe that a university must be both a steward of regional identity, a powerful engine for social mobility, and together, we will work and honor this philosophy of focusing on four primary areas, comprehensive educational experience, from the liberal arts to the trades, meeting state work needs, supporting our students through success and upholding shared governance.
"ln looking ahead, over the next few months, I will be making several trips to campus to develop a comprehensive transition plan and to meet stakeholders across our university community. If you see me walking across campus, please stop and talk to me. If you see me having coffee at a local shop, please sit down and have a conversation with me.
"It is truly my desire to learn from you, to hear your stories and to listen for your thoughts about Western New Mexico University. Lastly, I want to thank the entire Mustang community for your welcoming my family to this remarkable community, Cary and I look forward to making Silver City our new home. Thank you."
In closing comments, Neville said he appointed Den as chair of the search committee because he certainly took off on the task. "Along with you, John, and certainly, I think, the university, the state of New Mexico, you two guys, we have a great deal of gratitude for your efforts. You basically lived on campus for the last two, three months, however long it's been. So I want to want you know that I appreciate your work and efforts to accomplish this task. You guys performed admirably, and you came up with a great candidate.
Werthheim said: "I'm just pleased with the end of the process. I'm really proud of having Dr. Coll as our next president, afterI think he really shares our values, and that's what stood out to me during this process."
Huerta also expressed her thank you to everyone who attended the meetings and forums. "Thank you to the team that helped put this together, as well on our search committee, and everybody involved. And I just want to say I'm very excited for what's to come, and our future is bright."
Trujillo said:"Welcome to President Coll and a big thank you to President Maples. I'm looking forward to the next chapter."
Wertheim ended with "It's been a great eight months, but I prefer not to do this again. So, Dr Coll, if you could stick around and be very successful for the next 12 years, I think the entire university community would be very happy with that. Welcome to Western New Mexico, not Oregon (which is where Coll comes from Western Oregon University)."
Regents voted to adjourn the meeting.
