Chancellor Arvizu plans to manage NMSU 'like a business'

Algernon D'Ammassa | Las Cruces Sun-News

LAS CRUCES - When New Mexico State University's Board of Regents announced its selection of Dan Arvizu as the university's new chancellor in May, Regents Chair Debra Hicks said they had found someone "innovative, strategically investment-oriented, decisive and a respected visionary."

After growing up in Alamogordo and earning his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from NMSU in 1973, Arvizu's career path started at Bell Labs and Sandia National Labs and eventually took him to the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama repeatedly appointed him to the National Science Board.

Most recently, Arvizu worked in California's Silicon Valley with the Emerson Collective. At Emerson, he has served as a senior advisor, chief technology officer, and a "STEM evangelist."

STEM is a common acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In an interview with the Sun-News, Arvizu indicated he will continue to evangelize STEM in his new position, starting 50 years after he enrolled as a freshman at NMSU.

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“The three things that excite me are science, energy, and education," he said. "There are very few places where you get to do all three of those.”

Now, Arvizu is charged with turning around declines in enrollment, retention, research revenue and alumni support. He also pointed toward an ambitious long-term mission extending beyond campus.

"We need new thinking," Arvizu said. "I’m not from a university-like environment although I’ve been around universities my entire career. I see a need to change the direction of what higher ed is all about."

'Running it like a business'

When NMSU regents announced Arvizu would replace outgoing chancellor Garrey Carruthers, they also announced the hire of John Floros in the newly separated position of university president. Their combined base salaries amount to $950,000 annually, compared to the $373,450 Carruthers earned as chancellor and president.

"John comes from the academy," Arvizu said. "He understands much about what we need to do to ensure we bring quality education, keep the trains running, doing the things that are necessary, and beginning to get the efficiencies and effectiveness out of the present org that we have. My role is to be more strategic, outward focused, being the partnership-development lead, to bring some larger thinking into what our long-term objectives are ... and use those as the platform on which to go get partnerships and resources."

Turning NMSU around requires "hitting the reset button," he said.

An internal institutional analysis by Wheless Partners, the firm that conducted the search for NMSU's chancellor, got underway in June for the purposes of "evaluating recommendations to improve NMSU’s effectiveness in recruiting and retention, streamlining institutional processes and capitalizing on strategic initiatives and opportunities," Arvizu wrote in a staff memo.

Arvizu told the Sun-News he would consider the firm's recommendations ahead of a planned Sept. 30 report to the regents, where he will present measurable goals.

“Essentially, we’re running it like a business," Arvizu said. "This is what you would do if you were in the private sector and running an organization through a set of outcomes. It’s challenging to do in academia, I get that … but we’re moving in that direction.”

A regional plan

Arvizu said NMSU needs to focus on preparing students to compete in the 21st century capitalist economy, but also had a role to play in regional development.

"We’re here to meet the missions of our land-grant charter: teaching, research and outreach," he said. "In instruction we want to create the future leaders and decision-makers ... in a new economy that is very digital and very much focused on entrepreneurial-like thinking."

Once the university's functions are streamlined, proceeding toward measurable goals and following accountability measures, Arvizu expressed confidence the university would turn around sagging enrollment and research funds, and attract corporate and philanthropic partners for public-private collaborations.

Not wanting to get ahead of his Sept. 30 announcement, Arvizu declined to provide many details about new standards, measurement protocols or potential consolidations or cuts.

Returning to his long-term vision, Arvizu linked NMSU's future prospects to commercial economic development in the region. He listed three broad concerns beyond the campus environment he said are key to the university's future, and that of southern New Mexico.

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First, he cited the state's poorly performing K-12 education system. "We didn’t get here overnight and it’s not going to be overnight getting out of it," he said, but he praised efforts to focus more intensely on STEM education to prepare students early in their schooling to prepare for college work and for careers.

“Let’s build entrepreneurs," Arvizu said. "Let’s give them tools so they can be contributors for economic development in our state."

Arvizu's second item is a need to modernize critical infrastructure as part of an economic development strategy attracting more commercial investment rather than rely on government initiatives, and third, incorporating the border and trade with Mexico into the strategy.

"Higher education has a role to play," he said, "and NMSU has a bigger role to play because of our land-grant charter, extension services, and our network of community colleges."

Preparing students for the market

When he enrolled in college 50 years ago, Arvizu said, "My opportunity to have a better existence than my parents was not that much of a stretch once I got an education."

Half a century later, he acknowledged the world has changed. Degrees do not guarantee employment as they once did, and he pointed to unequal concentrations of wealth and the expense of college education as obstacles to upward mobility. He said moving up, for millennials, is "at least 25 times harder than it was for me."

Yet he still linked education to upward mobility, calling it "the great differentiator." The answer for higher education, he said, was to prepare students for current economic conditions.

"That’s just the nature of the world in which we live," he said. "You need people with a different set of skills.”

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When speaking of the arts and humanities, Arvizu spoke of their contribution to success in corporate endeavors, saying the modern workplace needed not only technical knowledge but a facility for collaboration and communication.

As to what metrics he would apply to NMSU's offerings in the humanities, or other areas that do not easily meet business-oriented measures of success, Arvizu said that would emerge from discussions yet to come.

“There are university administrators that will tell you our job is not to educate students for a job — our job is to impart knowledge, that kind of thing. That’s pretty ivory tower, in my opinion. That’s not the role of a New Mexico State. Maybe some of the elites could think about that. Our role is to be able to create citizens who can be successful in the job market of the 21st century by whatever metric you want to measure.”

Algernon D'Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonActor on Twitter.

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