A major shift in administration at Northern New Mexico College is underway as officials announced in a July 12 email, that Dean of Engineering and Technology Ivan Lopez accepted an offer to serve as the College’s interim provost and vice president of Academic Affairs, effective July 1.
College officials confirmed Lopez would step into Pedro Martinez’s former role.
Martinez has been working in academia for more than 35 years. He served as Northern’s provost and vice president of academic affairs since 2014. He served during a two-year period in the wake of College administration cutting vocational classes, as well as programs such as radiological technology and automotive repair.
He earned $162,000 annually last year, according to salary records provided by College staff.
Interim president Domingo Sanchez said Martinez’s contract was renewed for 2016-17, as a full professor in the College of Education, so he will return to Northern in the fall, just not in an administrative capacity.
Sanchez said Martinez was originally given a two year contract as provost with an option to return to teaching once that contract expired.
He did not offer further comments on why Martinez was not returning in the fall to his administrative position as provost.
“That is what he had originally signed in his contract and we honored that,” he said.
Sanchez said Martinez has a strong background in education and will be only one of two full professors at Northern with expertise in curriculum and instruction.
“They are valued for that for sure,” he said.
Lopez said he was honored to have been asked to serve in an interim position to help the College transition to a new administration.
The move comes in the wake of a probe into the College’s finances last month, by State Auditor Tim Keller’s office, and in advance of Richard Bailey starting as College president in October.
“I am hoping to bring all the academic affairs groups together to move forward,” Lopez said. “We are in a period of transition and my goal is to expand the success we have had at the College of Engineering to the entire College.”
Lopez said he was looking forward to working with the incoming president this fall. He was surprised to have been offered the position, but also felt the offer validated the work he has done as head of the engineering department.
“It tells me that our interim president values the efforts we have done over the past eight years,” he said.
Lopez said he wants to be data-driven in an effort to accrue the most accurate information about what is going on in the academic world, for the benefit of administration and the College community.
He said he was cognizant of the fact change will not happen immediately.
“I have to be very realistic. I know change takes time, especially in social systems,” he said. “You have to know your actions don’t take immediate effects.”
Lopez earned $93,500 in Fiscal Year 2016 as dean of the engineering and technology department.
When a Rio Grande SUN reporter sent an email asking for amount of Lopez’s salary, Finance Director Henrietta Trujillo responded and said Sanchez and records custodian Brandi Cordova wanted the request to be submitted via an Inspection of Public Records request. The request was submitted Monday afternoon and is pending.
Sanchez said it was too early to tell if a permanent provost would be named after the new president’s start.
“You’ve got to work with people enough to just get a sense of what the issues are before you start making changes,” he said. “You’ve got to get the lay of the land.” Martinez is named as the project director in two of the College’s federal and privately sponsored grants set to expire on Sept. 30: The Title V Exito grant, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics Academy grant.
College officials said with Martinez transitioning to instruction, either Sanchez, Trujillo, or Lopez will get named as project directors for the grants.