7/9/09
The Northern New Mexico College Board of Regents didn’t look far for a temporary replacement for recently retired president Jose Griego. Board Chairman Michael Branch has confirmed the Board is ready to appoint David Trujillo, Northern’s dean of Grants Development and Special Initiatives, as interim president.
“The Board determined they wanted someone within the college that had knowledge of what’s going on,” Branch said. “If we looked for someone outside of the college, there would be no time to bring an outsider up to snuff.”
Trujillo’s appointment is effective July 13. But Branch said specifics of the agreement with Trujillo had not been finalized, including how much his $85,000 salary will be increased for his new job. A contract has yet to be signed and the Board has yet to formally vote on Trujillo’s appointment. But Branch said if a “boilerplate” interim contract were ready in time, a special meeting Thursday (7/9) or Friday could finalize the appointment.
At that same meeting, Branch said the Board hopes to appoint an official search committee, culled from 17 regional nominees, to find a replacement for Griego. He resigned as Northern’s president June 18.
According to Branch, the Board is considering proposals from two different companies to conduct a national search for Griego’s replacement: Washington, D.C.-based Association of Community College Trustees, of which Northern is a member and which was used to hire Griego, and Albuquerque-based Keystone International. The hired firm will work with the Board on a national advertising campaign targeting education journals as well as local publications. Branch said the college budgeted between $35,000 to $40,000 for the search firm.
Trujillo, who has been with Northern since 2005, could not be reached for comment.
Larry Tafoya, an El Rito resident who serves on the El Rito Campus Committee and the Board’s search committee for a permanent replacement for Griego, said Trujillo’s appointment came as no surprise.
“The (El Rito Campus) Committee wasn’t consulted,” Tafoya said. “But there was general knowledge. (Trujillo) is very well qualified, and if they had consulted me, I wouldn’t have had a problem with him.”
Tafoya said he hopes the search for a new permanent president will yield someone who will develop both of Northern’s campuses, in El Rito and Española, and work well with the community and the legislature.
But El Rito resident Ted Bucklin, who has advocated for more El Rito involvement in Northern’s executive actions, is more ambivalent. Bucklin said it’s “odd” that the Board decided to contract Griego through Nov. 27 to shepherd in the academic component of a new therapy program for veterans, an idea that Bucklin says originated with the El Rito Campus Committee, without consulting the Committee.
In addition to directing the new veterans program, Branch said Griego has been retained as an independent contractor to provide consulting and training during Trujillo’s transition and to whoever follows as Greigo’s permanent successor. All told, Griego will earn $40,000, the contract states.
Bucklin also said Trujillo was rumored to be a potential candidate for the interim president job about six months ago. That was a couple of months after Griego took heat for the college advertising unaccredited courses.
Branch said he could not remember exactly when Trujillo came under consideration, but said he beat out Cathy Berryhill, dean of the School of Education, and Anthony Sena, Northern’s provost, for the job. Branch said Trujillo agreed not to present himself as a candidate for the permanent president job and would return to his current position when the search committee finds a permanent president.
As the search for a permanent president gets underway, Branch said the Board is revising the job description to more heavily weight a candidate’s college background and include provisos for giving faculty, staff and students “more input on anything going on in the college.”
Northern Union President Tim Crone said the union was not directly consulted in the decision to hire Trujillo, but that he was personally contacted by Faculty Senate President Meredith Mason Garcia.
Crone also said he believes the Board will end up choosing a consulting firm without union input.
“Regents decide among themselves,” Crone said. “They do try to avoid the union in these matters, but (Trujillo) will be all right.”