UNM Provost Reed Dasenbrock has announced four finalists for executive director of the UNM-Taos branch campus. They are: Refugio Rochin, Catherine (Kate) O’Neill, Enrique Lamadrid and Wade Hobgood. Each candidate will spend a day in Taos and then a day in Albuquerque, meeting with administrators, faculty, staff, students and community members.
Open forums for the Taos community have been scheduled for each candidate. Each open forum will be held at 5:30 p.m. in the Los Angelitos room in Coronado Hall at 116 Civic Plaza Dr. in Taos.
Refugio Rochin
Rochin is currently a program evaluator for the University of California, Davis where he has served in a variety of roles, including director for research and evaluation of the Educational Partnership Center at UC Santa Cruz. He has also been executive director of SACNAS, the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Latinos and Native Americans in Science and the founding director of the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives. His Ph.D. is from Michigan State in Agricultural Economics. Rochin’s open forum is scheduled for Monday, April 30.
Catherine (Kate) O'Neill
O’Neill is currently the interim executive director at UNM-Taos, where she has taught since 1994. Her Ed.D. in Human Development and Psychology is from Harvard. Her open forum with the community will be Tuesday, May 1.
Enrique Lamadrid
Lamadrid is the director of the Chicano, Hispano, and Mexicano Studies Program and professor of Spanish at UNM Albuquerque, where he has taught since 1985. His Ph.D. in Spanish is from the University of Southern California. His open forum with the community is scheduled for Wednesday, May 2.
Wade Hobgood
Hopgood is a professor of Mass Communications at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. From 2000 to 2005, he was the chancellor of the North Carolina School of the Arts. His Master of Fine Arts in Communication Arts is from East Carolina University. His open forum with the community will be Thursday May 3.
There will be an opportunity at each forum for every member of the audience to express their opinion of the candidates. Comments on the candidates may also be sent to provost@unm.edu.
The deadline for those comments is Friday, May 4 at 5 p.m.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu