Faculty revolt at Western New Mexico University - Alex Heard, Searchlight New Mexico
The faculty senate at Western New Mexico University (WNMU) has scheduled a meeting for Jan. 2 that has a single item on the agenda: considering a vote of no confidence in the school’s Board of Regents. The meeting was set up in direct response to the board’s recent severance agreement with former WNMU president Joseph Shepard.
A draft of the measure, obtained by Searchlight New Mexico, will demand that all five members of the board, including president Mary E. Hotvedt, resign. “Furthermore, we call upon our state elected officials to work to remove any who will not resign, in accordance with the Constitution of the State of New Mexico,” the draft wording says, “and to use any legal authority at their disposal to halt the recent severance agreement recently entered into with the university president.”
Shepard, whose contract was terminated on December 20, was reportedly awarded a new contract that includes a lump-sum payment of $1.9 million — to be paid on January 15, the date of his official departure as president — and a new position on the faculty of WNMU’s school of business, for which he’ll reportedly be paid $200,000 a year.
“On its own merit,” wrote Jorge Romero-Habeych, an assistant professor in WNMU’s school of business, “the decision to approve such a substantial payout to a president who has been the subject of past accusations of financial misconduct … is troubling. … Furthermore, the package appears to be a clear conflict with the everyday struggles faced by average New Mexicans, many of whom are living paycheck to paycheck and rely on the institution to serve the public good. The optics alone are damaging, and the ethical implications cannot be ignored.”
In a letter to university colleagues dated December 27, faculty senate president Phillip W. Schoenberg said that he had decided, after “a lot of deliberations and discussion with many faculty leaders,” to schedule the meeting on “fairly short notice” because, he said, it’s crucial for the body to act before Shepard’s new contract goes into effect. “A major consideration … is the unanimous request of the voting faculty from the School of Business, who feel particularly outraged by the severance agreement,” Schoenberg wrote.
A separate letter sent to colleagues by Jorge Romero-Habeych, an assistant professor in WNMU’s school of business and a member of the faculty senate, states that the board offered Shepard a faculty position — which reportedly involves remotely teaching two classes per semester — without consulting anyone at the school.
“[W]e are troubled by the circumstances surrounding the president’s resignation and the compensation package granted to him by the Board of Regents,” Romero-Habeych wrote. “Our concerns are further compounded by the inclusion of the School of Business in this deal. Neither our department’s faculty nor leadership were consulted, or included, in the board’s decision-making process.”
“On its own merit,” he continued, “the decision to approve such a substantial payout to a president who has been the subject of past accusations of financial misconduct … is troubling. … Furthermore, the package appears to be a clear conflict with the everyday struggles faced by average New Mexicans, many of whom are living paycheck to paycheck and rely on the institution to serve the public good. The optics alone are damaging, and the ethical implications cannot be ignored.”
As Schoenberg makes clear in his letter, a vote of no-confidence from the faculty senate does not have binding effect. He describes it as “a potentially powerful way for the faculty to send a strong public expression of the faculty’s lack of confidence in our Regents, and to make this known publicly.” If the vote is successful, he added, it will be reviewed “and perhaps acted upon” by WNMU’s faculty assembly during a meeting scheduled for January 9.
Like the faculty senate, the faculty assembly — a larger body that includes all faculty members — does not have the power to force regents to resign. That lies with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who has authority over the New Mexico Higher Education Department.
Reached by Searchlight, Schoenberg declined to comment further on his letter. In a phone interview, Romero-Habeych said, “Ultimately, this is just a gesture that’s meant to put the brakes on the compensation package, which came out during the Christmas break and is effective on Jan. 15.”
Shepard and the regents have been the subject of scrutiny and controversy for more than a year, in the wake of a 2023 Searchlight investigation that revealed lavish spending on domestic and international travel to upscale resorts, and on furnishings for the on-campus home occupied by Shepard and his wife, former CIA agent and author Valerie Plame.
Searchlight’s reporting spurred multiple state agencies to open investigations into the university executives’ spending. The Office of the State Auditor has released its findings, which detailed more than $360,000 of “wasteful” and “improper” spending that violated university policy. Most recently, on December 21, Attorney General Raúl Torrez announced that he was opening an investigation into Shepard’s $1.9 million buyout, calling the deal “extremely concerning” in the wake of the auditor’s report.
During the regent’s December 20 meeting — which was virtual and did not allow for real-time public input — Shepard and the assembled regents did not admit to any wrongdoing. Throughout his parting remarks, Shepard said that “toxic” outside forces had led him to this decision. When the Office of the State Auditor sent the university a sharply worded letter of concern last month, Shepard said, the office never gave the university an exhaustive report detailing its findings. “Nor has there been any due process afforded to us,” he said.
Shepard and Hotvedt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
‘My staff is spent’: New Mexico emergency management leader reflects on year of disasters - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
President Joe Biden issued two major disaster declarations in New Mexico in 2024, the first time since 2014 that pronouncement has been made twice in the same year, according to federal data.
First, two wildfires erupted in the Ruidoso area in June. The South Fork and Salt fires and ensuing floods destroyed more than 1,500 homes and caused the deaths of two people. Then, in October, heavy rains caused devastating flooding in Roswell, a disaster that resulted in at least two deaths, as well.
In both instances, and for smaller emergencies before and in-between them, the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management responded.
Disasters of that severity require a multi-faceted response and coordination between numerous officials and local and state agencies. Emergency Management was at the center of all that, running into disaster zones, marshaling resources and fielding questions at angry town halls.
Recently, Deputy Secretary Ali Rye reflected on a year of disasters in an interview with Source New Mexico. She described a tiring year and a small-but-mighty agency that is struggling to keep up with the “before,” “during” and “after” disasters because there have been so many.
“I mean, my staff is spent. I think New Mexicans are spent,” Rye said. “I think everyone is just, they’re tired, and they’re constantly in this response or recovery mode.”
Before 2022, the state had a reprieve of nearly a decade from major disaster declarations, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency data, excluding the COVID-19 pandemic. (Rye doesn’t really count the pandemic she said, “Because everybody got impacted by COVID.”)
That’s the same year that the state experienced the two biggest fires in its history – the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire in northern New Mexico and the Black Fire in southern New Mexico. Both burned more than 300,000 acres.
The trial by fires, while devastating for communities and exhausting for staff, has at least been educational, Rye said.
“I will tell you, though, we have learned a lot over the last two years,” she said. “And I think it showed this year with us being very proactive in areas that we knew were going to get hit, or us planning ahead for fire season, for monsoon season in a more proactive way.”
That meant meeting with residents and local officials in disaster-prone areas, purchasing needed equipment and staging it there in advance, Rye said.
The ongoing fallout from the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire shows the long tail – and cumulative nature – of disasters. More than two years later, even as disasters unfolded in southern New Mexico, staff was still driving all over the state, offering state case managers to help northern fire victims navigate a tangle of bureaucracy and support to local officials still trying to rebuild roads or mitigate against future floods.
“The same staff that help in Roswell and in Ruidoso are also the same staff that help in Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon,” Rye said. “And so my staff, I mean, they travel all over the state to be able to provide the assistance and the resources to these individuals who are still in these communities that are still recovering.”
Rye’s core staff is two people, she said, though the office does employ others with the help of federal grants. “So, yeah, it’s a lot,” she said.
But it’s rewarding and vital work, she said, helping people on the worst days of their lives. The office is hiring, and Rye is hoping to convince lawmakers to increase its operating budget from about $3.2 million to about $5.6 million at the upcoming 60-day session. The extra funding would help attract and retain staff, many of whom are lured away by federal disaster response agencies or elsewhere.
As it stands, the skeleton crew can’t take as much time as needed to help a community recover or prepare before another flood, snowstorm or wildfire.
“We’re going so much that we cannot put in those mitigation efforts the way we really, truly would like to,” she said. “We’re kind of just putting Band-aids on situations to keep the state afloat.”
Southeastern New Mexico chipmunk listed as endangered - Santa Fe New Mexican, KUNM News
The Peñasco least chipmunk, a rodent native to southeastern New Mexico will finally be receiving protections under the endangered species act.
As the Santa Fe New Mexican reports, the protections come over two years after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service put forward a protection proposal for the chipmunk’s dwindling numbers.
Along with its endangered species status, almost 4,400 acres of the Lincoln National Forest will be designated as critical habitat for the rodent – which bears stark white and black stripes down its back and face.
Historically, the chipmunk had a sizable range in New Mexico – living primarily in the Sacramento Mountains and near Ruidoso. Though, according to Fish and Wildlife, it now makes its home in the White Mountains, where its numbers appear to be shrinking.
Fish and Wildlife has been widely criticized for its painstakingly slow process of placing wildlife on the endangered species list.
Just this month, the agency once again declined to list the iconic Rio Grande cutthroat trout as an endangered species.