New Mexico State University Strategic Direction and Execution Framework

NMSU’s Mission

To Excel in fulfilling the Land Grant mandate as a national research university in the region. We elevate how we educate students and create research and innovation that advances the strategic goals of engaged public service and successful citizenship.

NMSU’s Challenges

Higher Education in general and New Mexico State University indirectly face significant challenges entering the next 5-to-15 years of operations. Already altered significantly by the 2008 financial crisis and having encountered additional disruptions during the COVID and post-COVID years through changing expectations, modes-of-delivery, as well as political headwinds, institutions of higher education must confront the multiple ambiguities of a highly volatile and shrinking market which has lost over three million students since 2011-2012.

While New Mexico State University has rebounded well from the COVID years as far as enrollments, it enters a time of challenges and opportunities created by: rising costs and inflation; improvement in national rankings, including its Research 1 designation and Carnegie Community-Engaged university; pressures for meaningful degrees, certifications and credentialing, and workforce development both at the State and Federal level; exponential growth in Artificial Intelligence and its generative models applied to all phases of the educational experience; and sustainability challenges dictated by water, energy and climate permutations that are beyond the university’s control.

Creating NMSU’s Strategic Direction

The instability of the Higher Education environment (twice rocked in the past 7-8 years by ‘black swan’ events such as the COVID pandemic and directives issued by the Federal mandates) dictates that strategic plans implement both conservative elements of investment, and foresight in exploring growth and change that is beyond what our educational institutions have considered as essential to their purview. Accordingly, this strategic direction should be understood as a living framework rather than a fixed plan, designed to absorb emerging issues, reassess gaps, and adapt as institutional, regional, and national conditions change.

It is beyond this brief introduction to cover and survey the challenges and opportunities provided by these models (for an excellent read on these developments, see Dr. Bryan Alexander’s Academia Next, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020; and Peak Higher Ed, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026). Instead, we bring these to the fore for future conversations, to ensure that, as we develop the central tenets of NMSU’s strategic direction, we co-develop plans, while remaining aware that any modeling and linear projections (both in terms of quantitative and qualitative objects and goals) will contend with the volatility and uncertainty of factors that the university does not control, but that greatly impact the advancement, implementation and success of plans and trajectories. Therefore, rather than presenting the following strategic proposal as etched in stone and invariable, we hope it aligns NMSU’s efforts toward qualitative and quantitative adaptations that: a) support the health and wellbeing of students, faculty and staff even as they ensure the stability of the institution, as shared and directed by the Board of Regents; and b) must, perforce, be flexible and adaptable to absorb changes and engage in further developments when new challenges and opportunities arise.

To make this flexibility operational, NMSU will review this strategic direction on a regular cycle with regents, faculty and staff, through the president’s executive leadership structure, with annual assessments of progress, relevance, resource alignment, and emerging gaps. New priorities may be added when they materially advance the university’s mission, respond to significant external or internal change, and can be appropriately evaluated against existing commitments, available resources, and institutional capacity. Likewise, initiatives that have been completed, become obsolete, lack measurable progress, or no longer align with institutional needs may be revised, paused, or retired through the same review process. In this way, the strategic direction remains a living framework: stable enough to guide institutional focus, but flexible enough to adapt as conditions change. In addition to annual review, the framework is subject to more comprehensive reassessments every three to five years to determine whether NMSU’s strategic priorities, operating assumptions, and implementation models remain aligned with state and institutional needs, while remaining responsive to external conditions.

Underlying these objectives are:

1. Sustainability
2. Data-Informed Decisions and Technology Use
3. Leadership Growth

This culture of excellence will be advanced through a disciplined execution model that connects institutional priorities to responsible owners, measurable outcomes, appropriate resources, budget alignment, asset and capital stewardship, workforce planning, and a regular review process to ensure continued relevance and progress.

Sustainability

Sustainability requires the advancement and balancing of three distinct notions of sustainability. One is the operational sustainability of the institution that requires operating responsibly and aligning within the system of New Mexico’s Higher Education model, via balanced budgets, maintaining liquidity and advancing the state’s educational mission, seeking revenue and investment diversification, but also: monitoring and balancing enrollment revenue with salary expectations and staffing needs; reducing one’s operational footprint and/or increasing tuition and fees responsibly to face inflationary costs; and much more. The second notion of sustainability, one that is particularly felt in our region, is one that ties us to a responsible stewardship of, and opportunities tied to, resources such as energy, water consumption, waste and toxic products control, infrastructure, and more. A third practical notion is implementation sustainability: the ability of the institution to pursue strategic initiatives at a scale and pace that available resources, institutional capacity, and competing priorities can support. Each initiative should therefore be weighed against realistic funding and staffing assumptions, benchmarked leveraging alternative uses of resources, and tied to measurable outcomes that allow NMSU to assess whether the investment is advancing the intended strategic result.

Together, these notions should guide the development, prioritization, and execution of NMSU’s strategic direction by ensuring that initiatives are scaled to available resources, sequenced appropriately, and evaluated against mission alignment, measurable outcomes, institutional capacity, and competing needs. Operating budget implications, funding capacity, phasing, and decision support will be evaluated through the university’s integrated planning and budgeting model; facilities, infrastructure, space, deferred maintenance, and capital investment priorities through the asset and capital stewardship model; and staffing, compensation, organizational design, role clarity, and leadership capacity through the strategic workforce and organizational model. Used in coordination, these execution models will help determine whether initiatives are advanced, funded, phased, revised, deferred, or retired.

Data-Informed Decisions and Technology Use

Ten years ago, ‘Digital Transformation’ and ‘Data-driven” became buzzwords in Higher Education as means to use the massive amounts of data that institutions (and other institution-adjacent groups) were collecting. A correction has happened in the past few years that has moved the ‘digital transformation’ revolution to a ‘data-informed’ approach that explores, via questions, narratives, historical perspectives, the role that data can play in helping institutions, units and individuals organize themselves for current (descriptive) and future (predictive) transformations and opportunities that data-informed perspective bring to any strategic direction. At the basis of ethical, responsible, and effective uses of data to reach decisions are: transparency and reliability of the data; shared modeling that allows for questions and narratives to explain and/or avoid using the data when it is not consistent or matching across groups; interpretation of the data that takes into account qualitative and quantitative factors the reduce and/or acknowledge possible quantitative biases. In addition, with the recent expansion of the agentic power of AI and Machine Learning, it is important that experts in the fields of Data Transformation and Applied AI and Machine Learning be involved in broad university conversations with faculty and staff that explore how to leverage data ethically and responsibly to support decision-making at the micro and macro levels of the institutions (being aware of biases, hallucinations, and additional fields of inquiry into the responsible uses of these new technologies and algorithms).

Leadership Growth

Notwithstanding all of the above, for the health of NMSU and all its constituents, we must pursue the growth in institutional leadership capabilities, be they for the institution in the current panorama of New Mexico’s and national higher education; or for the individuals who are members of the institution, as a way to develop and grow the skills that will enhance their contributions to the university, but also allow them to soar higher in the organization (or, when that is not possible, outside the organization). To support execution, leadership growth should also be connected to clear ownership of strategic priorities, defined decision rights, succession and workforce planning, and alignment between institutional goals, performance expectations, and regular review processes. Embedding Leadership as an aspirational goal for everyone at NMSU should become a rallying cry to elevate the institution in all its component parts.

Quantitative Modeling to Track Qualitative Categories

As we develop the quantitative and qualitative models that will provide information as to successful progress in achieving NMSU’s strategic goals, it is important to know that to each of the numerical goals in the spreadsheets correspond underlying actions that must take place to see shifts in the numerical objectives.

For example: When we talk about Student Success being underscored by increased retention and graduation rates, we should consider the five factors that experts have highlighted as crucial to help student succeed: a. Academic preparedness; b. Financial stability; c. Co-Curricular integration (‘campus belonging’); d. Institutional Support Systems (e.g., integrated advising and mentoring; early assessments; tutoring; etc.); e. Student engagement and psychological safety. A sixth one is often mentioned that refers to alignment between being present and active in one’s educational experience and knowing why it matters (for reference to the latter, see Carlson and Laff’s Hacking College: Why the Major Doesn’t Matter—and What Really Does, Johns Hopkins Press, 2025).

For each of these factors, we must assess: a. What are we already doing to achieve our goals? b. What specific outcomes are we trying to achieve, and what level of improvement would constitute success? c. How will we assess whether current or proposed practices are adding measurable value to the student experience? d. What are we not doing that we could be doing instead and/or at the same time? e. What should we stop doing to create capacity? f. Do we have the funding, personnel, facilities, technology, and investments to support additional growth in these areas? g. How does this rank against other institutional priorities? h. As we project forward and predict our needs to achieve goals, have we set in motion parallel and enabling practices to achieve those goals (e.g., in order to make our salaries more competitive, we need more revenue, more grant support, more fundraising: can we predict how much more we will need of each, and go out and project these needs forward?). (This same modeling applies to each of our strategic goals.)

The public-facing strategic direction must remain concise and accessible, while the supporting matrices will serve as the internal operating tools that connect strategy to budget, capital stewardship, workforce planning, ownership, measurable outcomes, and accountability. The narrative should clarify where NMSU is going; the operating tool should help determine how priorities are resourced, sequenced, implemented, evaluated, revised, deferred, or retired.

Goal 1: Student Success

1. Increase retention and graduation rates
   1. Implement practices that support student success in higher education and reduce the frictions that lead students to abandon their studies (academic preparedness, financial stability, campus belonging; institutional support systems, mental health and safety)
   2. Pursue undergraduate research as a foundation of connection with faculty and staff
   3. Review current student success initiatives and evaluate them through an affordability and evidence screen that considers measurable impact, cost per student served, effects on retention and completion, workforce outcomes, and net revenue. This approach should help NMSU prioritize interventions that demonstrate value, right-size investments to available resources, and revise, defer, or retire initiatives that do not produce the intended outcomes.

2. Prepare students to be competitive in the job market
   1. Provide leadership opportunities to students
   2. Create and embed cooperative education and experiential learning in the curriculum
   3. Revise and implement a new general curriculum that helps align with societal and personal development needs

Goal 2: Faculty success

1. Improve salaries and salary ranges for faculty
   1. Having already established a list of peer institutions, carefully examine the data and transparently show areas of greatest divergence
   2. Create a plan that, taking into consideration tuition and fees, raises salaries to be competitive in the region, accounting for seniority, productivity, and cost-of-living

2. Improve teaching and research success and recognition nationally
   1. Create defined and well-established pathways for training and support of teaching and research functions, including for leadership roles and for alternative pathways to professional success (e.g., community-engaged research)
   2. Promote a culture of well-being and engagement that aligns with national best practices

Goal 3: Staff success

1. Improve compensation metrics and establish pathways to professional development
   1. Complete the current evaluation of local and regional compensation metrics and establish clear job roles, job architecture, position-control practices, compensation bands, and relative compensation metrics
   2. Create a plan that, taking into consideration tuition and fees, raises salaries to be competitive in the region, considering seniority, productivity, cost-of-living, internal equity, and institutional capacity
   3. Connect staff compensation and professional growth efforts to a broader workforce planning model that includes vacancy strategy, role clarity, organizational design, succession planning, and alignment with strategic and operational priorities

2. Create opportunities for professional development and leadership growth across all staffing units.
   1. Establish clear assessment metrics that reward job description priorities, especially as they align with strategic direction. Then, create reward pathways distinguished by public awards and recognition (e.g., annual staff awards). Also explore financial incentives
   2. Create defined and well-established pathways for training and support of growth into leadership roles

Goal 4: Organizational success

1. Establish sustainability metrics across academics, auxiliaries, capital, workforce, and finances to support the university’s long-term success, and link those metrics to budget, capital, workforce, and annual operating reviews so that progress can be evaluated, resourced, adjusted, or reprioritized through regular institutional decision-making.
   1. Academic Affairs establish and implement program review and accreditation best practices, while supporting revisions to P&T documents that adapt to current best practices in teaching, research and public service
   2. Administration and Finance establish and implement sustainability and optimization goals for the university’s physical plant and operations, while creating a financial viability plan that supports the strategic direction, strengthens reserve margins, and advances responsible revenue diversification. This work is connected to the Enterprise-Wide Asset & Capital Stewardship Model, the Integrated Budget Process, and the Strategic Workforce & Organizational Model to ensure that facilities, auxiliaries, housing, athletics, and public-facing venues are prioritized, funded, phased, staffed, and evaluated through a common institutional framework

2. Align all public service units along Goals 1 through 3 where intersections occur. Advance system-wide coordination to promote unified approaches in supporting the university’s strategic objectives
   1. Develop an enterprise-wide asset and capital stewardship framework that integrates housing, academic, research, athletics, infrastructure, and public-facing facility needs into the broader sustainability and financial strategy of the university, while also aligning with relevant state and local priorities

   2. Explore opportunities to expand the role of public-facing units (i.e., Extension services, Research, Career Services, Fundraising) in integrating and advancing the University’s land grant’s mission. Collaborate across public sectors (e.g., Public Education, Economic Development, Workforce Development, Health and Human Services) to align Goals 1 and 3 with the mission of the University. Each opportunity will be evaluated for public value, revenue and cost model, staffing capacity, governance ownership, partner commitments, and measurable outcomes before being advanced, scaled, or incorporated into the university’s operating plans