By Editor/Media Mentor Melissa Murray
On Oct. 30 Eastern New Mexico University announced five final candidates for the Chancellor, one of whom will take the place of retiring Chancellor Dr. Patrice Caldwell, who has been with Eastern for over 40 years and took place as the universities first female president in April of 2020.
Dr. Larry Sanderson is the only candidate with ties directly to Eastern New Mexico. He’s called the area home since the 1980s, and the community is his true passion. In an interview with the Chase, his love for the area was palpable as he recounted his wife’s long ties to Tucumcari and their proximity to their children and grandchildren, who live within a twenty-minute drive from them. New Mexico is where the Sanderson’s call home, and despite having the educational background and professional ambition to chase these future aspirations around the country – he says there’s nowhere else he’d rather be than here.
Sanderson is a product of The University of New Mexico, having received his Doctorate of Education there in 2010. He then worked his way up through various administrative titles in the New Mexico college system beginning in 2005.
When asked by the Presidential Interview committee how he would adapt to rural New Mexico, he recounted, “I live here now – if I get this job, it’s the best job I’ve ever had. And if I don’t get the job, I still live here. This is home for us. And Eastern is home.”
When it comes to being an administrator in higher education, Sanderson says the relationship with students is a focus for him, and retaining that relationship is something he spoke at length about. The burdens on today’s students – their time and attention – are immensely fragmented so he wants to shower students with respect for their efforts. Having been a working student himself, he understands the demands.
Sanderson noted that he is just a human, someone who understands the struggle, wants to remove barriers to open conversations, to help ease anxieties and help faculty build connections that transform student experiences, which is why he prefers to go by Larry. He does his best to follow this path, eating in the cafeteria and engages students on the sidewalk. He believes in showing up outside the office and remaining authentic in his daily interactions.
In our interview, he was particularly forthcoming. We began with the customary rundown of the interview plan, gaining consent for recording, explaining our interview structure – and generally running through the list of the journalist’s professional responsibilities before beginning. He’s cheerful, flexible, and supportive as I get on with my tasks. This is not the typical corporate interview, with requests and demands, negotiations, and ego-draped-bells-and-whistles. In contrast, he sits back casually in his office chair – game for any question I throw his way. He’s entirely at ease. As we begin, he makes one request – just one – if his dog’s groomer calls, we’ll have to stop so he can pick them up. True to form, relationships come first, even the four-legged ones. I agree with his request, and the interview begins.
The following is a condensed transcript, edited for clarity and word count.
CHASE: Hi, Larry. It’s nice to meet you. One of the first questions I have for you is I noticed in our email conversation you signed off as Larry, despite having a Doctor of Education and being one of the top candidates for the Chancellor of Eastern New Mexico University. Do you encourage a more casual style with students?
SANDERSON: With everybody. Absolutely. I mean, we kind of tease about it at home. When I got my doctorate, my wife looked at me and said, “Don’t expect me to call you doctor!” (Laughing). Honestly, it’s a signal of a certain academic achievement, but it’s not. It’s not an elected title. It’s not something you have by birthright or anything else and I just prefer a personal relationship. I teach classes now. I teach graduate classes – and I encourage students – I tell them that “My name is Larry”, and I asked permission to refer to them by their first name. I mean, it’s a sign of respect for students.
CHASE: And that was appreciated because I was nervous about our interview, so it did put me at ease. So, I thank you for that.
SANDERSON: No nerves, no nerves required.
CHASE: As the only candidate in the pool from New Mexico. You are likely familiar with ENMU’s culture. How did this guide your decision to apply for the Chancellor role?
SANDERSON: That’s exactly why. I mean, there’s no question. My wife is from the area. She’s from Tucumcari, which is just north of Eastern. Significant numbers of our family have gone there. We’ve always had a respect for Eastern – and in my current role at New Mexico Junior College, I work very closely with the Provost and Academic Staff at Eastern. Now, we’re working on Transfer Pathways and getting more students to go from two-year schools to the four-year. I just see Eastern as this incredible opportunity. It’s a regional university. It had great programs. It has a good reputation. It has no issues that it has caused itself. The opportunity to go in and work with a group of folks who really want to continue to keep the Eastern brand strong – that’s really exciting! And we could go someplace for my career, maybe to you know, to Wyoming or to California or to Illinois, and that’d be great – but, what a great combination when we can actually go someplace that would be a career achievement for me and is the very place my wife and family want to live.
CHASE: That’s wonderful. Interesting that you mentioned that [creating pathways from two-year colleges to ENMU] because my professors, as part of the Graduate Student Honor Society, encouraged us to do a program with a two-year college. We invited them to our Induction Ceremony to encourage them to be part of us.
SANDERSON: That’s outstanding. That’s great. Look, more and more regional students are going to come as transfers. There’s no way around it. So, we need to – and I told this in the interviews – we need to not look at community colleges as our competitors – we need to look at them as our best strategic partners.
CHASE: Looking at your experience, you had some impressive titles –
SANDERSON: (Laughter)
CHASE: And you were, you were touching on some of this – the titles don’t necessarily mean a lot to students –
SANDERSON: I understand (Still laughing)
CHASE: So, I just wanted to ask a little bit [about them]. Two titles look similar: Vice President of Institutional Research and Accreditation and Vice President of Development, Institutional Effectiveness, and Accreditation. How are they similar?
SANDERSON: They’re almost the same (nodding).
CHASE: Okay, so, what did they look like?
SANDERSON: What it really boils down to – is what the President wants to call the role. The only thing that’s missing from what I do right now, which was in that previous title, is the development part.
CHASE: Okay. And that’s student development? Is that –
SANDERSON: No, it’s fundraising. Development is fundraising.
CHASE: Okay (nodding).
SANDERSON: So, Institutional Effectiveness includes what I’m doing now, which is the accreditation, the institutional research. The development part was the College Foundation and communications.
CHASE: Interesting.
SANDERSON: So, when you get a new president, everything always gets reorganized. Under the new President, I have the core responsibilities, but the foundation and the communications have been moved. They actually created a new vice presidency for that.
CHASE: Well, it seems like doing the research and the fundraising at the same time is a lot of hats to wear.
SANDERSON: (Jokingly) I have an eclectic background, Melissa!
CHASE: (Laughing)
SANDERSON: And the reality, – in community colleges, we wear more hats than traditional four-year schools. And so, with my private industry background, I had a background in communications and marketing. And I also did when I started at The University of New Mexico – did the fundraising stuff. So, it was kind of a logical fit.
CHASE: Gotcha. The President saw your skill set! The next question I have for you is specifically for graduate students. After having completed a master’s degree, we’ll very likely apply to community colleges for adjunct professorships. You’ve done a presentation in 2009, on the best policies for adjunct and part-time faculty. So, my question is, what advice would you give students about, skill sets to put forward when applying for these roles?
SANDERSON: I think one of the biggest things, and this happens in higher education teaching – is we get hired to teach because we have subject matter knowledge and so, if you go to a K-12 school to teach, you have some subject matter knowledge, math, history – but, you also had some classes in how to teach. In higher education, we don’t do those programs on pedagogy and so, one of the biggest things I think, for anybody – whether it’s teaching adjunct or whether teaching in a community college – is put yourself forth but, think about the students. Think about, “Hey, look, I’ve got a degree in math, and I want to teach math. I really want to connect with the students. I want to engage with the students, and I will do my best to be a very good teacher who engages with the students.” Talk about those things. I take it you’re probably getting a degree in journalism, or communications?
CHASE: Yes.
SANDERSON: If you want to go teach those things, I’d say [to myself], “Hey, I’ve got the subject matter knowledge, but I want to be a good teacher too.” Because community colleges, in particular, we recognize – and we come to it a little faster than the four-years [colleges] – good teaching is everything.
CHASE: So, would that be something that you would implement? If you work with adjunct faculty to do some kind –
SANDERSON: They’re already doing it. Eastern is already doing some of those kinds of things. And that’s one of the reasons I really like Eastern. They work real hard on that. It’s called professional development. And they work real hard in the area of professional development with their faculty already. It would be something as President – it would be my job to make sure that they have the resources that they need.
CHASE: Right. Yeah. And that’s the development part of it, I guess?
SANDERSON: The development part and also, – you have a large budget. I mean, the budget of Eastern is $52 million a year. How is it all segmented out, and parceled out? And you’ve got to make sure that if there are things that are priorities, in this case, student success, that the resources are there for the faculty and the staff and the students to be able to do the things that they need to do.
CHASE: Interesting. In 2010, you spoke about using student engagement techniques to transform success. How can students help transform their own success with the administration? Sometimes hierarchies can be –
SANDERSON: It can be scary.
CHASE: Yeah.
SANDERSON: It can be intimidating (nodding). I think that this is one of the places where faculty is number one. From my standpoint, how I do it – is you go out and you have lunch in the cafeteria, and you spend time. You visit with folks, and you try to connect with folks to basically send the message that we’re not intimidating, and we’re not locked away in the office. But the people that the students see more often than anybody else are the faculty members. And if we can help the faculty members create that relationship with the students so that the students say, “You know what, I got a problem” or, “I’ve got a question” – they don’t just have to go talk to their math professor about math. They can say, “I had a problem with the University, who do I go talk to?” We’ve got to create those relationships. And there’s no one place – some of it has to be through social media, some of it has to be through an anonymous website, some of it can be in a classroom, some of it can be on the sidewalk. In the process, Student Government’s an important thing but we’ve got to work with them to say, “Hey, you know, you are the connection to students – don’t you get disconnected”.
CHASE: Right.
SANDERSON: There’s no one answer. It’s an ethos. It’s a culture. And maybe, and I don’t mean this facetiously, but maybe it’s back to your original [question], “I noticed you didn’t want to be called Doctor?” You want to take those little barriers away. Right? Take those little barriers away.
CHASE: This leads me to my next question –
SANDERSON: Um – I’m sorry, I have to read the text about the dogs while we’re talking but – keep talking –
CHASE: Oh sure, so, my question is based on your institutional research – are students generally getting older and coming back for career changes? And how do you see that changing our education or what you were just talking about –
SANDERSON: Not yet. They’re not coming back yet. They’re coming back slowly – a lot of schools lost 20-30 % of their student body, maybe gaining back 10 or 15 [percent] or, maybe gained back half of it. We’re not seeing a lot of career-changing yet. I think the biggest thing from my standpoint is – the students are making a choice, less on the basis of money, more on the basis of time, “Is it worth my time?” They’re willing to invest. They’re willing to spend the time if they say, “It’s going to add to my knowledge, it’s going add to my skills, either helped me switch a career or helped me improve in my career.” And right now, we’re not seeing them come back in droves. Higher education has gone on the decline for 10 years. Big schools have gotten bigger, medium-sized schools have gotten smaller, and small schools have gotten smaller. We have to create value, and the value is not so much what we charge – we need to charge a fair price – but the value is, “My time in that class (whether it’s virtual or whether it’s face-to-face) is worth my time.”
CHASE: And so, would you consider some kind of certificate step-up program or something in the future –
SANDERSON: You want pathways for students because a lot of students are not going to go back to school but, they’ve got some school, they’re in a place in their life where they need step-in places. So, whether you’re a four-year school or graduate school, you need to create pathways where students can step in and go to the next level – step out maybe for a while or, continue – or step out and come back in a few years. So, that’s what we’re learning in education, we have to be real cognizant of pathways, professional pathways, and personal pathways.
CHASE: Interesting.
SANDERSON: So, I need to do something – I really need to go get my dogs.
CHASE: Okay, yeah, well, that was my last question –
SANDERSON: Oh, you sure? Because I can call you back real fast when I get back.
CHASE: Oh, no, it was actually – we got to the end! (lifts page and points to the last question)
SANDERSON: Oh, Okay. Fire-away.
CHASE: That was it. It was just, you know, what, what was the pathway?
SANDERSON: I think as educators, we have to recognize that the nature of students has changed – the value proposition has changed. It’s not about money. It’s about time. It’s about the investment of time. Because we’re asking them to take time away from their families. And students want to learn – they want programs but, if they’re going to come to the campus at Eastern it’s because the campus experience was worth their time. It’s not about parties or anything like that but, it’s about a positive experience. It starts with the instructors. It starts with the support staff. It starts with, honestly, having decent food and those kinds of things. We have to pay a lot of attention to the student experience on campus and we have to understand that they’re making a judgment, “Are we worthy of their investment?” And I think that’s what the people at Eastern want [to be worthy of the investment]. I think that’s what the professors want. It’s what the faculty and the office staff and the professionals want – they want that.
CHASE: So, my last question to you is – I know you do have to go – what didn’t I ask?
SANDERSON: (LAUGHTER) I always ask that to, “What wasn’t I smart enough to ask you?”
CHASE: (LAUGHTER) Yeah!
SANDERSON: The biggest message I would leave is this: The very fact that you’re doing this interview and the fact that you’re where you’re at [in Connecticut], but yet, you’re still engaged with the college is a wonderful example of what Eastern can do and the creativity that’s Eastern.
CHASE: Wonderful. Thank you so much for taking your time – and best to the dogs. I know they may have had a traumatizing day!
SANDERSON: (Laughing) They’re Goldendoodles. They’re our children, so I gotta go bail them out – Melissa, it’s great to meet you. Thank you for your time.
(Dr. James Johnston has been announced as the new chancellor of ENMU, he will take over the position on January 3, 2023.)