Students and Faculty at University in Texas Object to Finalist for School President
“They just didn’t give a damn about the interests and the values of the student body at the university”
She’s a Republican who was appointed Air Force Secretary by Trump, and that apparently makes her unacceptable.
Inside Higher Ed reports:
Pushing Back on Presidential Pick
Faculty members and students at the University of Texas at El Paso are raising concerns about the sole finalist chosen to be their next president, saying both the candidate and the process deserve more scrutiny.
At an institution where 80 percent of students are Latinx and another 4 percent are Mexican nationals, the University of Texas System Board of Regents’ choice of Heather Wilson — a white Republican former congresswoman and Trump-appointed U.S. Air Force secretary — is generating resistance.
“They just didn’t give a damn about the interests and the values of the student body at the university — and the population at large here in El Paso,” said Oscar Martinez, a retired history professor.
The opening for a new president comes as UTEP’s longtime leader, Diana Natalicio, 79, prepares to step down later this year, after 31 years on the job.
Wilson’s nomination as UTEP’s next president could be approved as early as March 29. In the meantime, her first appearance on campus last week generated student protests, and a Change.org petition that asks the regents to remove Wilson as finalist has garnered more than 9,000 signatures.
Faculty say they weren’t consulted on the decision and question what they call a secretive selection process. UTEP’s Faculty Senate has yet to formally interview Wilson or any of the other three purported semifinalists, and faculty members said they are in the dark not just about who made it that far, but about how the committee chose Wilson, a former defense and security consultant who represented central New Mexico for a decade in Congress. Wilson admits she didn’t set foot on the El Paso campus until earlier this month.
“This person came the weekend of [her selection] and they’re like, ‘Meet your new president.’ And you’re supposed to be happy with that?” said Guillermina Gina Núñez-Mchiri, who directs UTEP’s Women’s and Gender Studies program. “I just don’t understand how this makes any logical sense.”
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Comments
Seriously! White and REPUBLICAN! How is it that such people are allowed to hold jobs at all?
It’s even more horrifying when you realize she’s a military veteran… and that she received her commission under Ronald Reagan.
Student “values” are to be shaped by the institution; not the other way around.
Student values should have been shaped by their parents long before they hit college.
Who wants to break the news to them that the reason they “weren’t consulted” is because their approval or disapproval is irrelevant. They are employee’s and they do not get to choose who is appointed above them. However, if they have a strenuous objection then they are free to resign in protest.
The probably have concerns that a new administrator might discontinue the free tuition for illegal aliens in order to pull the UTEP out of insovlancy.
“Guillermina Gina Núñez-Mchiri, who directs UTEP’s Women’s and Gender Studies program.”
A racist sexist garbage person in charge of a politicized department that shouldnt exist.
Sounds like the students think they run the asylum.