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After more than 32 years as a student and employee at New Mexico State University, outgoing Chancellor Dr. Garrey Carruthers is hanging his “guns up” at 78 years old.Carruthers was named NMSU’s president and chancellor in 2013, the first NMSU graduate to hold the role. Carruthers said while he’ll still be involved with the school, he looks forward to retirement.
“So NMSU’s my happy place but there comes a time when it’s time to retire, but I’ll still be on campus. I have an office on campus. I’m anticipating perhaps even teaching a course or two down the road. I’ll continue to work with the Domenici Institute and the big Domenici conference that’s coming up in September. So as Willie Nelson’s saying, I woke up this morning and I’m not dead yet, I’m still going to be around,” Carruthers said.
Carruthers grew up on a dairy farm in Aztec, New Mexico. He said he developed a strong work ethic on the farm while his parents taught him the importance of a good education.
“We ate at the dinner table and we talked as a family and the family always encouraged us to get a college degree, that the way out of what they call poverty is to be well-educated,” Carruthers said.
Carruthers took his parents’ advice to heart. After arriving at NMSU in 1957, he received a bachelor’s degree in agriculture in 1964 and master’s in agricultural economics the next year. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in economics from Iowa State University in 1968. Carruthers returned to NMSU to teach agricultural economics and agricultural business.
That expertise in agriculture eventually launched his career into politics. Carruthers served as a special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1974 to 1975 and assistant secretary of the Interior from 1981 to 1984, among other positions. Carruthers said his experiences in Washington, D.C. taught him that if he was going to be a leader, he needed to have principles.
“So, I learned from some really powerful leaders starting with Ronald Reagan for example. Gerald Ford, I served in his administration,” Carruthers said. “People who had high principle, made decisions based upon principle has always influenced me a lot and I tell young people it’s easy to be a decision-maker if you just understand and define your principles and your principles may change over time. The ones you have at 18 might not be the ones you have at 48 but that’s okay because times change, but at least have principles and try to make decisions based upon principles.”
Most notably, Carruthers was elected governor of New Mexico in 1986 and served for four years. He said the relationships he formed during his time in office have continued to serve him well as chancellor.
“It’s helped a lot because many of the legislators are still serving who served with me when I was governor and I had a very good working relationship with the legislature when I served,” Carruthers said. “We didn’t have the kind of adversarial politics that you see today, both on the state scene and the national scene. We all tried to get along, cooperate with each other. I was a Republican in a Democrat state. Both the House and the Senate were Democrat but I got along fine with them.”
Carruthers said his all-time favorite job at the university was when he became dean of NMSU’s College of Business in 2003 because he could interact with students.
“I was always invited to lecture and I would walk out of my office right into a lobby full of students and I had the greatest time asking how they were doing in accounting or how they were doing in finance and who was their favorite professor and what were they going to do in life and everything and I just got a real joy out of the College of Business. It was a lot less stressful,” Carruthers said.
NMSU’s Board of Regents recently completed its search to replace Carruthers, selecting Dr. Dan Arvizu as chancellor and Dr. John Floros as president. Carruthers said he was surprised by the board’s decision to split the two positions.
“I can tell you for sure that I’ve been chancellor and president and it’s not, it is a one-person job, it’s not a two-person job,” Carruthers said. “Now if they have other plans to broaden the chancellorship or the presidency, I think that’s fine.”
While Carruthers said NMSU has done well to address declining student enrollment during his tenure, he said his biggest regret was not focusing on student retention, specifically juniors and seniors.
“We’ve lost too many students who have gone two and three years, accumulated debt and just can’t quite finish it because they’ve run out of money,” Carruthers said. “They end up with all the debt and no degree. So, my biggest regret is we didn’t realize that sooner and do something about it.”
Carruthers said he will continue to work in public service and has already accepted a few appointments. He described those he’s worked with during his time as chancellor as “fantastic.”
“Everybody here has been part of a caring community and I couldn’t be prouder of them,” Carruthers said. “It is amazing to me as I travel around the state, particularly in Albuquerque. How people I’ve known for years have sent their children down here, their young people down here to go to school and they talk about ‘my kid loved New Mexico State. My kid loved it down there.’ They think it’s the most fantastic place in the world. That’s because we have a caring community and I’m proud of them.”
