Outstanding Mentor Award Recipients

Patricia MacGregor-Mendoza, 2023
      • Dr. Patricia MacGregor-Mendoza is a Professor of Spanish and Linguistics

      Dr. Patricia MacGregor-Mendoza is a Professor of Spanish and Linguistics at New Mexico State University. By providing workshops and individual guidance, she has mentored faculty from several departments across NMSU at different stages of their promotion and tenure process. Outside of NMSU, she initiated a recurring panel at an annual conference to provide information, advice, and mentoring regarding promotion and tenure to graduate students on the job market, pre-tenure faculty, and tenured faculty seeking promotion. She has written a book manuscript on earning tenure, Survive the Five. Aside from serving our student body, she views mentoring of other faculty as one of the most important investments we can make in our institution.
Mary Fahrenbruck, 2022
      • Mary Fahrenbruck as nominated by Saundra D Trujillo, Criminal Justice

      Mary Fahrenbruck is an associate professor in the School of Teacher Preparation, Administration and Leadership, which is in the College of Health, Education, and Social Transformation. She teaches undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in literacy courses designed for educators. Her research interests include Access to Literacy, Global Children’s and Adolescent Literature and Miscue Analysis. Her most recent research project is a collaboration with her pro·té·gé, Saundra Trujillo. They are examining the effects of using young adult literature in a criminal justice graduate course to teach criminology and criminal justice theory.
April Ulery, 2021
      • April Ulery as nominated by Yanyan Zhang, Civil Engineering

      Dr. April Ulery is a Professor in the Plant and Environmental Sciences Department. She teaches and conducts research on environmental soil chemistry. Most notably, she is President of the 6,000 member Soil Science Society of America. April has been active in the Teaching Academy since its transition from the Center for Educational Development in 2003. April has served on over 60 graduate student committees. She faithfully mentors assistant and associate professors as well.
Martha Desmond, 2019
      • Martha Desmond was nominated by Amy Ganguli, Animal and Range Sciences

      Dr. Martha Desmond has always loved birds. Martha came to NMSU in 1999 after conducting postdoctoral research on wintering grassland birds in northern Mexico. She quickly found that life as an Assistant Professor was quite different from being a post-doc. Martha was fortunate to find strong and supportive mentorship through the Teaching Academy as well as from other sources. Martha understands that, for mentoring, “one size does not fit all.” She thinks mentoring should be fun! Martha believes the mentor and protégé must be invested in working successfully together and that protégés should always get more than one opinion.
Laura Madson, 2018
      • Laura Madson was nominated and introduced by Moire Prescott, Astronomy

      Dr. Laura Madson joined the faculty of the Psychology Department in August 1996. She is a Teaching Academy Fellow for facilitating team-based learning workshops as well as book discussion groups on various provocative topics. Laura has mentored many faculty members at NMSU and has herself benefited from the wisdom of several wonderful mentors and tries to exemplify those characteristics in her relationships with protégés. Her protégé Moire Prescott wrote, “Laura is an amazing mentor first and foremost because she listens and listens well, validating my experience as normal and understandable, and encouraging me to just keep putting one foot in front of the other…She also specializes in what you might call “just-in-time mentoring,” where she is somehow able to tell me exactly what I need to hear, exactly when I need to hear it…Most of all, Laura has made me feel cared about with her listening, her understanding, her knowledge, and her wisdom.”
Monica Torres, 2017
      • Mónica Torres was nominated and introduced by Wil Kilroy, Theatre Arts

      Dr. Mónica Torres has worked in higher education for thirty-five years. She’s been at NMSU since 2002-as a faculty member and department head at the Las Cruces campus-and as DACC’s chief academic officer. Mónica is a Teaching Academy Fellow and has participated in several formal mentoring relationships. She has also benefitted from what she thinks of as mentoring moments, times when a single comment or question prompts another stage of professional development. Her protégé Will Kilroy wrote, “She provides wonderful insight into complex and difficult situations that I face as a department head. Because Mónica has served as a department head in the past, she readily relates to situations which I have encountered, and has offered varied solutions without dictating which path to take. I appreciate the guidance as well as the freedom to find my own way.”
Mary O’Connell, 2016
      • Mary O’Connell was nominated and introduced by Becky Palacios, Public Health Sciences

      Dr. Mary O’Connell has served on the faculty at NMSU since 1985. She is a Regents Professor and Distinguished Achievement Professor in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences. Mary is an invaluable and dedicated mentor always providing tangible and practical advice. She is direct and some might say “brutally” honest. As one of her mentees reported, “Mary is always fair and doggedly honest. She looks for the best in all circumstances, and with an incontrovertible sense of humor, she has always aided me in correcting my perspective and improving my optimism. I think we would all agree that she has significantly enriched and enhanced our professional growth.”
Martha Mitchell, 2015
      • Martha Mitchell was nominated and introduced by Jessica Houston, Chemical and Materials Engineering

      Dr. Martha Mitchell is a professor in Chemical and Materials Engineering and a Teaching Academy Fellow who has mentored ten faculty members in the ADVANCE Mentoring Program or the Advancing Leaders Program. Her nomination, by Jessica Houston, was supported by no fewer than seven protégés, several of whom wrote dense two-page letters arguing that Dr. Mitchell’s talents as a mentor are astounding. Jessica wrote, “We have a collective enthusiasm for Martha that is undoubtedly mirrored by many others at NMSU… She is thoughtful, focused, caring, realistic and optimistic.” As another protégé put it, “Martha has taught me to approach obstacles at NMSU not as immovable barriers, but as complications that require creative solutions. . . She has grounded me and has prevented me from leaving my office never to return.”
Miriam Chaiken, 2014
      • Miriam Chaiken was nominated and introduced by Kassia Wosick, Sociology

      Dr. Miriam Chaiken joined NMSU in 2009 as Department Head of Anthropology and became the Dean of the William Conroy Honors College in 2014. She has mentored multiple faculty through the Teaching Academy’s One-On-One Faculty Mentoring Program and the Advancing Leaders Program. Kassia Wosick, who nominated Miriam, wrote, “Miriam has been a source of strength, stability, and consistency for me…She always picks up the phone when I call, responds when I email, and checks in to see how I am fairing. Miriam is authentic, reliable, genuine, diligent, realistic, and happy…She is the ideal embodiment of what this award describes as “both the letter and spirit of mentoring”