by Xochitl Campos
Daily Lobo
The Latin American and Iberian Institute will have a new director in the new year, Deputy Provost Richard Holder said.
"This is an emergency situation," he said. "We weren't anticipating that Dr. Radding would resign."
Sociology professor Susan Tiano will replace Cynthia Radding as acting director until the position can be filled permanently, he said.
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Radding declined to say why she will resign before her contract expires, but said she will return to teaching and researching full time.
"It is a transition I had been thinking about," she said.
Holder said he is unsure what will happen in the coming months.
"(Tiano) wants to go on sabbatical," he said. "During the spring, we will decide what to do next."
Holder said he consulted with members of the Latin American Faculty Concilium to find an acting director.
"If you do a national search at the director level, you are talking about a search that takes at least six months to do," he said. "Under the circumstances, you appoint an acting director and then do the search."
Holder said members of the concilium nominated five people for the position but only Tiano accepted.
Tiano said her job as acting director may not be temporary.
"I will do what the institution needs, but it is not clear that I will stay there forever," she said. "Everybody is leaving open the opportunity for me to step down or continue on."
But Holder said the University will decide next semester whether to appoint a permanent replacement from within UNM or from other universities.
Holder said the director will be a senior tenured faculty member who is experienced in administration and familiar with issues facing Latin America.
Tiano said she will prepare for the Title VI grant proposal, which is due in 2009. The grant helps the institute to support the centers on campus that focus on research in foreign areas and cultures such as the Latin American and Iberian Institute.
The institute lost the grant in 2006.
The institute is writing a proposal to get funding from the state Legislature, said Les Field, president of the institute's executive committee.
Field said the proposal will also request funding for the Latin American Studies Department.
"It is about student success," he said. "It's about student diversity and recruitment. It has to do with all those sorts of things and various sorts of aspects of community outreach."
