Dr. Bárbara Medina/Courtesy photo
The Northern New Mexico College Board of Regents has selected Dr. Bárbara Medina to serve as interim president after President Richard Bailey departs on January 15, 2022, to accept a position as President of Southern Oregon University. As president and chief executive officer, Medina will be responsible for executing the Board’s policies and directives and for implementing identified goals through the day-to-day management of the College.
“All of us at Northern are excited to welcome President Medina to the team. We look forward to her leadership and her guidance and are very grateful for her willingness to serve our students, our college, and our community,” Bailey said.
Medina has extensive experience in higher education, including a background in educational research, teacher education and federal grants. She has been actively involved at the district, state and national levels in the areas of language and literacy for diverse populations, cultural and linguistic diversity, qualitative research methods, and school reform.
Medina holds a doctorate in Educational Policy from the University of Colorado, Boulder and an M.A. in Liberal Arts Education from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Md. and Santa Fe, N.M.
Medina opened an independent consulting firm called 3milagros Education Consulting in 2013. In that role she has served on a National Academy of Science committee, as faculty and program facilitator for the University of Northern Colorado Center for Urban Education at Denver, as a consultant for the Migration Policy Institute and in several positions related to meeting the needs of second language learners.
Medina has served as executive director of the Colorado Department of Education’s Language, Culture and Equity Office and as the state director administering federal and state grants for migrant education, English language acquisition, language enhancement and academic achievement and English language proficiency. She was also assistant commissioner for the Colorado Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Transformation.
The Board of Regents voted unanimously to confirm Medina, who was selected from a pool of four other candidates.
“We would like to welcome Dr. Medina to the Northern team and look forward to working with her over the next six months,” said NNMC Board of Regents President Michael Martin.
Bailey will work with Medina until his departure to orient her to the duties and responsibilities of the office. Dr. Medina will serve as Interim President while the Board of Regents runs a national search for a permanent president.
About Northern:
Northern New Mexico College has fulfilled the educational needs of the region for over a century. Originating in 1909 as the Spanish American Normal School in El Rito, Northern now offers more than 50 bachelor’s, associate, and certificate programs in a wide variety of fields, including recently introduced programs in technical trades. Popular programs include nursing and health sciences, business, liberal arts, education, and STEM programs. Graduates have gone on to pursue advanced degrees at colleges such as Johns Hopkins University and Purdue University, and employment at NASA and Los Alamos National Labs.
Northern is an open-admissions college offering the most affordable bachelor’s degrees in the state and is competitively priced for all other programs. Northern is fully accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) and has earned prestigious national accreditations for its engineering, nursing, education, and business programs. To learn more, visit www.nnmc.edu