Geologist to Head NMSU College of Arts and Sciences
By Ashley Meeks, Las Cruces Sun-News, N.M.
Jul. 7–LAS CRUCES — Geologist Pam Jansma starts Aug. 1 as dean of New Mexico State University’s College of Arts and Sciences, heading up a rambling college that houses astronomy, journalism, music, theater, English, physics, military science, psychology, history, philosophy, criminal justice, molecular biology and women’s studies — among other subjects.
She says, understandably, she won’t be teaching “right away.”
Jansma, 49, leaves a position as department chairwoman and professor at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. She will also be temporarily leaving behind family — her husband, a volcanologist, will stay behind until their son graduates high school next May. Their teenage daughter is already a student at Stanford, where Jansma earned her bachelor’s.
Jansma, who earned her master’s and Ph.D. from Northwestern university, said the University of Arkansas was going through some administrative changes when she found herself itching for a change.
Her ambitions at NMSU range from the lofty — happy faculty, high morale and a college-wide enthusiasm for work done well — to the obligatory: After three visits, Jansma has yet to be taken out for New Mexican food.
Jansma’s road to Las Cruces
began at the University of Puerto Rico, where, as an associate dean, she met Waded Cruzado, her predecessor at NMSU. Cruzado, who became NMSU’s executive vice president and provost in 2007, wrote in an e-mail that she is “very pleased” with Jansma’s appointment.
“NMSU is now part of a handful of land-grant universities having a woman from the hard sciences serving in this important role,” Cruzado wrote. “She will be instrumental in moving NMSU to its next level of academic excellence.”
A fan of reading, skiing, walking and hiking, Jansma was born in Tokyo to a Dutch father working for a Dutch bank, and a Canadian mother working at the Canadian embassy. No stranger to moving, Jansma worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the Arco Oil and Gas research lab in Plano, Texas, before settling at the University of Puerto Rico for eight years and Arkansas for the next eight.
“I don’t have any intention of going anywhere else,” she said. “This was a good opportunity and one I think will be fun.”
Jansma says she likes people and her philosophy is simple: To listen to them and respond as honestly, calmly, consistently and fairly as she can.
“I also realize that we have limited resources. Every university does. Every college does and you need to maximize the areas where you have strengths and strengthen the areas where there are weaknesses,” said Jansma. Coming from a similar-sized rural, public, land-grant institution, Jansma said “getting into the rhythm of New Mexico State won’t be that different.”
Ralph Davis and Steve Boss, geosciences colleagues for her full tenure at the University of Arkansas, say NMSU’s gain is a huge loss for their university.
“You’re stealing away a wonderful person, a wonderful employee,” said Davis, a geosciences professor.
“She works well with a broad community of people, which is what she needs to be the dean of arts and sciences,” Davis said. “She’s sought out routinely by the agencies, the National Science Foundation, (U.S. Geological Survey) and others to serve on panels and be a lead scientist on some of these programs.”
Boss, an associate professor of geology, said Jansma is energetic, smart, a “top-notch” scientist and an excellent people person.
“You guys got a real gem,” Boss said. “She really helped move our program forward in the time she’s been in our faculty. A lot of departments nationally were losing faculty or retrenching. She managed to advocate for us … not only to keep us where we were but add people.”
Boss says Jansma will advocate for arts as much as sciences.
“She’s very even-handed. She’s very approachable. A good listener. I wish she was going to be my dean, actually.”
Ashley Meeks can be reached at ameeks@lcsun-news.com
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