Back Row: Angel Benavidez Graduate Records and Center Coordinator (Graduate Liaison to the Office of the Registrar) , Michael Montoya, Assistant Registrar, Cheryl Trujillo, Transfer Analyst & Systems Administrator, Andrea Crespin, Scheduling & Special Projects Coordinator
Front Row: Dr. Henrietta Romero, University Registrar, Deborah Gonzales, Senior Administrative Assistant, Sara Duran, Student Transcript Specialist
Not Pictured: Abigail Carlsen, Crystal Rose Yardman and Mariposa Archuleta, Student Employees
When New Mexico Highlands University kicks off homecoming Saturday with its annual parade, it will be headed by a rare event as an entire university department will serve as the Grand Marshal.
It’s not often that a whole department is recognized for its efforts, but after Highlands Office of the Registrar faced a nightmare this spring, it not only overcame the situation, it came through it stronger than ever.
When the school’s computers were waylaid in April, the Registrar’s Office had graduation looming, with students needing their diplomas and transcripts as they headed out in their careers.
And the computer system was belly up.
But the department pulled together as a team and it was able to provide all the necessary information and documents to keep graduation on schedule and diplomas still flowing.
“I think we’re the first department to be nominated as Grand Marshal and we’re really excited to be the first. This is something for us that speaks to the achievements that we’ve made over time,” says head University Registrar, Dr. Henrietta Romero. “It also speaks to the dedication that we have to the campus community, to our students, our faculty, our staff and the community at large. And so we’re really excited to just be even considered and nominated for such thing.”
Achieving the department’s goals of meeting the needs of the students was not an easy task, she says, and could not have been accomplished without everyone involved putting on their Superman capes and working as a unit together — even more so than normal.
“We’ve had to deal with a lot of transition and adaptation. One of the things that we have really done pretty well as a team is we’ve adapted to everything that’s kind of hit us,” Romero says. “That means we were hit with COVID. We had the cyber attack in 2019. We had the network disturbance now in April of 2024. And we just really tried to figure out the best ways for us to still serve the campus community, even though our systems were down. And though we weren’t able to be fully functional, we were still able to be responsive.”
And Highlands officials didn’t let the department wither, instead doing whatever it could to help the effort.
“The university was kind enough to provide us with a hotspot to respond to emails from our faculty and our students, which obviously are some of the most important constituents that we have,” Romero says. “And, really, just being able to think outside of the box as a team as to how we do that. How do we make sure to still provide the necessary elite customer service that we’re used to providing to the campus community, even during those very stressful, struggling times.”
It goes back to the pride everyone in the department has in serving the Highlands community, she says.
“A lot of it comes back to the dedication that we have to the campus,” Romero says. “The dedication that all of us have put in individually, to be dedicated to Highlands and to its functionality, to our operations, to our students, to our potential students, to our faculty, to the staff and to all the folks that we serve across the university spectrum.”
The other members of the team include Michael P. Montoya, Assistant Registrar; Angel Benavidez, Graduate Records/Center Coordinator (Graduate Liaison to the Office of the Registrar); Sara Duran, Student Transcript Specialist; Andrea Crespin, Scheduling and Special Projects Coordinator; Deborah L. Gonzales, Senior Administrative Assistant and Cheryl Trujillo, Transfer Credit Analyst and Systems Administrator.
They all will be recognized for their outstanding efforts by leading the Homecoming parade.
“It’s going to be pretty fun,” Romero says. “It’s one of the things we never expected to do, probably none of us. We never expected to be in the limelight and not everyone knows who the Registrar is and what it is we do. So we might be able to show we function within the university and how we serve and support not just the students and the faculty and the staff, but the entire community, even alumni.”