Dr. Reed Dasenbrok

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson appointed Dr. Reed Dasenbrock Cabinet Secretary of Higher Education in May 2007. As a member of Governor Richardson's Cabinet, Dr. Dasenbrock is charged with overseeing the New Mexico Higher Education Department. The New Mexico Higher Education Department works to increase access to higher education for all New Mexicans, to identify and address barriers that prevent students from pursuing or completing their education, including affordability and college-readiness, and to develop policy to minimize or eliminate those barriers. The Department is responsive to the needs of students and the business community and is committed to preparing students to participate in the global economy. Prior to his appointment as Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Dasenbrock served as Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of New Mexico, where he helped boost undergraduate enrollment and retention and graduation rates, increased the number of Native American faculty, and made sure that the majority of faculty hired were women or minority. Just as important, he helped retain more university faculty and developed a 10-point Agenda for Excellence in Undergraduate Education. Twenty of Dr. Dasenbrock's 27 years in education were spent at New Mexico State University, where he served as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Director of the Arts and SciencesResearchCenter, Head of the English Department, and as Professor. Dr. Dasenbrock earned a Master's of Arts Degree and a Ph.D., both in English, from The Johns Hopkins University, a Bachelor of Philosophy Degree in English from Oxford University (England), and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from McGillUniversity in Canada. He is also the author or editor of eight books and more than 100 other scholarly publications, on such subjects as modernist literature, contemporary post-colonial literature, the influence of Italy on literature in English, and literary theory. Secretary Dasenbrock chairs the Education Trust Board and the Higher Education Campus Safety Committee, serves on the Governor's Poverty Reduction Task Force, the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education, and State Higher Education Executive Officers, and is a member of the boards of the New Mexico Computing Applications Center, Alternative Dispute Prevention and Resolution Council, College Success Network, and EPSCoR's State Advisory Board, among others. Governor Bill Richardson and the New Mexico State Legislature created the Cabinet-level New Mexico Higher Education Department in April 2005.