Welcome ENMU's 10th President

Dr. Jeff Elwell

By Wendel Sloan

At the April 12 meeting, the ENMU Board of Regents selected Dr. Jeff Elwell, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, as the new president of the ENMU system, which includes campuses in Portales, Roswell and Ruidoso. He becomes ENMU’s 10th president since the 1934 opening. Dr. Elwell follows Dr. Steven Gamble, who had been president since 2001 and retired at the end of June.

Accepting the appointment, Dr. Elwell said, “I am thrilled and excited beyond belief. I look forward to leading the Eastern New Mexico University system into the next decade. My wife, Edwina, and two rescue dogs, Molly and Mindy, are also looking forward to this next exciting phase of our life.”

Rescue dogs, Molly and Mindy, are part of the family for Dr. Elwell, who enjoyed walking them in Atlantic Beach, N.C. last year.

Prior to his five years at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Dr. Elwell was provost and special assistant to the chancellor at Auburn University at Montgomery from 2010-12. From 2004-10, Dr. Elwell served as the founding dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communication at East Carolina University. He was an administrator at the University of Nebraska (1999-2004), Marshall University from (1996-99), and Mississippi State University (1989-96).

He holds a Ph.D. in Speech Communication/Theater from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, a master’s in Communication/Theatre from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, and a bachelor’s in English from California State University-Bakersfield.

Dr. Elwell with his wife, Edwina, watching their son compete at the Big South Track and Field Championships in 2015.

Dr. Elwell said being named president of ENMU was the “fourth best day of my life. Meeting my wife, getting married and having a son were the other three.” He was attracted to ENMU by its

“size, reputation and location. I grew up in Southern California, and graduated from Cal State Bakersfield. I find the desert attractive, pleasant and interesting.”

The high school and college cross country and track athlete says his goals and aspirations for ENMU are to “stand on the shoulders of Dr. Gamble and other leaders before him. I want to make ENMU even more prominent and increase its reputation.”

In his current position, Dr. Elwell successfully dealt with a substantial budget reduction in his second year “in an open and transparent way.” He increased fundraising by almost 900 percent – from $296,000 to $2.6 million. His college also increased distance education offerings over 1,000 percent from 1,188 student credit hours to 14,080.

Born in Brooklyn across from Ebbets Field, he moved to California as a toddler. There, he played beach volleyball against Wilt Chamberlain, spotted Kareem Abdul-Jabbar towering above a fence, and saw John Elway play Pop Warner football.

Dr. Elwell at the Parthenon in Athens, Greece in 2011, with his son Preston and wife Edwina.

“It was common to see famous athletes and actors,” Dr. Elwell said.

A track scholarship helped Dr. Elwell pay for college. “You learn so much as an athlete: about winning, losing and how to deal with disappointment,” he said. “You learn how to improve and what it means to be part of a team.”

Athletics informs Dr. Elwell’s leadership style, who says winning is important for many reasons, but it’s not THE reason for varsity athletics. “If you’re winning in the right way, it’s great. If winning is the objective and you start taking shortcuts that hurt the reputation of the athletic program or the school, then it’s not that important. If you’re doing really poorly, like going 1-10 in football three years in a row, you have something going wrong and you need to address it.”

Liberal and fine arts are also an important part of Dr. Elwell’s background. As a doctoral student at University of Illinois at Carbondale, Dr. Elwell wrote nine plays in two years, with six of them produced professionally in various genres. “Escape from Bondage” about the early life and times of Frederick Douglas was produced in New York.

While waiting for a doctoral loan check, Dr. Elwell met his wife at the Financial Aid Office at Southern Illinois Carbondale. He had to “wait a bit because they messed up my check. It gave me a chance to flirt with Edwina. When she handed me the check for $5,000 I asked her out and she said ‘yes.’”

Their first date was on March 5, 1983, and they married in Dec. of 1984. Their son, Preston, just finished his junior year at Winthrop University, where he went on academic and track scholarships and is majoring in Spanish with a minor in political science.

Asked about his hobbies, Dr. Elwell said, “I’m pretty boring. I work a lot. I enjoy attending college and professional sports events. We like to travel and meet new people, have new experiences and learn about history.”

His philosophy of life is, “If you don’t ask, the answer is always ‘No.’ If you’re willing to work hard and make the sacrifices necessary, there is nothing you can’t achieve. You can’t measure grit or motivation.”

Dr. Elwell is “looking forward to coming to Portales, meeting people, and working with everyone to make Eastern New Mexico University the best university it can be.”