PUEBLO — A southern Colorado university is under new leadership. Armando Valdez is starting his first full academic semester as the President of Colorado State University (CSU) Pueblo. News5 sat down with him on Wednesday to discuss his focus and mission as he takes on this new role.
President Valdez said one of his missions is to celebrate diversity and expand an inclusive culture at CSU Pueblo.
“I came to CSU Pueblo with a commitment to be student centered, employee centered and community centered,” Valdez said.
In his new role, Valdez plans to reach outwards while focusing inwards. He said it starts right here on campus, with student diversity.
“So we're a Hispanic Serving Institution. We're a minority serving institution, and we have on campus a little more than 50% which come from Hispanic, Latino, Latina, Chicano Chicana, minority backgrounds, African American, Asian American, Native American. We're very proud of that,” Valdez said.
“While we talk about Hispanic serving and minority serving, we talk about, what does that mean? That means to serve those populations, close equity gaps, close achievement gaps, close financing gaps, that better serve those populations that have experience that underrepresented access in the past.” Valdez said.
Valdez said he is about serving all students.
“Any student, regardless of their background who comes to CSU Pueblo chooses to come to be part of and engage in a diverse community,” Valdez said.
Expanding outwards, Valdez said he plans to reach out to and enroll students who grew up in rural towns.
“I want to see people that want to return to rural communities not only go back to those communities and sustain. I want to see them go back to those communities and build how we get stronger, more robust, entrepreneurial rural communities that have a future that people find opportunity there,” Valdez said.
This is something Valdez can relate to. He grew up in the San Luis Valley.
“I am the beneficiary of generations past who have built these opportunities for me to be able to gain,” Valdez said.
He said now it is his responsibility to pass that on to students at CSU Pueblo.
“Being in education was something not expected for me. This was not a career plan. It was not a life plan. I was going to be in business,” Valdez said.
He always thought he would work as a financial analyst, strategic engagement or consulting, but life had a different plan. Valdez had received some advice that may have changed his mind about his dream. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in business administration and an MBA from Colorado State University (CSU) in Fort Collins. It was then when Valdez began to pursue education.
“While going into education, I thought, I will get some teaching experience. So I taught a class at CSU Fort Collins, and got hooked right away. Loved the students loved the engagement, which led me to an opportunity at Front Range Community College, where there was a lot of focus on teaching,” Valdez said.
Eventually, Valdez would go on to serve as an educator at Adams State University for 15 years. Beginning officially in February 2024, Valdez took over as the president of CSU Pueblo.
What is it like to be the president of this university?
“It's busy. It's a fast day. It goes quickly and you know, it's a lot of action in between, but there's no breaks and even times when I've been able to find the breaks, they don't work. So everything moves really quickly. It's a lot of engagement, a lot of meetings, a lot of interactions with people from the community,” Valdez said. “As president, you're the external face. You're the external liaison for the university. So a large part of my role is to be engaging in those stakeholders who are in the Pueblo Community, the southern Colorado community, the business community, donor community, alumni community. There's many different stakeholders that a president has to interact with. But with that, there's also trying to work to build a well functioning, productive, efficient and effective university. So that also means working with key stakeholders who are primary team members of our university, our faculty, you know, our staff.”
As you take on this new role as a president, moving forward, what are do you want to instill at CSU Pueblo?
“A personal goal that I have is, how do we promote and enhance the profile of Pueblo in southern Colorado? How do we gain more touch points so the people who live in those communities gain better access to education, greater opportunity to have their own economic empowerment, finding ways to build their lifestyle and shape their lifestyle of how they want it? I want to see people that want to return to rural communities, not only go back to those communities and sustain, I want to see them go back to those communities and build. How do we get stronger, more robust, entrepreneurial rural communities that have a future, that people find opportunity there,” Valdez said.
He said one aspect they promote on campus here is being a Pack family.
“Pack family, Pack familia, we talk about being a family. You have disagreements with your family. You don't always see eye to eye, you don't always share the same thoughts and ideas, and that's fine. We can definitely agree to disagree. We can have different perspectives. What we will have is like a family. We'll have respect for each other, we'll communicate with each other, we'll support each other, we'll care for each other, we'll help each other, especially when things are tough. That's the part of a family, and it's a whole spectrum aspect of family,” Valdez said. “Those are the aspects that we want people to understand about CSU Pueblo. It's bringing all that together. And when we talk about DEI, let's don't put DEI as a label. Let's put DEI as a strength that every single person who's here brings to us.”
Valdez said it's important to bring all voices to the table.
“A lot of times, DEI will focus on primary characteristics of diversity. It'll focus on gender, ethnicity, age. We like to think about DEI as being a whole again, a spectrum of those characteristics, including some of those other characteristics that we influence, educational level and attainment, background of where you brought up, whether it's socioeconomic, geographic... We really want to promote connecting rural people with rural backgrounds, with people from urban backgrounds, with suburban backgrounds to tween backgrounds that are kind of like you find here in Pueblo, that kind of has a mesh between, you know, some of those... bigger city elements with still small town feel,” Valdez said.
For academics, Valdez said at CSU Pueblo, it is not separated into liberal arts education or STEM education.
“Here at the university, I've wanted to promote what's called we're the Pack. So we have a stampede with two m's which blends those areas together. Science, technology, arts, math, music, there's the two M's, performance, engineering, design and engagement,” Valdez said.
Valdez is serving as the 16 President of CSU Pueblo.
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