Domínguez, UNM’s Foremost Leader in Distance Education, to Retire

UNM’s Jerón­imo “Jerry” C. Domínguez, vice provost of Extended Uni­ver­sity, announced his retire­ment to take place at the end of the fis­cal year.

Domínguez said, “When you reach this stage in your career you stop and reflect on how many peo­ple you touched and those that touched you, and you hope you made a difference.”

Domínguez’ pro­fes­sional career, which spans more than 40 years, has been ded­i­cated to improv­ing edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties for the cit­i­zens of New Mex­ico and beyond. His goal has been to con­tribute to mak­ing the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico the Uni­ver­sity for New Mexicans.

A native of Tucum­cari, N.M., Domínguez under­stands the chal­lenge of edu­ca­tional access for rural New Mex­i­cans. He is one of eight sib­lings, six of whom have defied the odds by achiev­ing mas­ters or ter­mi­nal degrees.

Since late 1999, Domínguez has served as vice provost of Extended Uni­ver­sity, guid­ing UNM’s dis­tance edu­ca­tion efforts. Provost Chaouki Abdal­lah said, “I feel extra­or­di­nar­ily priv­i­leged to have worked with Dr. Dominguez. His vision and energy paved the way for the suc­cess of Extended Uni­ver­sity. I wish him the very best.”

Over the last 12+ years, UNM’s dis­tance edu­ca­tion enter­prise has grown from a hand­ful of online courses to more than 800 online courses offered annu­ally. Online enroll­ment have increased from 4,316 in 2001 to almost 22,000 in 2012. A net­work of Extended Uni­ver­sity bach­e­lor and grad­u­ate cen­ters co-located with UNM branches and inde­pen­dent com­mu­nity col­leges, has pro­vided stu­dents the option to remain in their home com­mu­ni­ties and com­plete their degrees. Since 2004, more than 1,300 stu­dents at these cen­ters have com­pleted bach­e­lors or mas­ters degrees. These cen­ters are the foun­da­tion for the 2+2+2 part­ner­ships mar­shaled by Dr. Domínguez statewide.

Dur­ing his ini­tial appoint­ment as vice provost of Extended Uni­ver­sity, Domínguez con­tin­ued to serve as dean of Con­tin­u­ing Edu­ca­tion until 2003, at which time the units became sep­a­rate oper­a­tions. His tenure at Con­tin­u­ing Edu­ca­tion began in 1984 and included posi­tions as direc­tor, assis­tant dean, asso­ciate dean and dean. Dur­ing this period, Domínguez’ efforts focused on spe­cial project pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment train­ing in the areas of sub­stance abuse, bilin­gual and spe­cial edu­ca­tion and dis­tance edu­ca­tion. As dean, he was respon­si­ble for suc­cess­fully align­ing Con­tin­u­ing Edu­ca­tion non-credit pro­grams under an entre­pre­neur­ial model. By spear­head­ing the design, con­struc­tion and financ­ing of a $3 mil­lion, 35,000 sq. ft. class­room and office facil­ity, he brought Con­tin­u­ing Edu­ca­tion staff and pro­grams together at a sin­gle loca­tion in 1998. Domínguez also worked with UNM lead­er­ship and aca­d­e­mic units and edu­ca­tion, busi­ness and com­mu­nity lead­ers, to con­cep­tu­al­ize and ini­ti­ate devel­op­ment of UNM West.

Early in his career, Domínguez held posi­tions at the UNM School of Med­i­cine and with the State of New Mex­ico work­ing with and on behalf of deaf and blind chil­dren. Sub­se­quently and before return­ing to New Mex­ico in 1982, he directed a tech­ni­cal assis­tance project in early child­hood edu­ca­tion for the Ore­gon Sys­tem of Higher Edu­ca­tion, serv­ing all states west of the Mis­sis­sippi River.

Nation­ally, region­ally and locally rec­og­nized, Domínguez has been the recip­i­ent of the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion of His­pan­ics in Higher Edu­ca­tion (AAHHE) Dis­tance Learn­ing in Higher Edu­ca­tion Award (2012), the National Uni­ver­sity Con­tin­u­ing Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion award for Inno­v­a­tive Pro­gram­ming, the New Mex­ico School Admin­is­tra­tors Admin­is­tra­tor of the Year Award, the Governor’s Dis­tin­guished Pub­lic Ser­vice Award, and the UNM Alumni Asso­ci­a­tion Zia Award, among others.

Domínguez earned his bach­e­lors at East­ern New Mex­ico Uni­ver­sity in Por­tales, N.M., and his mas­ters and Ph.D. at UNM. He is mar­ried to Dr. Meave Stevens Dominguez, also a UNM alumna.

A national search for Dominguez’ replace­ment will be ini­ti­ated in the near future. Dominguez plans to con­tinue to work on spe­cial ini­tia­tives in the Provost’s Office and Aca­d­e­mic Affairs in a part time capac­ity, as well as to pur­sue other per­sonal and aca­d­e­mic research inter­ests and activities.