Heather Mechler has been appointed to the position of director of the Office of Institutional Analytics (OIA) at The University of New Mexico by Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning Greg Heileman. Mechler was named the interim director of OIA in November 2016. The appointment is effective immediately.
“The service orientation of the analytics office has continued to improve,” Heileman said. “It is now clearly a part of the office culture, and I believe this stems from Heather’s leadership. The other area that has only gotten stronger under her guidance is making data easier to access. Improvements in online data access and visualization provide important information in support of data-informed decision making throughout Academic Affairs.”
Since taking over as interim direction in November, Mechler has overseen the hiring of a new team of institutional researchers, continued to improve data visualization on the analytics website, and created an analytics colloquium series with UNM’s Institute for Design and Innovation.
“I am honored to serve UNM and its leadership by providing data to support decision making during this time of significant institutional change,” said Mechler. “As a team, OIA is committed to helping UNM to move toward a positive and better future. I am also thrilled to work with so many brilliant and passionate people across this campus, and it gives me hope for what lies ahead.”
Mechler earned her Ph.D. in educational psychology, and a B.A. in music from the University of Alabama. She joined UNM as an adjunct faculty in the educational psychology program, and was hired by OIA in 2013 as an institutional researcher. Mechler was promoted to the associate director position in 2015.