Elizabeth Quay Hutchison, professor of history and Regents’ Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at The University of New Mexico, has been named a 2025–26 American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow—one of just 25 higher education leaders selected nationwide.
Launched in 1965, the prestigious ACE Fellows Program prepares faculty, staff and administrators across the U.S. for senior leadership roles through immersive, cohort-based mentorship. More than 2,500 professionals have participated in the program, with over 80% going on to executive and other academic leadership positions.
Hutchison, who has also served as a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Academic Leadership Faculty Fellow at UNM this year, was nominated by university leadership and selected after a rigorous national review.
“This is such a meaningful opportunity to deepen my understanding of the broader challenges and opportunities facing higher education today,” Hutchison wrote in her ACE application. “I’m honored to represent UNM and to bring new ideas back to support our mission.”
She plans to use the fellowship year to expand on two major areas of her work: improving conflict resolution processes within institutions and preventing sexual harassment in higher education, both within the US and internationally. Her fellowship project focuses on how large public universities like UNM can better coordinate their services and support systems, to the benefit of those who experience sexual harassment and other harms, as well as those to witness and manage its effects.
“My long experience working with UNM leaders in feminist research, faculty governance, and diversity administration, and participating in national and international networks of researchers and higher education leaders, has shown me the importance of generating as well as sharing innovative approaches to the common challenges we face across higher education today,” she said.
ACE Fellows spend a year engaging in administrative shadowing, leadership retreats, policy planning and cohort-based collaboration at a host institution. Each Fellow is paired with a senior mentor—typically a university president or cabinet-level executive—and joins a national cohort of emerging leaders.
“The ACE Fellows Program has a 60-year legacy of developing insightful, experienced leaders who are prepared to navigate whatever challenges and opportunities the future brings,” said ACE President Ted Mitchell. “Fellows engage in intensive learning experiences that enhance their skills and broaden their perspectives.”
"I am so pleased that Professor Hutchison has been selected to participate in the ACE Fellowship, and I can only imagine the ways that both she and UNM will benefit from all that she learns there."
– Vice President for Equity and Inclusion and Profesor of Sociology Assata Zerai
Hutchison was nominated for the ACE Fellows Program by Vice President for Equity and Inclusion and Professor of Sociology Assata Zerai, who supervised Hutchison’s work as associate vice president for Equity and Inclusion.
“Professor Hutchison planned, coordinated, and implemented a special initiative of institutional importance called the Staff and Faculty Wayfinder,” said Zerai. “This resource navigator is a high-level, centralized, comprehensive, and imaginative project aided in the promotion of an inclusive climate within UNM’s academic communities with an emphasis on racial minority, women, sexual minority, and other vulnerable populations; and also fostered a campus culture in which faculty and staff are supported.”
Zerai has been extremely impressed with Hutchison’s work with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Action Collaborative (AC) for Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education, for which she has served as UNM’s primary representative since 2019.
“Professor Hutchison was instrumental in bringing this set of resources to UNM and has led UNM's participation in the AC. The leadership traits I see in this work include a collaborative approach, creativity and foresight to build a resource needed by our faculty and staff colleagues, patience with essential partners who have competing demands for their time, seeking input and fostering buy-in for a new resource, ability to develop new skills (working with IT to develop the Wayfinder website), and strong communication skills (demonstrating Wayfinder to multiple audiences).”
“I am so pleased that Professor Hutchison has been selected to participate in the ACE Fellowship, and I can only imagine the ways that both she and UNM will benefit from all that she learns there,” added Zerai.
In addition to Zerai’s endorsements, Hutchison notes, ACE Fellows also rely on substantial support for the fellowship year from of administrative leaders and colleagues at their home institutions.
“In my case, this includes release from teaching and other duties from the Department of History, as well as financial support from the College of Arts & Sciences, the Office of the Provost, and the Office of the President. I am so grateful,” Hutchison said, “to the university leaders who have stepped up to allow me to pursue this professional opportunity, and to my colleagues in the department and faculty governance who will take up slack in my absence.”
A faculty member at UNM since 1998, Hutchison has held numerous leadership roles, including associate vice president for Equity and Inclusion, director of the Feminist Research Institute, interim university secretary, and chair of major faculty governance committees. She currently serves on the Faculty Senate and its Operations Committee, as a member of the AF&T “Section B” Task Force, and a member of the UA-UNM Grievance Committee, and plans to return to UNM with renewed energy and vision for these efforts.
“Institutions of higher education desperately require university leaders who have demonstrated the courage – and the requisite competencies – to effectuate systemic change at their institutions,” Hutchison said. “Those leaders in turn need more and better support for managing institutional transformation, particularly in managing conflict and sexual harassment within their institutions.”
Hutchison, who was recently appointed as a Regents’ Professor of Arts & Sciences, said she is seeking future leadership roles with “sufficient positional authority to transform university conflict management systems and reduce sexual harassment.”
“My goal is to lead collaborative, transformational change in higher education—at UNM and beyond,” she said.
For more information about this year’s cohort, visit the ACE Fellows Program.
