ESPANOLA, N.M. – New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas is one of four finalists being considered for president of Northern New Mexico College, according to media reports. Balderas is leaving office at the end of this year.

The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that another finalist is Dr. Patricia Trujillo, the deputy secretary of the state’s Higher Education Department and who hails from Española Valley.

The other two finalists are from outside New Mexico: Dr. Bruno G. Hicks, vice president of academic affairs at Dalton State College in Georgia, and Dr. David L. Johns, president of Ferrum College in Virginia.

Barbara Medina has led Northern New Mexico College on an interim basis since the departure of Rick Bailey, who left in January to become president of Southern Oregon University.

Balderas, 49, served two terms as state auditor before moving on to the attorney general’s office, and was elected in 2014 and 2018. He is a graduate of New Mexico Highlands University and the University of New Mexico Law School.

Trujillo, a graduate of New Mexico State University, has been an associate professor of English/Chicano studies at Northern since 2010 and was the college’s director of equity and diversity from 2013-20.

She was appointed by New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham as deputy secretary of the Higher Education Department in 2020 and supervises six of nine divisions including academic policy, adult education and information technology.

Hicks is high-ranking administrator at Dalton State, a federally designated Hispanic-serving institution, while Johns has been president at Ferrum College since 2018.