By Guadalupe Santos-Sanchez,
Staff Reporter
CNM President Katharine Winograd said she plans to stay in Albuquerque and would like to continue working on issues at CNM even after she has retired.
“I certainly hope [that those at CNM] still allow me to play. It’ll be volunteer and it’ll be when I have time to do things, but I can’t imagine letting go of my love for the college,” she said.
Winograd said the one thing she really hopes to continue to think about is the new focus on being family friendly.
Over the years, they have talked about having more opportunities for children to be on campus, such as through a family resource center and a better partnership with daycare, she said.
“Those kinds of issues I would love to continue to work on even after I’ve retired,” she said.
CNM just needs to continue to think about what kinds of programs can help the community and be open to that for lots of different jobs, she said.
The film industry and health care are good examples, so as things change in the world, the hope is that CNM continues to change as well, she said.
“There’s always something going on at CNM and I continue to believe that there will always be things going on even after I’m gone,” she said.
Winograd will have been with CNM for 23 years when she retires, which will be in June 2020 or when a new president is hired.
“It’s been a long time. It was TVI when I first started,” she said.
Her background in planning and budgeting with CNM allowed her to focus on how to deal with a difficult budget in a creative and thoughtful way, she said.
Even though this was a really great skill for her, she said that CNM has a lot of really talented individuals at the college and in the budget area, so if they choose someone who has other kinds of skills, they will have staff members that will be very helpful to them.
“I would love to say that everything that’s happened at CNM is directly because of me, but it isn’t. It is this great place with lots of very good people. All I do is get out of their way, instead of actually doing anything special, and that’s really important because I’m really so proud of everything,” she said.
Winograd hopes that the faculty, staff and students who are at the college now continue to play a role in making CNM better.
“I just hope it continues to grow and I hope the next president is better than I was,” she said.
CNM gives individuals who really do not want to think about going to school an opportunity to have training, boot camps and things that are different and unique but certainly help them in the workforce, she said.
They all bring such gifts to the table that she hopes can be appreciated for years to come, she said.
Winograd said she had the opportunity over the last 12 years to do the same as previous presidents of the college – to make CNM bigger and better.
She cannot imagine ever feeling like she had done everything she wanted to do, she said.
“It is full of mixed emotions, so it’s nice to be at this place in my life and I will miss CNM very much,” she said.
