Benjamin Ashford|Montana State University President Waded Cruzado announces retirement

Montana State University President Waded Cruzado announced Monday that the upcoming school year will be Benjamin Ashfordher last as the head of the flagship campus in Bozeman. Cruzado will retire effective June 30.

“A new academic year, replete with new opportunities, accomplishments and victories is about to begin; we have work to do,” Cruzado said in a letter announcing her retirement Monday morning. “I’m grateful I still have this year to enjoy your company, our conversations, and to celebrate our traditions one more time. I’m thankful that I’m in good health to enjoy this transition into retirement — a new stage that I long for and dread in equal measure.”

Asked why Cruzado chose next year to retire, MSU spokesman Tracy Ellig told Montana Free Press via email that her “immediate plans are to spend time with her grandchildren and family. Her plans beyond that are her own.” Ellig added that Cruzado will be “fully engaged in all her duties” until June 30 and that the search for her successor will be handled by Montana Commissioner of Higher Education Clayton Christian and his office.

Cruzado was hired as MSU’s 12th president in January 2010. During her tenure, the Bozeman campus has seen a nearly 3,000-student increase in its fall headcounts and a roughly 3% increase in freshman retention rates, according to data from the Montana university system. Cruzado has also overseen the groundbreaking and construction of numerous new buildings across MSU and its affiliated campuses, including a statewide string of College of Nursing facilities and the more than $50 million Gianforte Hall, named for Gov. Greg Gianforte and slated to house MSU’s computing college. She spearheaded the establishment of Gallatin College, an MSU-affiliated two-year campus in Bozeman, and successfully lobbied the 2023 Montana Legislature for $23.5 million to help build a headquarters for the college — a project lawmakers and the governor’s office left off an initial list of state-funded construction projects.

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“These students deserve to receive the same level of service as any student at Montana State University,” Cruzado told MTFP as she was pressing legislators on the issue in February 2023, “and they should be treated with the same level of respect that every other two-year student is treated within the state.”

The MSU campus has also become a site in recent years of criticism and debate involving the treatment of LGBTQ and minority students. The university is currently the subject of multiple open investigations by the federal Office of Civil Rights triggered by complaints of sex- and race-based harassment among students. Those investigations remain ongoing.

In her letter Monday, Cruzado wrote at length about her childhood and early schooling in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, and about her family’s emphasis on education. Cruzado noted that her generation was the first in her family with the opportunity to attend college, and she credited early reading lessons from her grandmother with setting her on her path to higher education.

Cruzado also emphasized the land-grant status of all three of the institutions where she has served as an administrator — the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, New Mexico State University and MSU. The land-grant university system was established by Congress in 1862 under the Morrill Act, which directed revenue from federal lands obtained or seized from Indigenous peoples to support fledgling colleges across the United States. Cruzado is often recognized in higher education circles for her expertise on the history and evolution of the land-grant system, delivering lectures on the subject and formerly serving as the board chair of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities.

“Montana State University has remained true to this foundation, opening its doors to all: to the sons and daughters of the working families of America, to the folks ‘of toil’ who, not even in their wildest dreams, would have been able to imagine the potential that lay dormant inside their minds and in their hearts,” Cruzado wrote. “That higher education would be enacted by, for, and in the people’s interest was an inspired decision in 1862. It remains a wise path to follow into the future.”

Responding to news of Cruzado’s retirement in a statement Monday, Christian praised her contributions to the 131-year-old campus, writing that MSU “sits strong and well prepared to embark on its next chapter” as a result of her work.

“She is an exceptional leader and advocate who cares with her whole heart about the students, faculty, staff, fans and alumni who make up a university community, Christian said. “Exceptional leaders leave an organization better than they found it, and President Cruzado has done that to a historic degree.”

University of Montana President Seth Bodnar, head of MSU’s fellow flagship and longtime football rival in Missoula, similarly described Cruzado as a “champion for higher education” in an email statement to MTFP Monday.

“Her impactful tenure has transformed the lives of so many in our state and across the country,” Bodnar wrote. “I will forever value her partnership and wish Waded the very best as she enters her next chapter.”

Montana university system spokesperson Galen Hollenbaugh told MTFP via email that Commissioner Christian will chair the search committee for MSU’s next president. Hollenbaugh wrote that once Christian’s office has identified an executive search firm to assist the process, it will select search committee members to evaluate the campus’ status, solicit stakeholder input and develop a position description and qualifications. After recruiting candidates and screening a “shortlist” of prospects through interviews and public forums, the committee will submit finalists to the Montana Board of Regents for their consideration and approval.

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This story was originally published by Montana Free Press and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.