WATCH: ‘This is the right university at the right time,’ says finalist for UTEP president

U.S. Air Force Secretary and former Congresswoman Heather Wilson, the sole finalist to be the next president of the University of Texas at El Paso, said Monday UTEP is “the right university at the right time.”

The University of Texas System Board of Regents voted Friday to select Wilson as the only finalist for the job. Wilson, who submitted her resignation to President Trump, must wait 21 days before her appointment becomes official.

On Monday, Wilson addressed the media for the first time. If you missed her news conference, you can watch the replay below:

Wilson praised UTEP as a “wonderful institution.” She said she would continue the university’s policy of inclusiveness and increasing access to higher education. “I think the people who want to define universitites as having to define between greater access and excellence create a false choice,” said Wilson, “The great universities in this country and around the world do both. One of the things that bothers me about higher education is universities that define themselves as being great because they exclude people.”

UTEP, Wilson said, does not buy into that philosophy. “It has shown that access and excellence go hand-in-hand and I think that is the future of higher education in America and I think this university is leading the way,” said Wilson.

The 58-year-old Wilson served as a U.S. Congresswoman from 1998 to 2009 and represented a central New Mexico district that included Albuquerque. The Republican was appointed Air Force Secretary in 2017.

Her Air Force biography says she served as president of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota, from 2013 to 2017.

Wilson will replace 79-year-old Diana Natalicio who served at UTEP president for three decades.

UTEP has an enrollment of around 25,000 students and about 80 percent are Latino.

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