Former University of Alabama president Guy Bailey is considered a finalist for New Mexico State University provost, but he does not know why.

“I have no interest in the NMSU [provost] position,” Bailey said. “I don’t know why my name is being associated with it.”

He then questioned the source of the allegations.

Bailey was one of five finalists being considered for the next president of NMSU in Las Cruces, N.M. The university’s Board of Regents announced May 6 that Garrey Carruthers, dean of NMSU’s College of Business and governor of New Mexico from 1987 to 1991, had been selected as the new president.

Bailey interviewed as a NMSU presidential candidate just six months after his abrupt presidential resignation from The University of Alabama in October 2012, after only 57 days in office.

Prior to his presidency at the University, Bailey served as president of Texas Tech University from August 2008 to July 2012.

Bailey cited his wife’s declining health as the reason for him stepping down at the University in a press release at the time.

Upon Carruthers’ selection as president, one of his first orders of business was to select a new provost, a position that had been open since Nov. 6, 2012.

Jordan Banegas, a student at NMSU and member of the university’s Board of Regents, said Carruthers will request that the NMSU Board of Regents approve the suspension of a policy requiring a national search. Carruthers is scheduled to ask the Board of Regents to approve the waiver at their next meeting on June 21.

“This suspension is done to give Dr. Carruthers the ability to make a selection from the four remaining candidates of our recent presidential search,” Banegas said.

On May 23, Carruthers approached the university’s Faculty Senate Leadership Council to endorse the selection of one of the four remaining presidential finalists.

Dennis Clason, chair of the NMSU Faculty Senate, said the request boils down to time limitations.

“President Carruthers would have to name a new interim provost during the national search,” Clason said, adding that a search could take up to a year to find an adequate provost.

Although he could not comment on who Carruthers preferred for the position, Clason said each of the four candidates have already visited campus and been reviewed. He said Bailey, as one of the four finalists, had as equal a chance as any of the four.

The Albuquerque Journal, however, reported May 29 that of the four remaining candidates, three of them either had no interest in the position or had not been contacted by the university.

Daniel Howard, the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver, was the only one to decline to respond. Howard was a biology professor at NMSU from 1988 to 2008.

During the May 6 presidential selection Board of Regents meeting, three of the five members voted for Carruthers, while two voted for Howard, according to meeting minutes.

Banegas said he will support the request and believes the other four Regents will do the same.

Bailey, however, said he was excited about staying at The University of Alabama.

“I’m looking forward to being a faculty member and teaching here,” he said.