James Oblinger won't be leaving N.C. State for the presidency of New Mexico State University.

Oblinger, who left the NCSU chancellorship earlier this year amid questions over his handling of the Mary Easley affair, was a finalist for the presidency in New Mexico.

But that university selected another candidate, Barbara Couture.

In an interview last month with the News & Observer, Oblinger indicated that he still has the bug for academic administration and felt the New Mexico State job would have been a good fit for him. 

At the time, he added that he hadn't been pursuing any other jobs and planned to return to the NCSU faculty if he didn't end up in New Mexico.

There was a week earlier this year when all James Oblinger wanted to do was celebrate success. For the N.C. State Chancellor, there were three groundbreakings that week marking the start of significant new construction project on campus, each of which would eventually yield something good for NCSU.

Yet those ceremonial events all took place as the heat around Oblinger grew. He now calls it "the swirl," a frenzy of media activity surrounding the actions he and others took in hiring former First Lady Mary Easley for a job that didn't exist before she was placed in it.

It was during that week that Oblinger realized he had to step down.

"I never got a question about how great it was for the university," he said of the groundbreakings that week. "The only questions were about the situation. That meant I was overshadowing a lot of great work. I had never planned on anything other than retiring as chancellor at N.C. State University."

Since resigning June 9, Oblinger has stayed largely out of the public eye. But he's now in the running for a new job - the presidency of New Mexico State University - and he knows he'll be facing some tough questions there. 

He already has, in fact, and the folks doing the interviews seem pleased with what they've heard. He'll be down there in November for campus interviews, and the university expects to make a decision Nov. 19.

"We're aware of the situation that happened at N.C. State," Del Archuleta, who is chairing the New Mexico State search, told me this morning. "But he's extremely experienced, very professional. He appeared a very sincere man and very qualified. It looks to us like an unfortunate set of circumstances. He told us mistakes were made and things were learned from it."

In an interview Wednesday, Oblinger spoke at length about how he's spent the last four months since resigning the chancellorship. He has been on leave, and thus has had time to both reflect on his actions and to re-tool and prepare for his next venture, as an NCSU faculty member.

But when the New Mexico State job came up, it sounded to him like a good fit. 

Here's today's story from that interview.

James Oblinger, the former N.C. State chancellor who resigned earlier this year amid questions over his handling of the hiring of former First lady Mary Easley and other issues, is a finalist for another top university gig.

Oblinger is one of five finalists for the presidency of the New Mexico State University system.

Oblinger's departure at NCSU was an ugly one. He resigned as questions mounted over his handling of Easley's hiring and of the departure package he okayed for Provost Larry Nielsen.

Months after his resignation, the UNC system's Board of Governors even reduced the amount of pay he received in his own settlement.

And yet, he's not the New Mexico State candidate with the freshest wounds. That would be another of the five announced finalists, Richard Herman.

Herman resigned as chancellor of the University of Illinois just last week, embroiled in a scandal related to his university's admissions process.

In New Mexico, the search for a university president has gone bust.

A search for the next leader of New Mexico State University has been called off because the university couldn't come up with five finalists on the right timeline.

Part of the problem: A common complaint among university folks who run these searches - a requirement that the names of finalists be made public. The law on this varies from state to state; North Carolina, for example, doesn't require that finalists be made public and universities here rarely do so.

According to the press report, some of the finalists for the New Mexico State job were scared off when they learned their identities might become publicly known.