Andrea Cook believes she was chosen by Gov. Bill Richardson to be UNM’s student member of the UNM Board of Regents because of her knowledge and familiarity with the University campus and community.
“I served as the UNM undergraduate student body president and was a student adviser to the regents during my stint as president of ASUNM,” Cook said. “I think that really gave me an edge.”
Cook, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree last May from the Communications and Journalism Department, is currently pursuing her master’s degree in Business Administration. She was president of the Associated Students of UNM for the 2001-02 academic year. She will be the student-regent until 2005.
“For now, I just want to get my feet wet and go from there,” she said.
Cook added that she doesn’t quite know what to expect yet, but feels her experience and dedication to UNM will make her term successful.
“Because I was just an undergraduate last year, I think I have a pretty good feeling of what the students’ needs are,” she said. “I have a pretty good feeling on where students stand on tuition and academic issues.”
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Cook said she has good relationships with the Associated Students of UNM President Jennifer Onuska and Lorena Olmos, president of the Graduate and Professional Students Association. She added that her contacts with them are direct links to the graduate and undergraduate student populations.
Currently, Cook said she is preparing and gathering information to better understand the issues and challenges of governing higher education.
“The governor has his priorities, as far as higher education,” Cook said. “We, as regents, have our own as well. But we will work with him as closely as we can. We’ll also be working closely with the Commission on Higher Education. As regents we must have a close working relationship with them.”
Cook said she will take Gov. Richardson’s request that regents be “grassroots” by getting in touch with the people she sees as key to the UNM community — students, staff and faculty.
“One of the biggest challenges is taking into account all aspects of the people we serve,” she said. “The students, staff and faculty are all stakeholders in the University and we have to keep in mind what is best for them. What is hard is juggling all of the stakeholders’ different concerns for what is the best for the institution.”
In addition to her duties on the Board of Regents and her graduate studies, Cook also works for the Merck Corp., gathering disease knowledge and providing background information for healthcare providers.
