Staff Report
A group of about 30 UNM faculty members, most of them from the Faculty Senate, indicated with an informal vote Tuesday that they heavily favor presidential candidate Carlos Santiago and that they doubt candidate Louis Caldera is qualified to lead UNM.
Faculty Senate President Beverly Burris said the vote, described by her as a "straw vote," only represented the views of the faculty members in attendance and was not an official Faculty Senate vote.
The vote took place during the Senate's closed session, which immediately followed the regular monthly meeting, and was organized to discuss the University's five presidential finalists.
Many faculty members said Santiago had presented himself well in public forums at the University. Santiago is provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University at Albany, State University of New York where he also is a professor of Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Economics.
The faculty members agreed that the resolution regarding Santiago will be presented at another Senate meeting today and that faculty members present can vote to support it if they want.
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Caldera's lack of traditional academic qualifications was also a subject of much discussion in the closed session. Caldera has never been a professor at a university and is the former Secretary of the Army.
Faculty members said that Caldera may not have the necessary credentials to be appointed to the UNM faculty, let alone the presidency.
The UNM Board of Regents placed intellectual and academic leadership at the top of a long list of expected requirements for the president and added that candidates need "Academic credentials to include teaching, research, and service in a college or university setting that merit appointment to the ranks of the senior faculty in an academic unit."
Faculty members said that in addition to Caldera, there could be another candidate among the finalists for president who may not be qualified, but they did not identify the other candidate.
