UNM President Louis Caldera has been secretary of the Army, a Los Angeles district representative and vice chancellor of the nation's largest public university system, but he's never taught a class.
One year ago this August, Caldera left his post as Vice Chancellor for University Advancement in California's public university system to become UNM's 18th president. One year into his four-year tenure, Caldera says he does not miss his home of 20 years in Los Angeles.
"There are 600 black-tie events in Los Angeles a year," he said. "You could go to two or three a night."
He added he doesn't miss the smog or perilous traffic either.
Caldera had little experience in research or teaching compared to others who applied for the president's position. According to news reports, UNM's Board of Regents chose Caldera because of his potential for raising money and establishing political relationships for the University.
"It wasn't really a debate, was it?" Caldera said of objections raised at the time by UNM faculty.
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He said his goal of turning UNM into a world-class research institution has made progress, but would not happen overnight.
"It's been a great year," he said. "Part of it was just trying to get to know the institution, and to get to know the people, get to know the players in the state."
In keeping with his fund-raising objectives, Caldera remains on many local and national corporate and civic boards. He said those commitments have not detracted from his work at UNM. They are part of his strategy, but he declined to say how much these associations have benefited UNM.
"It's not so much you can say, 'This particular service on this board helped in this specific way,'" Caldera said. "And in fact, you wouldn't want to go around pointing those things out, even where they are true."
Why?
"Because you're being a braggart, and you'll hurt your ability to be effective in that way," he said. "People want to believe you're serving on the board because you believe in the goals of the organization, not because you're there to use them."
Caldera said the share of state support for UNM has declined from 21 percent to less than 18 percent over the last few years, compelling him and the regents to diversify the University's revenue sources.
"We accept responsibility for raising more of our own revenues and for being good stewards of the revenues that we do have," he said. "We're not counting on the legislature to come save the day when there are new programs we want to start, new things we want to do or things we want to do better."
Caldera's agenda for the upcoming year includes enacting decisions he and 40 senior UNM leaders made at a recent planning summit in Taos. He said attendees focused on improving undergraduate education, expanding UNM's research capabilities and increasing UNM's public impact.
His administration has also been negotiating with a governor's task force and the legislature to make changes to the funding formula and the capital outlay process, and to address deferred maintenance of some of UNM's facilities, he said.
"We've got a handful of things that we're definitely going to focus on this coming year," he said. "If we could get the legislature to do half these things, it would put the University in better stead."
