Cheese nachos, sclerosis - Henry Cisneros has had his name pronounced many ways. When he came to the SUB on Wednesday for the Arthur A. Blumenfeld Memorial Lecture, he said he had a reasonable chance UNM would get it right.
Cisneros was one of the first Hispanic mayors of a major U.S. city - San Antonio.
He spoke to about 75 invited students from the School of Public Administration and graduate students from Anderson Schools of Management. His speech focused on leadership and diversity.
He said as mayor he had to convince the city of two things: he was not too young and he was not looking to correct wrongs.
"I had broad support," he said. "I'm very grateful for that. The people of the city gave me the opportunity to succeed and a lot of good will."
He said he saw himself as sort of a traffic officer in San Antonio set in the middle of the intersection.
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"My job was to stand in the middle of the intersection and help the flow of traffic to make sure people didn't crash into each other, and make sure the stream was going in the right direction," he said.
He said it wasn't a real power, because if people didn't listen, he couldn't hurt them.
"I didn't have that kind of power," he said.
It was more about listening to what people said and channeling it to where it was productive, he said. The rules of "Do it because I say so" will not work in this world, he said.
Because the demographics in the United States are changing, Cisneros said students need to learn how to communicate with others.
"Each of us, no matter what our ethnic group, will need to understand other people," he said.
Willow Blumenfeld, daughter of Arthur A. Blumenfeld whom the event was named for, said the lectures try to bring people to inspire public administration students.
"We're bringing in people who have experience in government and can be inspiring and fascinating," she said. "You sort of have to be a jack of all trades to be an effective administrator."
Alberto Belmares said he wasn't inspired.
"It does kind of have a depressing tone, because he said over and over how hard it would get, but never said how to deal with the upcoming complexities," he said.
Changes in government services mean changes in public administration, Cisneros said.
"It's going to change the way we think about it," he said.
It also means public administrators will have to learn new ways to build consensus and develop a different set of consensus-based skills, Cisneros said.
Gerardo Martinez said he had been looking forward to the speech since he received an invitation.
He said Cisneros' speech has motivated him to work for the good of the public.
"Instead of doing what you're supposed to do, we can go out there and do what we need to do," Martinez said.
