by Caleb Fort
Daily Lobo
Being in Oklahoma didn't stop David Schmidly, UNM's next president, from meeting with students Thursday.
About 30 students attended a one-hour webcast in Woodward Hall to talk with Schmidly about issues at the University.
Schmidly said he wants to hear from as many people at UNM as he can before he starts his presidency June 1.
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"I've got about three months to think about the things we want to do," he said. "I think the University is poised to achieve greatness. To do that, we have to build a team. I'm very interested in starting off this administration in as transparent a mode as possible."
Schmidly spoke from Oklahoma State, where he is president.
Graduate student Isaac Padilla asked Schmidly what he would do to get more students from UNM to go to graduate school.
Schmidly said he would try to increase the amount of funding for graduate students with stipends and tuition waivers.
He would also encourage faculty to recruit graduate students, he said.
"You need to have rewards in place for faculty who recruit, graduate and place graduate students," he said. "Any great institution is judged in part by the quality of its graduate students."
Schmidly will work closely with student government, he said.
"I've had a wonderful working relationship with the student government at both institutions where I've been president," he said. "I have an open-door policy for student government - anytime they need to see me, they're welcome to come to my office."
He tried to attend one student senate meeting every semester at Oklahoma State and will come to more at UNM if the students want to hear his opinion on an issue, he said.
Schmidly said he will try to increase the diversity of faculty and administration.
He will form an office of campus diversity headed by a vice president, he said.
"I see all this wonderful diversity, particularly in the students," he said. "But I don't see that as much in the faculty and administration. The greatest learning environment you can put a student in, in this modern, global world, is to put them in a diverse environment. That's the best thing you can do for a young person."
Schmidly said it can be difficult to find funding for such programs.
"I have never been to a university with a tree that grows money," he said. "States are under a lot of pressure to fund a lot of things other than higher education, so we're sort of in a zero-sum situation. We have to budget to achieve our priorities."
UNM should also encourage investment in higher education, he said.
"Universities tend to wall themselves off and say, 'We're a university. We're important. You should invest in us,'" he said. "The reality is that we need to convince them that a dollar invested in us is worth it."
One student asked Schmidly if UNM should help immigrants attend school.
"We're all human beings," Schmidly said. "Where you're born is one thing, but if that hurts your ability to get an education, that's another. We should all be able to have a good life."
Schmidly said his main goal at UNM is to increase graduation and retention rates.
"That's what I want to be remembered for," he said. "I hope that's what people talk about years from now when they hear my name."
Schmidly said the webcast will not be the last time students have a chance to talk to him.
"I want this to be just first of many conversations with students," he said. "This is your University, and it's my job to listen to you."
