Graduate and professional students will have winter break to consider their level of confidence in Athletics Director Paul Krebs and whether they want their student fees to support the Athletics Department.
After nearly four hours of deliberation Saturday, the GPSA decided to place four items on the ballot for a vote in a special election that will be held online next semester.
Nick Geyer, a graduate student in the sports administration program and an athlete on UNM’s golf team, said GPSA will overstep its bounds in holding a special election.
“You aren’t listening to a major section of your constituency,” he said to GPSA members. “If you had bothered to be democratic, you would know that your constituents, or a large portion of your constituents, think the things you’re voting on today are ridiculous.”
Desi Brown, a GPSA council representative, said he sent e-mails to graduate students he represents asking for feedback on the proposed election and received nothing but encouragement. Several other council representatives said they posed similar questions to their constituents and got positive feedback.
GPSA President Lissa Knudsen said that while much of the discussion thus far has centered around GPSA members and their opinions of the Athletics administration, the election is designed to let the graduate and professional student body have a voice in the situation.
“Remember that the issue here is to let graduate students vote on this,” she said. “If, in fact, we know that the students will overwhelmingly not vote for this, that they support athletics and they want our money to go there, then that’s how they will vote.”
The four items on the ballot are two questions about Krebs, one about student fee allocation to the Athletics Department and one about an independent investigation into the Sept. 20 altercation between head football coach Mike Locksley and assistant coach J.B. Gerald.
GPSA Council Chair Danny Hernandez said the election will take place Jan. 26, 2010 at the earliest.
The no-confidence vote in Krebs is now split into two parts: one gauging confidence in Krebs’ handling of the Sept. 20 altercation and one gauging confidence in Krebs’ leadership throughout his career.
The GPSA made the distinction to allow students to express no confidence in Krebs’ handling of the incident without discrediting the administrator’s overall performance as athletics director.
The latter resolution passed by a narrow margin, with 10 representatives in favor, eight against and two abstaining.
Graduate and professional students can also vote on whether $1.5 million of student fees should continue to be allocated to the Athletics Department.
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Lee Peifer, deputy University counsel, agreed that a discussion about student fees going to Athletics is appropriate, but he encouraged GPSA members to be careful about what he considered to be personal attacks against two UNM administrators, including Krebs and Vice President of Human Resources Helen Gonzales.
“What I think is neither necessary nor appropriate nor helpful is that that (Athletics) conversation is embedded in the agenda with proposed votes of no-confidence in two career professionals at the University,” he said. “I suggest that you have the responsibility … to refrain from forwarding that agenda by attacking the reputations and careers of other people just because the current media climate makes that easy to do.”
Graduate and professional students will also be able to vote to request an independent investigation of the matter involving Locksley.
However, GPSA decided not to question graduate students’ confidence in Gonzales, because several council representatives said they weren’t convinced Gonzales was guilty of any wrongdoing in the subsequent investigation.
Sid Solano, a GPSA council representative, said Peifer’s address before the meeting swayed his opinion of Gonzales and her role in the, as UNM President David Schmidly put it, “bungling” of the investigation into the Gerald incident.
Assigned as a legal adviser to HR, Peifer said he and Gonzales assumed the task of prescribing disciplinary action against Locksley.
“Helen Gonzales, who has been at the University for 15 years … has no connection with the Athletics Department, but for the fact that the Athletics Department has employees who are subject to the University’s personnel system,” he said. “The penalty that was imposed was precisely the penalty that was proposed by this body, which was a suspension of Coach Locksley.”
At a meeting in October, the GPSA passed a resolution proposing Locksley be suspended for one game and be required to attend anger management classes.
