President Schmidly announced today the creation of a team of advisers who aim to help the administration consolidate its budget during times of economic hardship.
The “President’s Strategic Advisory Team” will be made up of unpaid students, staff and faculty. Schmidly said he’s drawing on input from the entire campus community on how to help “contain costs.”
“Cost containment is one of the biggest issues in higher education in the country,” he said. “Budgets almost everywhere are in jeopardy. We’re all having to work with less and we can’t pass the cost onto our students, and yet we’re in a time when getting a college education is more important than ever in terms of strengthening the country. What we’re talking about here is containing our cost(s) to operate the institution and maximizing our ability to invest in classrooms and in faculty.”
Schmidly said the Board of Regents asked him to come up with a plan that would “reduce expenses and protect the mission of the institution,” and he said the group of advisers is a part of that. He’ll announce the list of nominations to the team sometime this week.
“I don’t want the group to be so big that it can’t function efficiently, so I’ve got to look at trying to keep the number down to the 15 to 20 range,” Schmidly said. “There is a lot of talent on this campus. That’s the encouraging thing to me.”
Faculty Senate President Doug Fields said Schmidly proposed the idea of an advisory board at a meeting of the Faculty Senate Operations Committee on Friday. He said Schmidly’s proposed team consisted of 11 administrators, two deans, a non-administrative faculty member and another two slots for faculty.
Fields said he and Richard Wood, faculty senate president-elect, offered a counter-proposal that reduced the number of administrators in the team and dictated that the team report to both Fields and Schmidly.
“This proposal was presented to President Schmidly today (Monday). President Schmidly rejected this proposal, and wanted to keep the task force solely as an advisory body to the president,” Fields said in an e-mail.
Fields said Schmidly’s insistence that the task force report only to him is another example of administrative reluctance in allowing faculty a role in University governance.
“Faculty Senate will, as always consider any and all proposals coming from the president’s office to make the University of New Mexico more efficient and focused on its core mission,” Fields said. “However, in my opinion, the process proposed by President Schmidly typifies his demonstrated abhorrence of shared governance, and it is unfortunate that President Schmidly and this administration has squandered an opportunity to work together to better the university.”
Schmidly sent an e-mail to the UNM community Feb. 4 after the reappointment of Regents Jamie Koch, Gene Gallegos and Emily “Cate” Wisdom to the Board of Regents, which drew the ire of some faculty and staff members, especially with regard to Koch.
The UNM faculty voted no confidence in Koch almost a year ago and discouraged legislators from reappointing him. However, Schmidly’s e-mail encouraged UNM faculty, students and staff to set their sights on the future.
“We have been chastised for low graduation rates and questioned about our allocation of resources. We have been criticized for the size of our administration, challenged about our teaching loads and called to question over our governance practices,” Schmidly said in the e-mail. “Taken individually, these challenges are difficult, yet manageable. Taken all at once and we find the very ground upon which we are standing no longer feels secure.”
In his Monday-Morning Message on Feb. 8, Schmidly referenced this e-mail when announcing the advent of advisement team.
“Last Thursday, I delivered an open message to the UNM community about recent events, present challenges and future aspirations,” Schmidly said in the message. “Since then, my office has received some positive feedback, which I appreciate. However, the time is now to move from words to action.”
GPSA President Lissa Knudsen said while Schmidly is taking a step in the right direction by allowing students, staff and faculty — as well as administrators — into this team, she’s skeptical about the team playing a substantial role in University governance.
“I don’t know how this is going to affect the UNM community as a whole,” she said. “I have some concerns about the proposal that he has made so far. At this point, we don’t know who will be on the team. If it’s just those that have been receptive to the president’s message, then there is probably going to be a problem.”
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As the group of advisers would be volunteering its time, Schmidly said the University will reap benefits at no cost.
“A lot of places are going outside and hiring expensive consultants to do this work, and I think we’re fortunate at the University of New Mexico that we have a lot of talented people, and we’re not going to have to go outside the University and spend a lot of money to get this done,” he said.
Schmidly said a community college in Phoenix spent as much as $1.4 million to hire a team of consultants.
