UNM Interim Provost Chaouki Abdallah said that while the University has a long-term real estate Master Plan, the University has lacked a long-term plan for academics until now.
“This is not something that the administration is doing,” he said. “This is something that I asked for, for a variety of reasons.”
Abdallah said a key question facing UNM is whether to raise the bar on entrance standards and specialize in a select number of academic programs, or open the University’s doors to even more students.
“The intent of this is to first answer the question, as a University, ‘what is our academic mission?’ ” he said. “Are we the University of New Mexico? Are we a university that happens to be in New Mexico? Are we a university that’s going to have open access, or be more selective and strive for excellence in fewer programs? Before we decide anything we need to answer the question of our identity first.”
Abdallah said UNM faces a future in which state support for higher education is decreasing while tuition costs are rising. He said one of his short-term goals is to eliminate the state’s tuition credit.
Abdallah said planning meetings for the academic plan are in early stages, but the UNM community will have the opportunity to weigh in on the plan in an electronic forum. He said the community’s response will help determine the allocation of resources for years to come, and could even eliminate existing programs at UNM that aren’t part of its core mission.
“Let’s say we decide we’re going to be a high-level research university with excellent undergraduate teaching, multi-discipline programs — we can put a price tag on it,” he said. “We can say ‘this is what it’s going to take, here’s how many faculty we should have, here’s how many students we should have per class.’ Those are the things the academic plan will start to ask and answer.”
Honors College
Abdallah said he would like to see the Honors department become a full-fledged college at UNM, but he is waiting for a final report from the group in charge of the decision.
“Personally, as a faculty (member) … I think this will allow us to provide a very nice opportunity for students from New Mexico who otherwise might not consider UNM and attract students from outside,” he said. “I think it would be a good place to have challenging and experimental type instructions that we would not have in a regular college.”
The Presidential Search
Abdallah said as the search for UNM’s next president reaches its final stages he will, above all else, be looking for candidates with strong moral character.
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“What do you believe in?” he said. “What are your academic values?
Do you believe UNM should be a flagship university? Will you fight for the academic side of the mission of the university? Are you pro-students, pro-big research? Those are value questions.”
Abdallah said examining who each candidate has hired and how he or she has interacted with the community at the university he or she currently serves will provide clues about how they will fit in at UNM.
“I’m very interested in seeing how they operate in an environment with regents and the community,” he said. “Are they fundraisers? Are they hands-on, do they get involved in the gritty details? Do they delegate?”
