by Richard M. Berthold Daily Lobo columnist There are a number of institutions and organizations at UNM, the nature of which you might think you understand. But after 31 years on the faculty, I can assure you that in the Alice in Wonderland world of the American university, not all is what it seems.
by Richard M. Berthold Daily Lobo columnist I have remained out of the ongoing debate on evolution versus intelligent design, because it is simply silly. As Thomas Aquinas discovered, reason and faith are separate orders of truth, and ultimately, neither can budge the other.
Reading all the recent reports concerning incompetence and seeming criminality in the administration, you may have noticed President David Schmidly and other administrators sound hauntingly like attorneys, politicians or government spokespeople. And indeed they do, because like these other groups, they often need to avoid speaking the truth because it might be embarrassing, yet for a variety of reasons are loathe - unlike the White House - to tell outright lies.
by Richard M. Berthold Daily Lobo columnist While politicians of all stripes condemned them, President Lee Bollinger and Columbia University struck a blow to free speech by inviting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the bizarre president of Iran, to speak on their campus.
by Richard M. Berthold Daily Lobo columnist I recently did something I expect few others have: I read President David Schmidly's "A New President's Vision," his set of goals for the University. Such documents, which are apparently designed to demonstrate that the University has that vision thing, are regularly issued by UNM presidents and regents and, apart from creating new administrative structures, rarely result in anything.
With the passage of time, large organizations, whether public or private, inevitably become more bureaucratic and administratively top-heavy, and the University is certainly no exception. Further, and hardly surprising, compensation grows far more rapidly among those at the top, particularly in academics, where generally cowardly faculty are disinclined to seriously challenge the powers that be.
This column is addressed to all the new students at UNM, who surely received a rosy picture of the University during orientation.
Solutions by The State News
