Welcome back – and for those of you who are new to our community, welcome to the University of New Mexico!  I hope the 2008-2009 academic year represents a time of great achievement for each of us individually, and for the University of New Mexico.

FACULTY SENATE MEETING
I was happy last Wednesday to join members of the Faculty Senate during their Retreat.  I believe the faculty is the very core of this institution, and I was delighted to engage in such a candid and positive discussion of our mutual goals and challenges for the year ahead.

FACULTY TOWN HALL MEETING
As we saw last year, communication is critical if we are to build a mutually productive relationship between the administration and thefaculty, and toward that end, please mark your calendars for a “Faculty Town Hall Meeting” on Tuesday, September 20 at 3 p.m. (we’ll announce the location in my next President’s Message, and we’ll post it on the Web at UNM Today Online (http://unmtoday.unm.edu).

We decided on a free-form “Town Hall” approach this time because we’ll use this opportunity to introduce the faculty to some new faces who will begin their service to the UNM community as members of the Executive Team: our new Provost, Suzanne Ortega; our new Vice President for Enrollment Management, Carmen Alvarez Brown; Jozi de Leon, our new Vice President of Inclusion and Equity; and John Stropp, the new President of the UNM Foundation.

By freeing everyone from the more rigid format of a General Faculty Meeting, we thought the Town Hall meeting would give everyone a better opportunity for a free exchange of observations and views.  If it works, I’d like us to do more such sessions in the months ahead.

THE NCAA AND THE LOBOS
Last week was a sad one for the all of us who love this University and our beloved Lobos.  We were all disappointed by the inexcusable actions of two former assistant football coaches back in 2004 and 2005 who forgot that the most important lesson we teach our student athletes is fair play.

It’s because of our commitment to that mission that we never challenged these charges, and took the additional step of imposing some painful sanctions on ourselves in advance of the NCAA’s decision this week to put the football program on three years’ probation and to reduce by five the number of scholarships we can offer to incoming student-athletes.

I think it’s important that we appreciate the series of tough new academic and administrative reforms our Vice President of Athletics, Paul Krebs, and I established – even before these incidents were brought to our attention – to ensure that we are never again subjected to this kind of embarrassment.

Among other things, athletics is now fully integrated into the academic structure of the University instead of existing in its own orbit: where athletes’ academic advisors once reported to the Athletic Director, they now answer to the Provost.  Instead of enrollment eligibility being a matter largely left to the Athletic Director, now it is the responsibility of the Division of Enrollment Management, with tough new guidelines that will avoid a recurrence of the problems that led to the NCAA’s sanctions.  Importantly too, the “Athletic Director” at UNM is now a Vice President, a member of the cabinet.

I believe these reforms, which we initiated upon my coming here, will go a long way toward helping our student athletes in their most important objective here at UNM – obtaining a solid education that will prepare them for long and productive lives outside the arena.

In the meantime, I ask that our students, alumni and thousands of fans keep in mind that none of our current coaches or athletes was involved in these matters.  As they prepare to take the field less than a week from now, they deserve to know that they have the support of the entire UNM community.  Their success will be a testament to their resilience and determination, and to the strong spirit of this University.

Let’s show our support this Friday by wearing Lobo red, and on Saturday by showing up and giving our team a powerful show of the pride we have for them.

Go Lobos! Have a great week!

David J. Schmidly

Good morning.

After some very healthy University-wide discussion and review, revisions to UNM policies pertaining to the disclosure of public records under the NM Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) have been approved and implemented.  I want to once again thank the Working Group members for your time and thoughtful consideration.  Thanks also to the number of people from several departments who made possible the opt out provision for employees.  That particular process has worked seamlessly and I’m told that as of Friday, nearly 3,600 employees have accessed it.

As the new semester is about to begin, I want to once again encourage staff members who can carve out the time to volunteer for Albuquerque Reads – working with the youngsters just learning to read in local APS schools.  Cathy Britain in my office will be happy to answer your questions about the program.  You can e-mail her at cbritain@unm.edu.

Starting at noon today, our students will start moving into the dorms and residence halls. We welcome you and look forward to seeing you on campus.  Dorm space is in high demand this fall, as our housing folks made clear in several news stories this weekend.  We think one reason is that more students are interested in saving on commute costs.

Just a reminder that we’re starting to implement some Fast Track programs to save energy at UNM this semester.  With one, you can change out the old lamp bulbs in your dorm room or office for free low energy fluorescent bulbs.  Thanks to the Physical Plant Department for spearheading this energy savings program.

University Libraries will have another Fast Track program in place by the start of classes next week – making the collections easier to access and saving you some trips to the library.  With “Library Express” you can make an online request for journal articles and book chapters to be scanned and then downloaded.  It’s an expansion of a service the Library already offers for articles and book chapters from other libraries.  Now it is being expanded to include the UNM collections.  No fee is involved and the service should be in place next week.

With the football season set to begin the end of this month, it was good to hear from Lobo Athletics that more fans and alumni from all over the state will have the chance to tune into the games. The Lobo Sports Radio Network now has ten stations from Hobbs to Gallup, so more than 1.5 million radio listeners will be able to cheer on the Lobos. Let’s give them something to howl about!

Have a good week.

David J. Schmidly

Good morning.

I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who took the time to complete the recent survey in which more than 700 of you told us that you participated in this summer’s Compressed Work Week pilot.  Now that the fall semester is about to start, the pilot will be ending, as scheduled, on August 15, 2008.  As part of the transition to fall semester schedules, the Division of Human Resources will be helping managers promote a variety of flexible work schedules that meet the mission of the University.  Based on what we have learned from the recent pilot and your survey responses, additional tips on how flexible scheduling can meet UNM’s needs will be addressed.  I invite you to look over UNM’s current policy on flexible scheduling at http://www.unm.edu/%7Eubppm/ubppmanual/3300.htm.  And thanks again to all those who participated in the summer compressed work week pilot.

On the heels of that pilot, we look forward to your participation in one or more of the Fast Track Top Ten projects we’re unveiling this fall as part of my Energy and Transportation Initiatives.  Many of you asked that we work with the city on free bus passes for faculty and staff. We’re happy to report those will be available this fall.  Students have enjoyed them for more than a year.  We’ve also listened to those of you who wish to share a UNM parking pass with colleagues who car pool or bike or take the bus. Details on the shared parking pass program are being finalized.

For those of you who bike to work, we’re setting up a secure bike park near Carlisle Gym. Or if you want to take advantage of Albuquerque’s new bike rental program, we’re working with the city to have a couple of bike kiosks located here on campus.

If you drive, having proper tire pressure will save up to 3% on your gasoline bill. Parking and Transportation Services will be setting up the Traveling Tire Pressure Tent, soon to come to your parking lot, where they will make sure your tires are properly inflated. Also, the PATS folks are working on converting one of our older- model buses to run on used vegetable oil.  The Veggie Bus will save fuel and recycle used cooking oil that UNM currently pays to have removed from campus.

Our Lobo Energy initiatives to lower energy consumption around campus will ramp up big time this fall. Meanwhile, students moving into dorms can trade their lamp bulbs for a low energy fluorescent version. And, faculty and staff members who have a desk lamp in their UNM offices can do the same. Finally, the UNM home page will feature a Green Zone where you can find out about these and other energy saving initiatives.  We’ll have more details on the rollout dates for the Fast Track Top Ten in the weeks to come.

The Board of Regents will act tomorrow on my recommendations for revisions to UNM’s open records policy. I know this issue has been of very high interest for many of you, especially when it comes to home and family information.  One of my recommendations provides for an opt out provision for employees who want certain specified home information to remain private.  Should the Regents approve this recommendation without any changes, you will be notified by Wednesday about how to go about signing up for the opt out provision.

Have a good week.

David J. Schmidly

Good morning.

I was pleased this week to learn that for the second year in a row, UNM has been named one of the nation’s best institutions for undergraduate education by The Princeton Review.  Only the top 15 percent of America’s more than 2,500 four-year colleges are included in the Review, and I was especially happy with some of the student comments that are contained in the two-page review of UNM in this year’s edition:

• “UNM offers a strong academic community with all of its many research opportunities [for] a bargain price.”
• “Even if you don’t know what you want, you are bound to find something that you love.”
• “UNM has students from all walks of life”…”With many Hispanic, Native American, Anglo and other students,” UNM is “extremely diverse.”

I was troubled, however, by the assessment of our students in giving low grades to the faculty, particularly for accessibility.  I happen to believe we have an excellent learning environment and a superb faculty, but this is the second time in as many years that students responding to the Princeton Review survey have voiced these concerns.

It’s possible that the small number of students involved may not be statistically reliable (the average sample per school surveyed is just 325 individuals), and we conduct ongoing surveys that we believe better assess our students’ views.  In any event, I know our faculty will be redoubling efforts to make students more aware of the access they provide through office hours, e-mail, and other opportunities for interaction.

For students, more aid is on the way.  All of us should be delighted by last week’s action in Congress reauthorizing the Higher Education Act.  The legislation, which President Bush has promised to sign, will come as a welcome relief to our students by increasing maximum Pell Grant amounts, simplifying financial aid forms and making college more transparent.

Among the changes I’m most happy about:

• Increasing maximum Pell Grant amounts from the current $4,800 to $6,000 in 2009 and $8,000 in 2014
• Keeping tuition low by requiring the U.S. Department of Education to publish data on college costs (UNM continues to be one of America’s best values in higher education)
• Simplifying financial aid forms, cutting the current 8-page form (with 108 questions) down to just 2 pages, with only 44 questions
• Requiring schools to notify students immediately of emergency situations on campus, a reaction to the incidents at Virginia Tech (once again, UNM is ahead of the curve, with notification systems already in place)

Together with the improvements previously enacted to the GI Bill, college students have fared very well in this Congress.

Have a great week!

David J. Schmidly