Good morning.

We are halfway through a challenging legislative session and thanks to a team effort that has included the entire UNM community, we can report some positive news.

While nothing is final yet, we’re making progress in restoring some of the funding that was reduced in the recommendations of the Legislative Finance Committee.

So far, I’m enthusiastic about reinstatement of full funding for our ethnic student service centers and for graduate research development. I’m pleased with the efforts of our UNM team on these priority items and especially with the responses of our Legislators to our arguments.

Altogether, we’ve so far managed to restore approximately $1.1 million in existing special project line items for student success and scholarship programs. We’ve also received another $200,000 for our BA/MD program.

Obviously, nothing is finished until the Governor signs the budget, and our economic situation is very much a moving target.

Nevertheless, thanks to the diligent work of our legislative team and our campus-wide effort, we’re seeing some light at the end of the budget tunnel in Santa Fe.

As of this writing, State Representatives are making progress in wrapping up House Bill 2, (the general appropriations act that funds state government, public education and higher education) and it has been a difficult effort for all involved.

The most recent revenue projections predict a worsening shortfall for next year (FY 2010), from $150 million to $283 million, so by no means are we out of the woods just yet. It’s more important than ever that we redouble our efforts, work together and provide a united front in Santa Fe.

I want to thank those members of the faculty who joined me and Dr. Breda Bova, my chief of staff, last Monday to share their observations and insights about how I could better serve the University community. I learned a lot from our informal give-and-take, which I believed was as informative as it was overdue. I also want to thank Dr. Bova for setting up the session, and hope the other participants found it to be as beneficial as I did.

I will redouble my efforts to conduct more listening sessions like this. As our University’s great friend Thelma Domenici has observed, we’ve had too much talking at UNM and not enough listening.

Let me extend my thanks to Dr. Juan de Dios Pineda from our Special Office for Latin American Initiatives for his highly effective and professional efforts in setting up UNM’s new relationship with former Mexican President Vicente Fox. Because of his efforts and those of Vice President Cheo Torres, UNM students will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study at the President’s newly-established “Centro Fox,” the first Presidential Library in Latin America and a center for the promotion of democracy in Mexico.

IN MEMORIAM. The University community suffered three great losses on Valentine’s Day, with the untimely deaths of associate university counsel Patty Blueitt, Maddie Vallejos, the wife of longtime staff member Chris Vallejos, and Patty Jennings, wife of State Senator Tim Jennings, who worked tirelessly with us on breast cancer and other health care issues. Our Provost, Dr. Suzanne Ortega, also lost her father very recently. Our thoughts and prayers go to all of them and their families. Please note that Patty Blueitt’s memorial service will take place this Thursday afternoon at the Alumni Chapel.

David J. Schmidly

Good morning.

A couple of weeks ago, we knew we were close and now it has come to pass: the University of New Mexico has raised $1 million for United Way!

Few believed we could do it, especially once the economy took a downward spiral, but the strength, kindness and generosity of the human spirit prevailed. The UNM community has set a new standard for giving, and each generous contributor can be proud.

Special thanks go to the organizers of this year’s campaign – co-chairs Paul Krebs, Martha Bedard and Valerie Romero-Leggott – along with Connie Beimer, Marla Wood, Cheryl Willman and the entire committee who worked so tirelessly and relentlessly to reach this goal. Thanks also
to the countless volunteers and participants across campus who made our United Way campaign such a success.

On the subject of giving back to the community, the deadline for nominations for the Sarah Belle Brown Community Service Awards has been extended until March 2. The awards are given by the Committee for Public Service and Community Engagement and the Department of Human Resources.

The annual awards, established by former UNM Regent Doug Brown in honor of his wife, Sarah Belle Brown, recognize staff, students and faculty who serve as examples of social responsiveness and who have, over time, donated considerable personal time and effort toward advancing UNM’s public service mission. For full details on the criteria and eligibility and to see the nomination forms visit: http://hr.unm.edu/events/SBBawardinfo.php.

Please join me in congratulating the new Dean of the Anderson School of Management, Doug Brown. He brings extraordinary talents and insights to the job, and it’s great to have him back in the UNM family. I know I speak for everyone in commending Amy Wohlert for her superb work as interim dean. We have been and continue to be blessed by her service.

I traveled Friday to Cristobal, Mexico, where Vice President Cheo Torres and I met for the second time with former President Vicente Fox – a remarkable man with a vision of economic, cultural and humanitarian partnership between the United States and Mexico.

Our two meetings – orchestrated by Torres and his dedicated staff, culminate in a historic new agreement that allows UNM graduate students, faculty and researchers to participate in collaborative cultural, educational and research exchanges with scholars at Fox’s newly established Centro Fox. This will also lead to creating a UNM “Vicente Fox Chair in Democracy and Development for Latin America.”

President Fox has kindly agreed to serve as UNM’s Spring Commencement speaker, and I’m happy to report that he will return to UNM in September for a weeklong series of lectures, roundtable discussions and meetings with faculty, students and alumni.

Have a good week.
David J. Schmidly

I wanted to write to provide you some additional direction on our Voluntary Furlough Program.

As you may have read over the weekend or in my Monday Morning Message today, we are instituting a purely voluntary Furlough Program as an additional cost-saving measure.

With UNM facing a potential $12 million in budget reductions next year, I believe we must do all we can to focus on the things that matter most – preparing New Mexico’s young people for good-paying jobs, giving world-class care to our patients and continuing our important research.

The Voluntary Furlough Program is one more element in our effort to save costs.

The most important thing to remember is that the program is completely voluntary.  No member of the faculty or staff is required to take part, whatsoever.

This is purely for those employees who choose to participate: perhaps a faculty member who wants time to finish an article or book, or a staff member who needs to spend more time with family and loved ones.

If you’re interested, contact your immediate Supervisor and Department Director, who will ensure that your proposed furlough won’t adversely affect the performance of your unit or put an undue burden on your co-workers.

I’ve decided to take the lead on this.  I’ll be without pay for 15 days, or 3 business weeks.  It works out to a salary reduction of just under 6 percent.

I’m hopeful others across the University community will join me.  The steps we’ve already taken – the harvesting of unspent and uncommitted fund balances; the pause in hiring, promotions and pay hikes; the overall reductions in administrative spending; and the freezes in executive compensation – have kept us from having to take the steps that many of our peer institutions have been forced into.

We made some tough and unpopular choices, but we’ve been able to avoid the mandatory furloughs that have literally shut down learning for days and weeks at a time at public Universities across the country and right here in the southwest.

Let’s always remember that our greatest priorities are teaching the young people of New Mexico, treating the patients who depend on us and conducting the research that’ll keep our state on the cutting edge.

Good Morning,

We’re testing sirens today. In case you haven’t heard or read about it in the media or seen it on the University website or on fliers around campus, there will be a test of UNM’s emergency siren system this morning at 11:02 a.m. In addition to text, web and email alerts, this is another tool we can use to warn people about emergencies on campus and what action they should take. Sirens will be especially helpful for the hundreds of school children, visitors and vendors who come to campus daily and who do not have access to our other emergency notifications. We’re responsible for their safety too.

This spring’s budget process is evolving from what you’ve been used to  over the past five years.  Rather than a Budget Summit, during which UNM constituencies considered the budget as a whole, the Regents want to look at and discuss a more detailed breakdown of spending proposals by operating unit. They believe, and we agree, that since UNM will likely face budget reductions, it is a time when we have to carefully consider all of our spending decisions. A list of budget guidelines should be available for you in the next couple of days.

Meanwhile, as projections for the FY 2010 budget remain grim, we will be unveiling the next steps the University will take to meet potential reductions while preserving our core academic and research missions.  Among these steps are a voluntary furlough program and also a cap on the amount of state funds that go to pay my salary and that of the Executive Vice President for Administration. We’ll be sharing these and other guidelines with you shortly.

By now many of you will know about the “First Year Reading Initiative” that’s being developed for  UNM’s Fall 2009 freshman class. We’re going to be selecting a book for recommended summer reading by our new students, and organizing discussions, lectures, and other programming around it for orientation and for the early weeks of the semester. All of you will also have a chance to participate in one way or another.

A number of our flagship peers have similar programs in place and speak highly of the impact they’ve made on their campuses. I want to applaud Provost Ortega for bringing it here, and reminding us that we can always be thinking of ways to improve the quality of our educational programming, regardless of the other challenges we face.

Last Friday, a number of us from UNM joined city leaders from Rio Rancho for the groundbreaking of the first building of UNM’s campus there next to the City Center. Rio Rancho residents have been waiting a long time for what this event promises for their city. They’ve overwhelmingly supported higher education by voting for tax increases and bonds that will help fund our presence there, and now they see it’s happening. Special acknowledgment goes to the UNM Regents and to state officials who made possible our locating a campus there and to Mayor Swisstack and the Rio Rancho leadership for keeping their vision of higher education alive and thriving.

Have a good week,

David J. Schmidly

I had hoped to begin this week by celebrating the fact that despite the recession, your generosity has put our UNM United Way campaign within $25,000 of its unprecedented (and some believed unattainable) goal of $1 million.

I wanted to discuss the fact that today is UNM Day at the Roundhouse – and urge you to join us to remind our Legislature of the importance of UNM to our students, our patients and the economy of this state.

However, in light of the petition last week by a small minority of the faculty alleging a “crisis of confidence,” I will instead address the charges in that petition. This University has too much at stake right now for the widening of divisions that might be caused by delay.

Regarding Administrative Growth:
In terms of the administrative changes at UNM, I have done exactly what I promised to do.

The entire substance of my agreement with the Regents has been based upon clearly-articulated performance objectives and publicly-available routine progress reports, which are posted online at Office of the President.

At every public forum before my selection, I promised to elevate four positions to Cabinet level: Diversity, Enrollment Management, Athletics and Rio Rancho Operations/Branch Campuses. Let me restate the reasons I gave, and the accomplishments we’ve achieved together since then:

Diversity:
At each of those public forums, I was told that our student population was not being reflected in the faculty or the administration, and that women in particular were virtually absent from the ranks of University senior leadership. Pledging to reverse that situation, I’ve since been privileged to hire five executive administrators, four women, two Hispanic. We’ve also expanded our recruitment of minority students, and I’m especially proud that the number of National Hispanic Scholars has more than doubled during my tenure.

Enrollment Management:
One of the biggest problems we faced when I arrived here was stagnant enrollment, which is still costing us greatly in terms of state funding formulas. By elevating Enrollment Management to a Vice Presidency and beginning the consolidation of Admissions, Financial Aid and Registration, we’re now reaching out more effectively to the most promising prospects and giving them better service.

As of this writing, new graduate student enrollments are up 25.76% this spring (the highest number of new graduate enrollments at UNM in four years), and new graduate student applications are up 53%. Freshman applications for the spring, 2009 semester were up 59% over the year before and our freshman class last semester was the biggest ever, a 10% increase over the previous year. The number of National Merit Scholars increased almost threefold and our National Hispanic Scholars more than doubled since we formed the Division. The number of National Scholars applying to UNM has likewise gone from 40 last year to more than 100 as of today.

Athletics:
Athletics should be an integral part of the University, not a self-governing entity off to itself. By elevating the Athletic Director to Cabinet-level status, athletics is now involved in every University decision that bears on its mission. By making athletics academic advisors directly responsible to the Provost (rather than the Athletics Director, as used to be the case), we are better meeting the educational needs of our student athletes.

Rio Rancho Operations and Branch Campuses:
We have an obligation to better serve the needs of both our four branch campuses and the fast-growing communities to our north, where our efforts (now moving forward under the supervision of the Vice President of Rio Rancho Operations) have been overwhelmingly supported by local taxpayers who last year voted increases in the Gross Receipts Tax and supported local bonds to fund UNM’s expansion. I’m also pleased to report growth at each of our existing branch campuses.

UNM Spends Less on Administrative Costs than our Peers, With Administrative Pay Below Market:
For 35 years now, I’ve been a faculty member, an administrator and President of three universities, and let me be clear: nobody wants needless or excessive administrative costs. Every rational educator knows that our prime responsibilities are teaching and research.

That’s why I supported the faculty’s request last year for a comprehensive review of main campus executive salaries, and took the additional step of resolving to update the study annually. The Comprehensive Review report was the work of a joint committee comprised of faculty members and University Human Resources staff, and is available on our website at Comprehensive Review.

Comparing UNM’s upper administration to those of our peer institutions, the joint faculty-staff Comprehensive Review confirmed that UNM’s upper
administrators – just like our faculty and staff generally – are paid at or below market, and that UNM devotes a smaller percentage of its expenditures to administration than do our peers, with a greater percentage of our expenditures going toward our core missions.

In addition, the Comprehensive Review by faculty and Human Resources found that:

• While UNM upper administration has grown since 2002, its growth was largely the result of changes in the leadership model and administrative consolidation over the past five years, during the tenures of three different UNM Presidents.
• While it’s true that compensation for upper administration positions above the level of Dean increased 42.1% between 2002 and 2007, management responsibilities grew even faster during this period, as operational revenues increased by 60.1%, from $1.2 to $2 billion (published reports claiming a 71% increase in compensation for these positions were factually inaccurate).

Fiscal Responsibility and “harvesting”:
Since the current financial crisis began to unfold, I have been sharply criticized for my decision to revert, or “harvest,” remaining fund balances and to impose a pause on hiring, pay raises and promotions.

These were difficult decisions, especially so since we had previously reserved more than $1 million in I&G College Fund balances for additional faculty and graduate fellowships. They were necessary, however, so we could meet the contingency of a mid-year budget rescission by the Legislature.

Now, as we begin to see the outlines of the state’s Solvency Plan, it’s becoming apparent that those sacrifices were amply justified: they appear to have helped us avoid the much more painful outcomes that our counterparts have had to undergo. At Arizona State and other public universities, for instance, employees are being forced to take non-paid furloughs.

Most importantly, we’ve so far managed to avoid the layoff or furlough of even a single one of our 22,000 employees. In fact, the one University office that sustained the greatest reduction in spending was my own.

Change in Focus:
Nevertheless, with resources in decline, we must do all we can to concentrate on the things that matter most – teaching and research.

Consequently, last week I directed a 15% reduction in non-academic main campus administrative spending, together with the hiring of 10 additional full-time tenure-track faculty over the next 3 years.

At the same time, we placed an immediate and indefinite freeze of all increases in compensation for me, the 3 Executive Vice Presidents and all main campus Vice Presidents, together with a suspension through FY 2010 of compensation increases for main campus non-academic administrators earning more than $125,000 annually.

We’re also in the process of developing a comprehensive university policy on deferred compensation, which we will submit to the Board of Regents at their regular April meeting.

Improvements in Research Administration:
My larger point is this: whenever issues have been addressed to me, I’ve been diligent in getting to the truth, transparent in making the facts known, and quick to implement the needed reforms.

One example is the reform of Research Administration following criticisms by the Research Study Group and the Executive Research Advisory Committee (ERAC).

Thanks to the dedication and boldness of Dr. Julia Fulghum and her team, Research is successfully managing its deficit. It has doubled the number of staff in Sponsored Projects Services, placed grants experts directly within the colleges and schools to better facilitate the preparation and submission of proposals and worked closely with Business and Finance to streamline purchasing.

Responsiveness and Transparency:
In each of my dealings with UNM faculty, staff, students and alumni and the outside community at large, I’ve done my best to be forthright, even when I knew my message would be unpopular. I’ve tried to make myself accessible, reaching out to the University community frequently, using every means I could think of.

There’s no doubt I’ve made misjudgments. Mistakes are inevitable, and the only shame is failing to own up to them: I’ve always tried to acknowledge and correct the ones I’ve made.

Now is the time for unity and Stability of Leadership:
I know that the current economic crisis has made all of us anxious and fearful, but I call to mind the words of Abraham Lincoln: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

When I was first approached about serving at UNM, I was told I would be the sixth President of this University in the previous 10 years – the highest turnover of Presidents at any of the flagship universities. We aren’t doing our students or ourselves any good with a revolving door at the President’s office. Without consistency and stability, there can be no direction or leadership.

In the midst of a deep recession, with the Legislature trying even now to close a half-billion-dollar budget shortfall and Congress considering unprecedented commitments to higher education, this is no time for the UNM community to be a house divided against itself. Instead, we should be pulling together, as one, to remind the Legislature of UNM’s importance and to urge Congress to move forward with aid to higher education as part of the Fiscal Stimulus.

Already, the Legislative Finance Committee has recommended reductions in Higher Education funding of $20.1 million. What troubles me most is that while UNM represents only 37% of higher education spending, we’re being asked to shoulder 47% of the cuts. It’s a distribution that I don’t believe is fair. I’m also concerned about Special Projects funding for our ethnic student service centers, which fulfill a vitally important role in helping minority students reach their full potential.

As I said when I took office, a University should never be a quiet place: it should be alive with the free expression of bold ideas and views strongly held. It should, however, be a considerate place, where civilized men and women are always willing to listen to one another in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

So, for the good of our entire University community and in the interests of the students and taxpayers we serve, let’s reject the shouting, the sneers and the jeers, and instead join together, as reasonable men and women, to dedicate ourselves to our real mission – teaching our students, healing our patients and conducting the important research that will alleviate suffering and expand man’s knowledge.

David J. Schmidly