Good morning.

Congratulations, Students:  It was a privilege to be on hand last week for the annual Student Recognition Ceremony, to meet and greet the scores of outstanding students who have proven to be the best of the best.  We are proud of each and every one of you.  We especially want to recognize the Clauve Outstanding Seniors who have devoted their

collegiate careers to UNM and to service in their communities – Desbah Ahtsoaq Bill Benally, Michaela Brown, Chris Chavez, Joseph Dworak, Ashley Fate, Molly Maguire Marshall and Alex Riebli.

More Student Recognition:  Two teams of UNM engineering students did the University proud in the annual WERC Environmental Design competition – a national challenge for engineering undergrads.  The team of Norma Wells, Shelly Karlin, Toi Carden and Danielle Rivera placed first on their task, which was sulfate removal from groundwater.

UNM’s other team of Cynthia Douthit, Jonathan Paiz, Marta Cooperstein and Anne Hellebust placed second in their task of brackish water treatment.  Great job!  This is a tribute to your hard work.

Up and Coming Students:  Vice President for Enrollment Management Carmen Brown and I paid a visit to Amy Biehl High School, which is located in downtown Albuquerque.  They do impressive work!  The school wants to transform young people from all walks of life into civic-minded college students, and they’re succeeding.  Attrition rates of over 50 percent six years ago have plummeted to 8 percent, while their composite ACT scores have risen from 19.7 to 22.5.  Most

importantly, 98 percent of these students go on to college.  We’ll work hard to recruit them to UNM.

Kirtland Connection:  Last week, I also had the privilege of speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Battlespace Environment Laboratory at Kirtland AFB. Its mission can be summed up in two words –  space weather.  Its work will focus on the mapping and predicting of the space environment in order to protect and enhance our satellite, communication and global positioning systems.  UNM will do its part by preparing the physicists, engineers, chemists, mathematicians, astronomers and other scientists to take on these important tasks.

Communication Meeting:  I want to thank Provost Ortega and her team for organizing last week’s meeting with Deans and department chairs as we go about the business of strengthening our communication and engagement processes.  We all realize the importance of this initiative and will work hard on the follow-up and follow-through.

HACU Meeting:  Toward the end of this week, I’ll be in Guadalajara, Mexico to attend the Joint International Conference of HACU and to chair one of the plenary sessions titled “Financing of Education:  The Role of the State, Fundraising and the Private Sector.”  The finance panel consists of five individuals representing institutions from North, Central and South America.  I’ll look forward to sharing what I learn about this timely topic, as well as information from my other

conference experiences.

Have a good week.

David J. Schmidly

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.