New Mexico's largest universities look to the future and see change
Source: New Mexico Business Weekly - September 29, 2006 - by Haley Wachdorf, NMBW Staff
Of New Mexico's four largest four-year universities, two are searching for new presidents and a third is undergoing changes that have some faculty and staff questioning the direction of the school.
No matter if all that change is good or bad - it's clear these are important days for the state's institutions of higher learning and the high-wage economy the state is trying to build largely with their students.
From the giants,University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University to the smaller New Mexico Highlands University and Eastern New Mexico University, there are leaders to be chosen, and strategies for growth being formed now that many say will dictate who and what the schools will be in 10, 20 and 30 years.
Presidential aspirations
Questions of leadership dominate the stage at UNM and Highlands. Both schools are engaged in presidential searches.
Although UNM dwarfs Highlands in size, the schools are in strikingly similar positions when it comes to their presidential posts. Former State Senator Manny Aragon left Highlands in July, just two years after he took leadership of the school. Louis Caldera, UNM's president of less than three years, resigned in January, saying he and the regents had agreed it was time for him to move on.
Both sets of regents have declared they will put diverse committees to work on the task of finding their next presidents, and both have stated their interest in seeking out women and minority candidates.
Observers and interested parties, of which there are many, say new leaders at both schools will need to understand three things above all else: Academics, money, and politics. And not necessarily in that order.
Who will lead UNM is, obviously, a question of great magnitude. With its 32,000 students and a $1.6-billion annual budget, UNM is the flagship university for the state. Regent Raymond Sanchez, chairman of the committee guiding UNM's selection process, says he thinks taxpayers, the legislature and the governor expect UNM to wisely choose someone who will bring stability to the school's leadership.
Assuming a president is hired in 2007, he or she will be UNM's fourth president since 1998, when President Richard Peck left after eight years. That's a pretty rapid turnover, even in light of the fact that the national average tenure for college presidents is between four and six years.
"We are at the point where we need to quit changing riders," Sanchez says. "We need someone who will sit in the saddle and stabilize and move us forward. I think people are saying 'Please find someone who will be here. Please find somebody who you will not be at loggerheads with.' So in that sense, we are at a turning point."
A 21-member committee was named this month to oversee the search process, and it notably included nine faculty members. Faculty say their 2003 objections to Caldera's candidacy, over his lack of an academic background, went unheeded.
Then there are the politics and the money. Acting UNM President David Harris says those are nothing to sneeze at, especially considering the president will be expected to raise money from the government and the public alike. That will be particularly important at UNM, which plans to enter the public phase of a major capital campaign in the next year.
"I think that the most important two responsibilities the new president has to be able to master are fundraising and relationship-building," Harris says. "Relationship building with the Legislature, the congressional representatives, influential donors, the foundation, and a full variety of constituents. You have to have a lot of knowledge and be able to speak on a variety of topics all day long. If you can't do that, you're going to have a hard time in this job."
But others aren't so sure political savvy is the most important credential for a college president. Highlands Board of Regents President Javier Gonzales says Highlands has learned the hard way that big-name connections and a long history in state government alone do not a university president make. Certainly, Highlands had all of that in Aragon, who was a legend in the New Mexico Senate for nearly 30 years before taking Highland's helm.
Before the time Aragon took office, Highlands announced its mission would be to become the "premiere Hispanic-serving institution in the country." That phrase, Gonzales says, was never meant to exclude non-Hispanics. Highlands is designated as a Hispanic-serving institution by the federal government, and receives federal funds because of that designation. The statement that Highlands would be "the premiere Hispanic-serving institution," was meant to say that out of many schools in that category, Highlands would be the best, Gonzales says. But not everyone took it quite that way.
"Unfortunately, that meaning was lost and took on a whole different meaning, that we were going to be Hispanic only, and that if you weren't Hispanic you didn't have any business here," Gonzales says. "... and Manny (Aragon) certainly did not embark on the effort to try to address the true meaning of that."
Under Aragon, the school's stated mission quickly came to be viewed as a statement of preference for Hispanic faculty and administration. The school was sued by one faculty member and censured by theAmerican Association of University Professors over accusations that it discriminated against non-Hispanic faculty members in denying them tenure.
Gonzales says people shouldn't expect to hear the phrase "premiere Hispanic-serving institution" much any more. It has too much baggage, he says. For now, the focus is on restoring order, finding a president and getting back to the real concerns of the university.
Highlands serves a rural, largely poor and often academically under-prepared population. The school has one of the lower six-year graduation rates among the state's universities. In a state study, only 23 percent of the students tracked, who enrolled in Highlands in 1999, had earned a degree by 2005.
Those numbers need to go up, Gonzales says, and raising them is the slow, unglamorous work Highlands' next president will face.
Highlands plans to name a new president by Jan. 1 and Gonzales is optimistic.
"We will restore the academic reputation of that university and I think when people look at us in the future, they're not going to say 'poor Highlands' any more. They're going to look at us and say 'Wow, that's a great school.' "
One university, but which one?
In Las Cruces, NMSU has a president, but is searching for an identity in the midst of great change. In the two years since Michael Martin, a former vice president at theUniversity of Florida, was hired to run the school, he has said that NMSU will become "One University." It's a phrase he says encompasses his vision that the state's only land grant institution will become more cohesive, focus its research efforts on areas likely to attract research funding and recognition, and use its existing extension service with offices in every New Mexico county to deliver more than just agricultural services.
Martin says it's his attempt to make sure NMSU has new income with which to grow. But some in the system have criticized the university for de-emphasizing the agricultural research it has been known for in favor of more high-profile, money-making ventures, such as the Las Cruces spaceport and nanotechnology. Faculty within the school's agricultural community point to a recent skirmish over the school's plans to place a city convention center on a plat of university-owned farm land. Faculty gathered approximately 900 signatures opposing the plans during the summer, but negotiations between the city and NMSU continue, and the project seems poised to move forward. The land, faculty said, should have been retained for use as an organic produce field, but they claim no input from ag faculty was sought before the matter was nearly concluded.
Charles Martin of the NMSU Sustainable Agriculture Science Center says NMSU is veering away from its mission as a land grant university, and told Martin so in an open letter to the NMSU community.
"Those research areas and economic development areas are well and good, but those can be taken up by other institutions across the state," Charles Martin says. "NMSU is the only university in the state that is assigned the responsibility of agricultural research and extension and, if we turn our back on that, there will be no one else in the state who has the capability and the wherewithal to carry on that mission. ... That shift in attitude has only come about as a result of (Michael) Martin's administration."
Michael Martin is well aware of such complaints, but says he doesn't think they reflect poorly on his leadership.
"I think it reflects that we do have a difference of opinion about where this university has to go," Martin says. "I think that's a legitimate difference of opinion. And in the end, the people who will decide are the regents, not me. We're in a period of great change, and I think that creates angst and tension, and some fear in people that they will somehow be left behind."
NMSU's president says land grant universities are operating in a different world than when they were founded and must find new ways to compete. Martin points to land grant schools such as theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison and Texas A & M University as the kind of schools NMSU needs to emulate, because of their creation of profitable technologies that marry agricultural concerns with breakthroughs in biotechnology and other developing fields.
Small, but growing?
Out on the eastern plains, ENMU faces changes dictated largely by econmic forces. ENMU increased its number of students this fall, but saw, for the first time in four years, a decrease in the number of credit hours students are taking. Eastern's President Steven Gamble attributes this to a healthy economy -- when students are employed, they take fewer classes.
But since state funding is awarded based partially on student credit hours, it's an unsettling trend. Gamble anticipates a further erosion of credit hours during the transition atCannon Air Force Base in nearby Clovis. Cannon was spared from closure recently, but its population will drop temporarily, from about 4,000 on base to about 1,500, as its current fighter pilot group is phased out and a special operations force takes over the base by October of 2007.
Meanwhile, larger trends could also conspire to shrink small schools like ENMU. The number of high school graduates in the state is projected to decline by at least 7 percent in the next 10 years according to several projections, including one prepared in 2003 by theWestern Interstate Commission for Higher Education.
Colleges in the rural parts of the state, such asClovis Community College, are already starting to see declines in enrollment large enough to jeopardize their state funding.
The Higher Education Department of New Mexico plans to ask the legislature to appropriate money to allow institutions with declining enrollments to stay afloat without having to cut faculty this year. In the meantime, the department is pushing to base funding partially on performance instead of entirely on numbers.
That's a change Gamble and other universities welcome. In fact, on the whole, Gamble says he's optimistic, and not just for his school. Change, he says, is good.
"I think our best years in higher education in New Mexico are ahead of us," Gamble says.
Gamble's optimism is shared by many in the university community, who say the state is poised on the edge of great things. Whether they are justified in their sunny outlook is the question that the universities themselves will answer largely in the coming months.
Of New Mexico's four largest four-year universities, two are searching for new presidents and a third is undergoing changes that have some faculty and staff questioning the direction of the school.
No matter if all that change is good or bad - it's clear these are important days for the state's institutions of higher learning and the high-wage economy the state is trying to build largely with their students.
From the giants,
Presidential aspirations
Questions of leadership dominate the stage at UNM and Highlands. Both schools are engaged in presidential searches.
Although UNM dwarfs Highlands in size, the schools are in strikingly similar positions when it comes to their presidential posts. Former State Senator Manny Aragon left Highlands in July, just two years after he took leadership of the school. Louis Caldera, UNM's president of less than three years, resigned in January, saying he and the regents had agreed it was time for him to move on.
Both sets of regents have declared they will put diverse committees to work on the task of finding their next presidents, and both have stated their interest in seeking out women and minority candidates.
Observers and interested parties, of which there are many, say new leaders at both schools will need to understand three things above all else: Academics, money, and politics. And not necessarily in that order.
Who will lead UNM is, obviously, a question of great magnitude. With its 32,000 students and a $1.6-billion annual budget, UNM is the flagship university for the state. Regent Raymond Sanchez, chairman of the committee guiding UNM's selection process, says he thinks taxpayers, the legislature and the governor expect UNM to wisely choose someone who will bring stability to the school's leadership.
Assuming a president is hired in 2007, he or she will be UNM's fourth president since 1998, when President Richard Peck left after eight years. That's a pretty rapid turnover, even in light of the fact that the national average tenure for college presidents is between four and six years.
"We are at the point where we need to quit changing riders," Sanchez says. "We need someone who will sit in the saddle and stabilize and move us forward. I think people are saying 'Please find someone who will be here. Please find somebody who you will not be at loggerheads with.' So in that sense, we are at a turning point."
A 21-member committee was named this month to oversee the search process, and it notably included nine faculty members. Faculty say their 2003 objections to Caldera's candidacy, over his lack of an academic background, went unheeded.
Then there are the politics and the money. Acting UNM President David Harris says those are nothing to sneeze at, especially considering the president will be expected to raise money from the government and the public alike. That will be particularly important at UNM, which plans to enter the public phase of a major capital campaign in the next year.
"I think that the most important two responsibilities the new president has to be able to master are fundraising and relationship-building," Harris says. "Relationship building with the Legislature, the congressional representatives, influential donors, the foundation, and a full variety of constituents. You have to have a lot of knowledge and be able to speak on a variety of topics all day long. If you can't do that, you're going to have a hard time in this job."
But others aren't so sure political savvy is the most important credential for a college president. Highlands Board of Regents President Javier Gonzales says Highlands has learned the hard way that big-name connections and a long history in state government alone do not a university president make. Certainly, Highlands had all of that in Aragon, who was a legend in the New Mexico Senate for nearly 30 years before taking Highland's helm.
Before the time Aragon took office, Highlands announced its mission would be to become the "premiere Hispanic-serving institution in the country." That phrase, Gonzales says, was never meant to exclude non-Hispanics. Highlands is designated as a Hispanic-serving institution by the federal government, and receives federal funds because of that designation. The statement that Highlands would be "the premiere Hispanic-serving institution," was meant to say that out of many schools in that category, Highlands would be the best, Gonzales says. But not everyone took it quite that way.
"Unfortunately, that meaning was lost and took on a whole different meaning, that we were going to be Hispanic only, and that if you weren't Hispanic you didn't have any business here," Gonzales says. "... and Manny (Aragon) certainly did not embark on the effort to try to address the true meaning of that."
Under Aragon, the school's stated mission quickly came to be viewed as a statement of preference for Hispanic faculty and administration. The school was sued by one faculty member and censured by the
Gonzales says people shouldn't expect to hear the phrase "premiere Hispanic-serving institution" much any more. It has too much baggage, he says. For now, the focus is on restoring order, finding a president and getting back to the real concerns of the university.
Highlands serves a rural, largely poor and often academically under-prepared population. The school has one of the lower six-year graduation rates among the state's universities. In a state study, only 23 percent of the students tracked, who enrolled in Highlands in 1999, had earned a degree by 2005.
Those numbers need to go up, Gonzales says, and raising them is the slow, unglamorous work Highlands' next president will face.
Highlands plans to name a new president by Jan. 1 and Gonzales is optimistic.
"We will restore the academic reputation of that university and I think when people look at us in the future, they're not going to say 'poor Highlands' any more. They're going to look at us and say 'Wow, that's a great school.' "
One university, but which one?
In Las Cruces, NMSU has a president, but is searching for an identity in the midst of great change. In the two years since Michael Martin, a former vice president at the
Martin says it's his attempt to make sure NMSU has new income with which to grow. But some in the system have criticized the university for de-emphasizing the agricultural research it has been known for in favor of more high-profile, money-making ventures, such as the Las Cruces spaceport and nanotechnology. Faculty within the school's agricultural community point to a recent skirmish over the school's plans to place a city convention center on a plat of university-owned farm land. Faculty gathered approximately 900 signatures opposing the plans during the summer, but negotiations between the city and NMSU continue, and the project seems poised to move forward. The land, faculty said, should have been retained for use as an organic produce field, but they claim no input from ag faculty was sought before the matter was nearly concluded.
Charles Martin of the NMSU Sustainable Agriculture Science Center says NMSU is veering away from its mission as a land grant university, and told Martin so in an open letter to the NMSU community.
"Those research areas and economic development areas are well and good, but those can be taken up by other institutions across the state," Charles Martin says. "NMSU is the only university in the state that is assigned the responsibility of agricultural research and extension and, if we turn our back on that, there will be no one else in the state who has the capability and the wherewithal to carry on that mission. ... That shift in attitude has only come about as a result of (Michael) Martin's administration."
Michael Martin is well aware of such complaints, but says he doesn't think they reflect poorly on his leadership.
"I think it reflects that we do have a difference of opinion about where this university has to go," Martin says. "I think that's a legitimate difference of opinion. And in the end, the people who will decide are the regents, not me. We're in a period of great change, and I think that creates angst and tension, and some fear in people that they will somehow be left behind."
NMSU's president says land grant universities are operating in a different world than when they were founded and must find new ways to compete. Martin points to land grant schools such as the
Small, but growing?
Out on the eastern plains, ENMU faces changes dictated largely by econmic forces. ENMU increased its number of students this fall, but saw, for the first time in four years, a decrease in the number of credit hours students are taking. Eastern's President Steven Gamble attributes this to a healthy economy -- when students are employed, they take fewer classes.
But since state funding is awarded based partially on student credit hours, it's an unsettling trend. Gamble anticipates a further erosion of credit hours during the transition at
Meanwhile, larger trends could also conspire to shrink small schools like ENMU. The number of high school graduates in the state is projected to decline by at least 7 percent in the next 10 years according to several projections, including one prepared in 2003 by the
Colleges in the rural parts of the state, such as
The Higher Education Department of New Mexico plans to ask the legislature to appropriate money to allow institutions with declining enrollments to stay afloat without having to cut faculty this year. In the meantime, the department is pushing to base funding partially on performance instead of entirely on numbers.
That's a change Gamble and other universities welcome. In fact, on the whole, Gamble says he's optimistic, and not just for his school. Change, he says, is good.
"I think our best years in higher education in New Mexico are ahead of us," Gamble says.
Gamble's optimism is shared by many in the university community, who say the state is poised on the edge of great things. Whether they are justified in their sunny outlook is the question that the universities themselves will answer largely in the coming months.
posted by NMSU Green at 7:59 PM
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