I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
By a 31-5 vote, Jamie Koch survived a bruising debate in the state Senate Monday to win another term on the University of New Mexico Board of Regents.
But the lopsided vote belied the strong opposition presented from faculty and student representatives, as well as some state lawmakers.
Opponents in a Senate committee hearing held early Monday, and later on the Senate floor, complained that the university had become politicized during Koch’s tenure as president of UNM board of regents and that top administrators’ pay had skyrocketed compared to spending on some student-focused programs.
They also lamented the university’s 44 percent graduation rate and pointed to the falling faculty-to-student ratio at UNM. The teacher-student ratio has fallen from around 15 to 1 in 1998 to 21 to 1 in 2008.
“Through faculty senate votes [and] student association votes, the overwhelming view of those not in power … is there is a real problem [with] how much administration is spending on the most bloated senior management,” Sen. Eric Griego, D-Albuquerque, said on the floor Monday. “It’s unconscionable. We shouldn’t give anyone a pass.”
The vote on Koch’s nomination presented another front in a longstanding war between faculty and the UNM administration and its board of regents. UNM faculty overwhelmingly cast a no-confidence vote in UNM’s top leadership last February, saying the university was being run like a “political patronage machine.” The vote against Koch was 482-7.
Koch resigned as president of the UNM board of regents following the faculty vote of no confidence. But he remained on the board, meaning Monday’s vote by the Senate was to re-confirm as a regent.
The Senate’s vote followed a marathon committee hearing Monday morning in which the Senate Rules Committee recommended approving Koch’s nomination.
Among opponents’ biggest gripes was the amount of money spent on top administrators over the last few years as funding for some academic programs has languished.
The cost of administration at UNM had jumped to $8.2 million in 2008, up from $2.6 million in 2002, Dr. Tim Lowery, a UNM professor, told lawmakers sitting on the Senate Rules Committee Monday morning.
Faculty members and student representatives also told lawmakers at the committee hearing that they believed the university was placing more emphasis on sports than the university’s core educational mission. A troublesome lack of trust had grown up between faculty and the board of regents and administration.
Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, said the battle over Koch’s nomination boiled down to a central tension between two “very different ways in how a university operates.”
“We’ve moved into a corporate model,” Ortiz y Pino said on the floor of the Senate, where Koch’s nomination was sent following the Rules Committee’s recommendation that he win confirmation. “The regents are the corporate board and they work with the senior management. That’s certainly a model well established in industry. It’s a new model for the university.”
But Koch had his defenders.
Regis Pecos, who works for House Speaker Ben Lujan, commended Koch for working on tribal issues.
“We have never had that access,” Pecos, a former governor of the Cochiti Pueblo, said during the Rules Committee hearing. “I have the highest respect for his integrity.”
Added Sen. President Pro Tem Tim Jennings, D-Roswell: “You can work with Mr. Koch.”
Defenders, in fact, described Koch as a man who got things done, although they admitted there had been mistakes.
For his part, Koch said what was needed at UNM was a detente between the warring factions.
“I’ve never been asked once to go before the faculty committee,” Koch said. Then he added, “There’s been no communication by either side. That’s the only way it’s going to happen.”
The vote to confirm Koch came after a year after his name was put up for re-confirmation. His name was up for confirmation during last year’s legislative session, but his confirmation hearing never was scheduled before the Senate Rules Committee during the 2009 legislative session.
The Senate also confirmed Emily Caitlyn Wisdom and Gene Gallegos as UNM regents Monday afternoon.
