Every Monday morning, I receive an e-mail from President David Schmidly - the entire University does.
This is good.
He is the first UNM president to engage in a regular communication with all of us, including retired farts like myself. The letters are like a 21st-century version of Roosevelt's fireside chats.
Unfortunately, it is all happy talk, and what the faculty, students and staff require, I suspect, is straight talk about the many problems the University confronts. Schmidly apparently saves the serious stuff for letters to the Albuquerque Journal when negative publicity about the University compels him to respond.
Well, here is the letter I would like to see:
Good morning, all
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I am pleased to report that in the wake of the criminal incompetence demonstrated by the Office of Research and Development in misplacing millions of dollars, we have fired everyone in the department above the level of secretary.
We now understand that our plan to turn one of UNM's most popular areas, the North Golf Course, into a revenue-producing development housing retired faculty was ill-conceived. We should have consulted the local community first rather than just listening to the regents and our attorneys. Besides, we hardly care what happens to retired faculty, unless they are willing to teach part-time for fast-food wages.
It has become clear to us that there are two primary contributors to the problem of low faculty and staff salaries. First, there are far too many administrators, especially at the higher levels, and their extravagant salaries are a constant drain on University resources. Sadly, my friends, there is little we can do about this, since the regents firmly believe that a highly-compensated president and an ever-growing gaggle of vice presidents and associate provosts is emblematic of a great university. And since leaving the faculty ranks and becoming a leader, I must admit to seeing sense in this. Yes, of course, the new diversity office is just to keep the professional ethnics and the feds happy. Do I look stupid?
Second, we do not have enough money for salaries because the state Legislature refuses to give us enough. Why? Because the Legislature is composed mostly of idiots who rarely think beyond immediate economic concerns, if they think of anything at all besides their car dealerships and law firms. On the other hand, they do support Lobo basketball, and in any case we own the secretary of higher education, Reed Dasenbrock, who better favor UNM if he knows what's good for him.
No, we will not be raising admission standards. This causes enrollments to go down, which means less money to pay our employees. Of course, low standards exacerbate the retention problem, but our new block tuition plan will keep these students around no matter how poorly they perform. Voila. Even bigger enrollments, which not only means more money but is also one of the signs of a great university.
I am happy to announce that I will be once more traveling extensively around the state in order to get more students from the backwater areas to attend UNM instead of NMSU or our pork-barrel colleges. More important, I hope also to get a better idea of what the business and political interests around New Mexico want from the University and its programs.
As you are aware, we have already begun taking the work of strategic planning to unprecedented heights, asking underpaid faculty and staff to waste time on what we all know has no meaning whatsoever. But I must remind all my colleagues that a detailed strategic plan is yet another sign of a truly great university. Besides, it helps convince the Epsilons in Santa Fe that we at the University are really on our toes.
We, of course, know full well that the purpose of the University is to sustain itself and increase in size, at least at the administrative level. This purpose is facilitated by a number of strategic priorities: large enrollments at any cost, sucking in grant money from any source for any reason, restructuring the administration and, most important, getting UNM into the Final Four.
Incidentally, the philosophy department will be abolished. It does not serve any economic or multicultural need, and it tends to produce wise asses.
Have a good week, and go Lobos.
President Schmidly
Richard M. Berthold is a retired professor of classical history at UNM. He is the author of Rhodes in the Hellenistic Age.
