Re-branding UNM image not a solution to education issues

Editor,

It seems out of place for UNM to be spending $4 million on a new set of fancy clothes to create a new image when no one is addressing the real problems that need to be solved. That money could easily raise the salaries of the staff and part-time faculty. That would produce an image to truly brag about: having a living wage for the workers at UNM.

It's a noticeable problem when President David Schmidly and other top faculty make more in one paycheck than the average staff person makes in a year. It would probably take part-time faculty 50 years to close their pay gap. This is not an image problem but a real one that we usually call an old-fashioned corporate sweatshop. And many of us who have been involved with UNM say it is no longer a public school but a private corporation.

Trying to re-brand UNM as if it were a Starbucks is not going to work when there are structural problems that need to be addressed. The New Mexico Legislature only funds 17 percent of the school budget, and if enrollments are declining due to economic problems, then what are we going to do?

As a result, there has been a turn to corporate and military partnerships for money-based contracts to make up the difference. This has privatized public education and therefore undermined quality education. Money gained for research on space weapons, for instance, is not the same as spending for research on the writings of Shakespeare.

The re-branding campaign we are getting from the absentee landlords who run UNM tells us things are going to get worse. The governor, who has created the wreck at UNM, has washed his hands of it and walked away, and we can't elect new regents.

So UNM is melting down like a nuclear reactor out of water. There is no way to bring about the structural changes that are needed to save our 119-year-old school and taxpayer investment.

Those who benefit from the present problems are not going to produce needed changes, no matter how much money they waste. Those of us who see the role of education in creating a society that works toward justice and equality are greatly disturbed by what we see happening at UNM.

Bob Anderson

UNM alumnus