Town-hall meeting will address plans for Student Services

A town-hall meeting Wednesday will discuss plans for the Student Success Center and the future of Student Services.

President David Schmidly, along with the presidents of GPSA and ASUNM, planned the meeting to address student worries about the move.

The meeting will take place in the SUB Atrium at noon on Wednesday - the last day of classes before fall break.

Carmen Alvarez Brown, vice president for enrollment management, said she will be at the meeting to explain the plans for Student Services and address students' concerns.

"One of the things that I'm really looking forward to with meeting or talking to the students is them really telling me where we can service them better," she said. "What have been your needs? Where do you feel that we have failed you?"

The center will be designed to cater to students' needs, Brown said, and will be in the Lockheed Martin building at the corner of University Boulevard and Avenida Cesar Chavez.

Adrian Carver, former ASUNM senator, said he created a Facebook group called "The UNM Student Success Center belongs on Main Campus" because the student voice wasn't being heard.

Carver is trying to convince the group's 264 members to attend the town-hall meeting and confront administrators and student leaders about the proposed move.

He said his main concern is that if General Obligation Bond D - a bill that allocates $2 million for the creation of the Student Success Center - is passed Nov. 4, UNM will be obligated to move services to the new center.

Brown said students will be able to access a one-stop shop on campus at Mesa Vista Hall, as well as at the Student Success Center.

Employees will be cross-trained to be more efficient and to provide quality service to students, she said.

"What started before my time was the concept of (a) one-stop in both areas, and when I got here, the staff was very upset because they didn't think it was needed," Brown said. "They thought that it was going to split the operations, and they thought that they were very short of staff, but I can tell you honestly, I think that if we re-engineer our processes . it's going to relieve some people to do exactly what we want to do, which is the one-stop shop."

Student Aarika Orozco, who works as a recruitment specialist in Mesa Vista Hall, said money received from Bond D could be better spent on expanding dorms or raising the pay of professors and student employees.

"I just don't think the money through the University, period, is being well spent," Orozco said. "They just raised tuition, and I'm not seeing any changes coming from that. They could renovate the building that we're in now, update our computers that we use and make it more welcoming for prospective students instead of moving us to a new building."

Schmidly said students can expect to benefit from the changes to Student Services.

"The service will be better for students," Schmidly said. "It will be more convenient. It will be more student-friendly. It will be more customer-oriented, and whatever we have to do - if we have to hire more people to do that, we will, but I don't think we will."

Schmidly and Brown said student feedback will factor into the plans for the Student Success Center and the reorganization of Student Services.

"We will have online virtual services for students," Schmidly said. "Students won't have to come in as often. It will not be worse; it will be better. And if it's not better, we'll undo the thing."

GPSA President Christopher Ramirez said students who are confused about the future of Student Services deserve straightforward answers.

"I think that we should ask lots of questions until we understand the level of services that we're being promised so that we can hold the University accountable, because we are the University," he said. "Oftentimes we say, 'Oh, the University does this,' and we forget that we are the University, and Scholes Hall is accountable to students."

Town-hall meeting

Wednesday, Noon

SUB Atrium