Filling athletics vacancies over faculty not fair to students

Editor,

Here's a simple question: What is wrong with a University that can't fill a faculty spot years after it becomes vacant but can fill the head football coach position within days?

I have come to accept that a school's sports programs, especially football and basketball, take priority over its academic programs because sports programs can bring in a lot of money. A school can't really sell a lot of historian or artist jerseys. The problem is that in almost all other departments, we are waiting years to fill a vacant spot, and it's not for a lack of qualified people to fill those spots. I understand that money is tight these days, but President David Schmidly should know that to allow these spots in academia to remain vacant while the coach's job was filled so quickly is a slap in the face to all UNM faculty.

These vacant spots mean that faculty has to take on a heavier workload, and this can affect the quality of education that students receive. We won't even mention the dwindling budgets that threaten assistantships. And it should not be forgotten that the University exists to serve its students and community through production of high-quality academic work. I fully support the Lobos, but for Pete's sake, the thousands of University students and hundreds of faculty need help, not the few dozen or so students that make up the football team.

David Luna

UNM student