President David Schmidly created a video Web cast on Nov. 21, using a new medium in an attempt to address student and faculty concerns about the economic crisis.
Schmidly spoke to the UNM community in a 10-minute message without leaving his office.
"When I give thanks on Thursday," Schmidly said during the pre-Thanksgiving Web cast, "I'll be thinking of how I love to look through those windows and see the students getting off the bus and heading to class.. I'm also grateful to each of you for your patience as we face these challenges and for your commitment to moving forward positively and cooperatively."
Sunny Liu, a freshman majoring in business administration, said the personal nature of Schmidly's Web cast reminded him of President Roosevelt's Fireside Chats.
"It's kind of like President Roosevelt in the way he did talk shows and radio shows. It seems like more personal interaction with President Schmidly and less of an article that we read," Liu said. "You get to have this one-on-one lecture with the president himself."
Liu also said he prefers the Web cast to Schmidly's Monday Morning Message because the Web cast makes the president's subject matter more accessible.
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"I do occasionally (read the message), but I'm usually really busy and checking for more important messages," he said. "(With the Web cast), I can browse through my homework and do other work while listening to him speaking, so it's more convenient that way."
Logan Migliore, a sophomore majoring in philosophy, said it is difficult for him to find Schmidly's message relevant, regardless of how it's presented.
"I read (the message) if I have the time when I'm going through my e-mail, but usually it hardly ever affects me, so I don't really bother that much," Migliore said. "I really had no idea that he even had a Web cast, and I've been so caught up in classes that I don't have time to pay attention to UNM politics."
Schmidly has communicated with campus via Web cast several times before. In spring 2007, Schmidly broadcasted two interactive Web casts from Oklahoma State University before he came to UNM.
Also, forums held by Schmidly in April and May were converted into Web casts and placed on the UNM home page.
University spokeswoman Susan McKinsey said last month's Web cast was possibly Schmidly's most important campuswide address.
"He was discussing arguably the most important thing to this University . and that's the economic situation and what it means to the University, its educational mission and its current work force," she said.
McKinsey said Schmidly's weekly e-mail address doesn't provide the same opportunities as the Web cast.
"The Monday Message is a little different because it's just there to prepare people for the week," she said. "It's a way to celebrate important things that have happened. He can't get into a lot of real information in a Monday Message."
Shane Urioste, operations manager for Media Technology Services, said the President's Office requested his organization's help to make the Web cast.
"We have a small production crew that recorded it, and then we have software that we use to turn it into a Web cast and put it on our server," he said.
Urioste said that MTS can easily make video or audio files compatible for Internet viewing and that MTS has made Web casts of meetings for the Staff Council, Faculty Senate, Board of Regents and other groups.
