Schmidly's focus is on making money, not promoting learning

Editor,

Whom does President David Schmidly think he works for? If pressed, he would probably say he works for the good of all UNM. His actions, however, say otherwise.

They include the creation of more than a dozen vice-presidential posts, most with six-figure salaries; a multi-million dollar renovation of a sports facility in the midst of a massive recession; a hiring and pay-raise freeze on all faculty, except, of course, the $750,000 football coach; a high-paid executive position for one (unqualified) Brian Schmidly; relocation of the Student Services Center to a pointlessly inconvenient off-campus location; and a raise in tuition rates to pay for it all.

When news broke that Vice President David Harris was caught up in New Mexico's own little corruption scandal, or that he had gotten a $50,000 bonus in May right after the April tuition hike, it was just one more sign that UNM isn't so much a place of learning as a place of money-making, an educational-industrial complex, so to speak.

Schmidly, Harris and the Board of Regents have proved they don't feel responsible to anyone but their benefactors and their cash cows. Students' tuition and teachers' pay raises go instead to support athletics and administration, even though only a tiny portion of UNM's population fits into either group. It sounds very familiar, kind of like the heads of corporations lining their pockets with the money taxpayers bailed them out with. So as much as Schmidly talks about trust and communication, I find it hard to see how he can mean it when he has ignored our input and been so dishonest. Trust and communication is a two-way street.

The answer to the question at the start of my letter is this: Schmidly works for us, all of us - teachers, students, athletes and bureaucrats. He seems to have forgotten that, even though he's still content spending our money. But if people speak up loudly enough, the Board of Regents will be forced to sack him. On Tuesday, we said goodbye to one corrupt, incompetent president. It's not too much to hope for a replacement for this one. Let's get someone in charge who actually wants to help all of UNM, not just the part that keeps him in power.

Ryan Moore

UNM student