During a live television show Friday, representatives of the University's staff and faculty said UNM's financial and administrative problems originated with Gov. Bill Richardson.
The roundtable discussion took place during an episode of New Mexico Indymedia.
The hour-long show hosted by Allen Cooper aired at 7 p.m. on Community Cable Channel 27.
Panel members said UNM's employees are suffering from low morale because of a lack of transparency, the hiring pause, and President David Schmidly's CEO-like management of an institution of higher learning.
Eleni Bastea, professor at the School of Architecture, said students deserve a faculty body that opposes the University's money-managing policies. These policies deprive students of a quality education, she said.
Bastea said the hiring pause has led to a decrease in part-time instructors because vacant positions aren't filled. She said this will affect the courses that will be available to students next semester.
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"I actually drew the line because my students cannot have the same number of courses this year as they had five years ago, and I'm (here to) fight," Bastea said. "I'm not fighting because we should all have a six-figure salary or other housing allowances or car allowances or whatever."
Loyola Chastain, president of Staff Council, said most staff members have small salaries and are worried by the voluntary furlough program. They fear that if not enough people participate, the furloughs could become mandatory.
"We have so many staff members afraid of the furloughs because they can't afford to miss a day of work," Chastain said. "They're living paycheck to paycheck. There are single parents and even two-income families (who) cannot afford to be losing their pay. Regent Koch (said) that the average staff pay is $42,000 a year, and I received many e-mails saying, 'I don't even know what $42,000 a year looks like. I make $30,000 or I make $26,000.'"
Chastain said many staff members are expecting the faculty to speak on behalf of the University community.
Bastea said the hiring pause - which Schmidly said he instituted as a precautionary measure in anticipation of potential state funding cuts - has the potential to cripple programs at UNM.
"I'm coming here because I really see in front of my eyes we are looking at an academic condition, and I think by talking about it and by searching for solutions, we can address it and we can get beyond it," Bastea said.
Chastain said staff members are paying rapt attention to the dialogue between the president and the faculty, because the faculty has the power to demand changes at UNM.
"I'm very happy to see that the faculty is moving forward and is taking a stand, because the staff, of course, they don't have any power whatsoever, and they're mostly in fear," she said. "The staff is afraid to speak up. The staff is afraid to say anything. They're feeling very disenfranchised."
Terry Mulcahy, president of the Staff Union, said UNM's main problem lies in its structure of governance.
He said UNM needs to hold elections for the Board of Regents in order to weed out the regents who care more for their political status than the higher education community that they have been appointed to serve.
"I think we need accountability," Mulcahy said. "We need accountability from these people - from Schmidly, from the Board of Regents. The regents must be elected as a school board is."
Regent Jack Fortner said in an interview Sunday that during his 10 years as a regent, he has only come across one state where the regents are elected to their positions during a state's general elections. Nevada allows the University regents to compete against one another for a seat on the board, he said.
"The regents there are elected, and they actually run for office and spend an excess of $100,000 to $250,000 to be elected to the Board of Regents, and that's certainly an interesting way," Fortner said. "I wouldn't be opposed to something like that, although the problem, of course, is only people that can spend a quarter of a million dollars of their own money are the ones that will be on the regents."
Fortner said that when the ticket price for a regent seat is that expensive, it forces the small group of people who can afford to campaign for it to take part in an exclusive pay-to-play game.
Bob Anderson, CNM political science professor, said that the problem is that UNM is already too political in nature. He said the upper administration and the regents are not entirely to blame for the University's controversies.
"I think a lot of the problems here go back to the governor," Anderson said. "He's the one who appointed all these regents and hired Schmidly and (Executive Vice President David) Harris and put Koch on the Board of Regents. The buck stops at the governor because the governor appoints the regents."
Gilbert Gallegos, spokesman for the governor, said Richardson did not have a hand in giving Schmidly or Harris their jobs. The only authority the governor has is to choose who will sit on the Board of Regents for the state's universities, he said.
"What the governor does under the constitution is he appoints the regents, and I think he makes some very good decisions . and he holds the regents accountable for their decisions," he said.
The board is responsible for choosing the University's president, and the president has the power to hire vice presidents.
Gallegos said members of the UNM community need to work with the upper administration to solve the University's problems.
"If people are going to claim that bad financial decisions are being made, they need to specify what those bad financial decisions are, and instead of blaming anyone for them they should start working with the regents and the president to resolve them," Gallegos said.
Mulcahy said the strife at UNM could be beneficial to the University's future.
"Personally, I think this is a great thing for UNM, because it's putting a spotlight on what's really going on," Mulcahy said. "The Legislature is looking harder at UNM and how it handles its finances, and there is all this focus on what's happening at UNM. All this stuff has been building up. A lot of this was underneath the surface."
