Editor,
President David Schmidly may not be the best president for UNM. Though after President William C. Gordon left, UNM hasn't exactly been a magnet for successful leaders.
There have been more than enough lackluster presidents to pass through the revolving doors of Scholes Hall. I, too, was suckered into thinking Schmidly would be the president we needed. I bought every word he said during his interviewing stop. It wasn't until after he was coming our direction did I talk to students at his former school, Oklahoma State, and they said good riddance.
At OSU, he had a large financial backer to push through whatever he wanted. Of course, without the money behind him, he still pushes through the big bucks for his cronies. He is wasteful and is not connected to the rest of campus. As much as he is a black eye to this University, unfortunately, we need to keep him around. We're still paying former President Louis Caldera's tab. We definitely don't need to fund three bank accounts. Paying for another search party and investing in advertising for the position would hurt the budget even more.
He may not be the best, but hold him accountable until the end of his contract, and don't keep him around after that. In the meantime, maintain the freeze on executive pay, but give long-overdue money to everyone else. This isn't an easy decision to make, but it's too big of a price tag to cut him loose now.
Keith Hudson
UNM alumnus
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