Koch's reappointment should be scrutinized by Legislature

Editor,

UNM Regent Jamie Koch has done a disservice to the UNM community. The worst of Koch's actions was to push for the hiring of President David Schimdly, who, by most accounts, has been a disaster from the very beginning. The community of Oklahoma State warned us what was coming (Daily Lobo letter, Feb. 19, 2007). Koch chose not to listen.

Under the Koch and Schmidly administration, tuition and fees have gone through the roof. Affordability and graduate enrollment is down. And while the Lottery has maintained undergraduate enrollment for the moment, the coming of increased fees not covered by the scholarship will change that soon enough. Also through the roof are the numbers and salaries of vice presidents. Under Koch and Schmidly, money that was supposed to go toward academic programs, research and academic-related infrastructure has been redirected to pay ever-higher salaries for ever-higher numbers of administrators.

In 2002, there were 17 top-level administrators with an average salary of $156,000. In 2007, those numbers increased to 38 top-level positions with an average salary of more than $240,000. And what has all of this money bought us? Only the most top-heavy UNM administration in history.

While the number of vice presidents and their salaries has multiplied, the number of tenure-track professors has been steadily declining. And a rising student-to-teacher ratio, a number that used to be the pride of UNM, is the only result. Schmidly's commitment to hire 10 new faculty by freezing some salaries is quite simply too little, too late. Given our current economic climate, our leadership has it backward. UNM needs to be doing everything it can to increase enrollment all around. The only way New Mexico can keep up with the educational needs of the new economy is to keep student expenses down and to increase graduation rates and academic support at the expense of top-level management, not the other way around. Yet Koch has left important services for the students who need it most at the mercy of legislative project cuts, rather than making them a permanent part of the University budget. Never let it be said that the financial management of a University or a state is a simple matter, or that there will never be very difficult choices to make.

I would hope that the cuts now being considered in Santa Fe are not being taken lightly. Koch's reappointment should not be either. Yet Gov. Bill Richardson has seen fit to do just that, and the matter must now come before intense legislative scrutiny. Please contact Sen. Linda M. Lopez, chair of the Senate Rules Committee, at 986-4737 (she also has a Facebook page) and ask her to look into the questionable reappointment of Koch to the UNM Board of Regents.

Benjamin Mabe

UNM student