Faculty members will meet with President David Schmidly - but not David Harris or Jamie Koch - within the next 10 days to discuss how administrative actions have affected the Legislature's view of UNM.
Richard Wood, chairman of the Faculty Governance Committee, said the Faculty Constitution demands that the meeting occur in a quick and timely fashion.
The committee has been working in conjunction with Schmidly's office since Monday to set a time, agenda and location for the meeting, Wood said. The meeting will be open to the faculty's 1,800 voting members.
"It's an open meeting for all faculty," he said. "We have not set a policy on whether it will be open to participants beyond that. The last time (we had a faculty meeting), we actually ran out of space and had to ask others to leave so that voting faculty could be there. We hope to have a larger room this time."
The meeting
Faculty members requested the meeting in a petition that they framed and circulated last week. More than 230 faculty members signed the petition before the framers handed it to University Secretary Vivian Valencia for signature verification on Friday.
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The petition calls for a Special Faculty Meeting to address a "crisis of confidence" in Schmidly, President of the Board of Regents Koch, and Executive Vice President for Business and Finance Harris.
The petition states that the Legislature's view of the University has been sullied by the "diversion of instructional funds to pay excessive administrative compensation, as well as cronyism and other irregular hiring practices by the administration," and that the Legislature's extensive proposed budget cuts reflect that negative opinion.
Who will attend?
Schmidly said the meeting is of the utmost importance to him and that he will do his best to work with the faculty to resolve the turmoil. However, he cannot require Harris and Koch to attend the meeting and address the faculty's concerns, he said.
"That's their call; it's not mine," Schmidly said. "I don't have any say as to whether (Koch) goes to the meeting or not. It's up to David Harris, too. That's their prerogative."
Wood said Schmidly has the authority to demand that Harris attend the meeting and answer the faculty's complaints.
"The way the constitution is written is if the faculty has called one of these meetings, the president is the one to preside at the meeting unless he delegates it to somebody else," Wood said. "David Harris works for the president - so the president can presumably require David Harris to be there. I don't think anybody can require Jamie Koch to be there. That's kind of his decision as president of the regents."
Koch has repeatedly stated that he does not answer to the faculty and will not go to the meeting.
Harris has repeatedly declined an interview on the subject.
Complaints against Harris and Koch
Some faculty members say they find Harris' management of the University's Business and Finance department to be the most damaging problem caused by any of the parties involved.
One faculty member, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of repercussion, said Harris went on vacation in April last year and froze department accounts before he left.
The source said this was a blatant mismanagement of the University system.
"Quite frankly, to my knowledge, nothing like this has ever happened before. It's not just the combination of this happening and then the administrator going on vacation. It's simply anything like this ever happening."
Wood said Koch may not have direct responsibility to the faculty but that he is accountable to the Legislature.
Legislators will hold a confirmation hearing to reinstate Koch as President of the Board of Regents during this session.
"I think there are large portions of the faculty that would love to see Regent Koch not reconfirmed as a regent of the University, but that's ultimately a decision for the state Senate to make, and the question there is: 'Does Regent Koch represent the best interests of the State of New Mexico and the taxpayers?'"
What faculty can do
Wood said it is important for faculty members to attend the meeting so that they can participate in passing resolutions that the president has to comply with.
"The resolutions submitted in the past asked for the University administration to do particular things," Wood said. "We did something like this last April. We asked for reports from the University administration on particular topics that the president agreed to, and then agreed to respond to on a timeline we set at that meeting.. It's a part of the shared governance thing. It's the idea that faculty and administration talk together about issues facing the University and try to resolve them."
Wood said the Faculty Constitution provides the faculty with the right to review and act in regard to the formulation of institutional aims, creation of new colleges and departments, major curriculum changes, matters that affect the institution as a whole, requirements for admission, research, and general faculty welfare.
Schmidly said he plans to help the faculty devise solutions that address the problems they have with upper administration.
However, he said, the petition only distracts the University from its mission to secure funding from the state while the Legislature is in session.
"I think if we have internal differences . we can deal with those differences at an appropriate time," Schmidly said. "I would prefer to see us unified as we move through the legislative session, and then if they have concerns about other matters, then let's address those, which I'm perfectly willing to do."
