Gov. Bill Richardson visited UNM on Tuesday and said he would support the addition of a regent faculty member, but he doesn't plan to withdraw his reappointment of Regents President Jamie Koch.
Faculty members representing the Faculty Senate, Faculty Governance Committee and various campus departments met with Richardson and opened a dialogue on issues including the reappointment of Koch and an external audit of the University's finances.
"It was a good meeting - a frank, honest discussion," Richardson said in a news conference after the closed meeting. "I wanted to listen to the faculty concerns. As governor, I don't interfere with the University, but, obviously, it's a state institution that's very important to the academic future of New Mexico and economic development. I wanted to be here to listen to the faculty's firsthand concerns."
Richard Wood, president of the Faculty Governance Committee, said that while the meeting was productive, he would rather see UNM's issues resolved without the governor's mediation.
"We would prefer to rely on the regular governance of the University. We don't want to be on the front page of the paper," he said. "We want the regular structures of decision making to really work well."
Wood said the governor made no substantive decisions during the meeting but that it was a good starting point.
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"We will be satisfied with decisions that come out of this meeting when they're announced - if they're announced - but it was a really important, good, hopeful first step," he said.
Richardson said that the external audit is a viable option to give faculty, staff and students a clearer picture of the financial decisions made by UNM's administration.
"I think that their concerns regarding an audit of how money has been spent are legitimate, and I'm going to support their efforts," he said.
Richardson also said many of the faculty's concerns stem from what they perceive to be an inability to influence decision making. He said he would look into introducing a permanent faculty position on the Board of Regents to correct this.
Richardson said he supported Koch's reappointment and that the faculty and administration should work together to create a more productive dialogue.
"I made no commitments to change anything at this point, but I do think that regents need to listen more to faculty," he said. "The University administration needs to listen more to faculty, and both sides need a little cooling-off period."
Professor Chaouki Abdallah, chairman of the Department of Chemical and Electrical Engineering, said the governor seemed responsive to the faculty's concerns. He said he hopes Richardson will continue to consult the faculty about policy decisions at UNM.
"I think that the governor is going to take what the faculty expressed to him, and he's going to consult with some people," Abdallah said. "The faculty is going to give the governor some more ideas, and we're going to keep the conversation going to see if we can move UNM forward."
Richardson said he will try to reconcile differences between the administration and the faculty.
He said the key issue is the distribution of resources to academics versus administration.
"And the faculty has put forth some legitimate concerns," he said. "I think this administration and the faculty need to come together, and my hope is that maybe, as governor, I can help with that."
Honors professor Ursula Shepherd said she hopes the governor will act on her concern that the University's academics are deteriorating.
"I'm concerned about the academic mission of the University, and we talked seriously about that and whether that had been eroded and how we could work to solve that," she said.
In light of the economic crisis, Richardson said that the faculty and administration need to exchange ideas about UNM's policy decisions.
"We also are in some very tough economic times, but I think the faculty is saying that they want a seat at the table," he said. "They want to have more input, and I think some of their concerns are legitimate, although I think the administration of the University has been strong."
