UNM President David Schmidly unveiled Wednesday the list of students, faculty and administrators who will make up a new team of advisers.
Schmidly asked Faculty Senate leadership — but not GPSA and Staff Council — for a list of possible candidates for the team. Faculty Senate President Doug Fields said he submitted a list of faculty he wanted to be on the team as well as administrators he wanted off it.
“We gave him a list of faculty that should be on it and administration that should not be on it, and he took some of the suggestions and didn’t take others,” Fields said.
Fields would not say who was on the list.
The first-ever team — known as the President’s Strategic Advisory Team — is supposed to help Schmidly cut costs and evaluate University processes through means separate from the traditional channels, like student and faculty governing bodies.
President Schmidly was not available for an interview on Wednesday and late Thursday. However, the President’s Office put a tab on its Web site about the team with a diagram showing means of dialog with the UNM administration.
Also, members of the UNM community are encouraged to give suggestions about University governance and cost containment on the Web site.
The diagram on the site indicates that the advisory team is separate from the governing bodies.
However, that didn’t stop GPSA President Lissa Knudsen and Staff Council President Elisha Allen from tossing their names in for consideration.
Knudsen said the team Schmidly created does not consist of “loyal opposition.”
“My big concern is that I don’t think he’s reaching out to the part of the community that has been feeling like they haven’t been heard,” Knudsen said. “If he had done that, I think that would’ve been a great way to bring those groups who have been critical and who are feeling not heard. Having them at the table would have sent a very strong message.”
Of the 20 people on Schmidly’s team, there is one graduate and undergraduate student and three professors. The rest of the team consists of deans and administrators. None are Staff Council members.
Allen said he’s concerned about there not being staff representation on the team.
“I volunteered myself, but I didn’t have any response to that,” he said. “I feel like over the last nine months I’ve really worked hard to try and bridge the gap between staff and administration, and it doesn’t really feel like that bridge has been crossed yet.”
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Allen said without staff, it’d be difficult for the president and his team to feel the impact of scenarios they may recommend.
“I think the most obvious (perspective) is the one of somebody who’s not working in Scholes Hall or in a high administrative level, kind of the perspective of the impacts of the various changes that are being discussed might have on somebody just working on their desk at the University,” he said.
He also said governance groups on campus — even though they’ve already got established channels when speaking with the administration — can help campus populations be better represented.
“If you’ve got already representative groups on campus that are tasked with representing the needs and interests of their constituents, then you have the ability to get those people to reach out to their constituents and bring those thoughts and opinions to the table,” Allen said.
While Fields said it’s ultimately the president’s decision to appoint whomever he deems fit, the ultimate goal of the team might suffer without better faculty and staff representation.
“This is an advisory team, so the president should have whatever people he wants on there as his advisers,” he said. “I think that the staff and the administration bring important knowledge to the table. The question is how you balance the administrative and other nonacademic missions of the University with the academic missions, so in that sense I’d always like to see more faculty and staff on there.”
When Schmidly first announced the team, Fields suggested the team report, both to Schmidly and himself, include more faculty and fewer administrators.
He said Schmidly refused a team comprised of more faculty.
*To make suggestions for the President’s Strategic Advisory Team, visit
unm.edu/president and click on “Strategic Priorities”*
