Editor,
The Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs’ recent recommendation to President David Schmidly and the UNM Board of Regents to ignore the Student Fee Review Board’s requests for the allocation of student fees in the upcoming school year undermines UNM’s stated missions and threatens the long-term viability of the University as a whole.
UNM created the SFRB to ensure that students in particular, and program staff and community members generally, would have a say in how student monies are spent and that student fees would be dispensed in an open, transparent, carefully considered and democratic manner.
This decision disregards the student and community voice by including a recommendation to cut all student funding for the Research Service Learning Program, Community Learning and Public Service, New Mexico Public Interest Research Group and a suspension of plans to fund the student’s request for a Queer Resource Center.
The funding approvals now under consideration by President Schmidly and the Board of Regents are about far more than finances, budgetary restraints or keeping student fees low. These decisions are about setting educational, public service and funding priorities and about whether students and the staff members that serve student needs will have a share in setting those priorities.
The cuts under consideration are also about the future of UNM. A decision by the president and the regents to cut these programs would mean taking students and the services they provide out of our communities, undermining public service and civic engagement and eliminating important initiatives that attract world-class students, faculty, staff and researchers to our University.
Budgetary challenges and the constraints of tough economic times should be met with shared sacrifice and sound, reasoned, and fair fiscal management not with targeted cuts that jeopardize UNM’s ability to meet its missions and call into question the commitment of University administrators and policy makers to serve the needs of students and the people of New Mexico.
Students, faculty and staff should call or write to UNM decision makers today and urge them to respect the stated needs and desires of UNM students by supporting the SFRB’s decision to fund Research Service Learning and other programs vital to UNM’s education, health and public service missions.
Andrew B. Marcum
Ph.D. candidate and graduate
teaching instructor in Research Service
Learning Program
