Doug Fields resigned from his post as Faculty Senate president Monday, citing a lack of shared governance between the UNM administration and faculty.
In a press conference Monday, Fields said the administration has not been willing to collaborate and listen to the Faculty Senate.
“The role of the Faculty Senate president is to convey to the UNM administration the knowledge, wisdom and feelings of the faculty regarding the strategic direction of the University, including setting priorities,” he said to reporters in front of the Bookstore. “Since it is clear to me that this administration has no intention of listening and working together in this way, I feel that my efforts are better spent on my research and working with the students that I teach.”
Richard Wood, associate professor of sociology and Faculty Senate president-elect will now take over.
“My hope is that this sends a very clear signal that we at UNM have a lot of work to do on governing the University in ways that really serve the people at UNM,” Wood said.
In a statement, UNM President David Schmidly did not directly address Fields’ retirement but said he hopes to build a strong relationship with the new leadership.
“I look forward to working with the Faculty Senate leadership and the entire faculty to strengthen effective shared governance at UNM,” he said. “In the interim, I will work proactively with the Faculty Senate Operations Committee for a smooth transition.”
Fields’ term as president was set to end June 30.
The budget process was a major concern for Fields. He said that the faculty had no leeway in the direction of the budget, was ignored from the beginning and given only a day and half to review the budget before the Board of Regents’ meeting Friday.
“That goes to the heart of the problem,” he said. “Looking at the budget that was given to the Board of Regents, instruction is down, student services is down, many other things are down that have to do with the academic interests of the University. I made it very clear to the president that cuts within the academic mission would be tolerated if the cuts were across the board in all units of the University.”
Fields said his input about University governance fell on deaf ears.
“President Schmidly believes everything is fine as far as shared governance goes, even though we have consistently told him over and over again that it is a consistent problem,” Fields said. “I was obviously having no impact in my discussion with him.”
Fields said the faculty must retain its voice in the budget process because faculty members understand what areas need help and the areas that cannot sustain further cuts.
“They keep talking about doing more for less but we’ve been doing more for less for 10 years now. And it’s time we understand we can do more with more, and if we have less we will do less,” he said.
Fields said he plans to stay an associate professor with the physics and astronomy department.
“Assuming that the president doesn’t start a fire,” he said.
