The Board of Regents approved a $2.1 billion budget for next year, a decrease of 1.1 percent from last fiscal year.
The budget includes a 7.9 percent increase in tuition and student fees totaling to about $5,505 per semester for undergraduates from $5,100.
ASUNM President Monika Roberts said improved advisement is a big concern for undergraduates during the regents’ meeting Friday.
“We would like to ensure that in the upcoming year, the Provost’s Office regularly and consistently meets with the undergraduates so we are informed of the changes and progress that are being done with advisement,” Roberts said.
Andrew Cullen, associate vice president of Planning, Budget and Analysis, said the increases in tuition and fees will be used for scholarships, hiring new faculty and advising, among other things.
He said $500,000 will go toward improving advisement.
“We believe we have seen some improvement in advising,” Cullen said. “There are still improvements to be made and we believe many of those improvements will be made this upcoming fiscal year.”
Roberts said the $10 each student receives per semester for printing should also be reconsidered.
“We would really like to see an increase in the number of pages that students can print in light of the tuition and fee hikes,” Roberts said.
Also, $1.5 million is going toward the hiring of new faculty, 58 percent of which will go to hiring tenure-track faculty. The Athletics Department will receive $208,000. Doug Fields, Faculty Senate president, said UNM administration isn’t including faculty in University governance. He said many faculty members are leaving the University as a result, especially in statistics, English and engineering.
“Somebody told me that around Scholes Hall, the idea of faculty participating in the budget making and operations within the University is akin to inmates participating in the operation of the insane asylum,” he said. “First of all, faculty aren’t inmates because we can leave, and we are.”
Fields said departments at UNM including academic support, research and student services have been cut, but the Athletics Department’s budget has increased by about $2.5 million.
“If they have more income, why are their expenditures going up?” Fields asked the regents on Friday. “Where is the heart of this University?”
Cullen said there is often a positive correlation between revenues and expenditures, especially in light of the Pit’s construction, because the increased expenditures are simply an application of the received revenues.
Fields said he is also concerned about how Athletics is going to cover its $900,000 debt. Cullen said funding for other departments won’t be used to cover the debt.
“The Athletics Department will use (its own) revenues generated to pay back their debt,” he said.
Cullen said much of the debt will be eliminated through selling private suites at The Pit.
Lissa Knudsen, GPSA president, said graduate students will be greatly affected if faculty members continue to leave UNM because of funding and governance frustrations.
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“Graduate students come to universities to do research with faculty,” she said. “As the faculty leave, so will the graduate students.”
Knudsen also recommended that GPSA secede from the Student Fee Review Board, a group of students who outline how student fees should be allocated. She said graduate students might be better able to allocate their student fees, especially since 85 percent of graduate students who voted in a January special election agreed that Athletics funding should be cut, not increased.
“We strongly encourage the regents to invest in faculty and graduate students,” Knudsen said.
