Most of UNM’s peer institutions don’t consider the University their equal, and soon UNM might give in to peer pressure.
UNM’s peer institutions haven’t changed since at least the 1990s, and of UNM’s 16 peer institutions, only two schools, University of Utah and University of Washington, count UNM among their peer institutions. The University of Washington had UNM on only one of three lists it uses for self-evaluation, according the University of Washington website.
In 2008, Mark Chisholm, director of UNM’s Office of Institutional Research, said then-provost Viola Florez asked UNM to re-evaluate its peers.
Chisholm said he compared student body characteristics, such as ethnic profile and number of commuter students, but the project lost steam when Florez left the University, and it’s been on the backburner since.
“I don’t know whether or not we’re going to go through the energy of going to the state and requesting a whole bunch of new peers right now,” Chisholm said. “You really need someone at a high-executive level that thinks it’s really important.”
Chisholm said it’s hard for UNM to find comparable institutions that are similar across the board.
“It probably turns out that there isn’t a perfect group of peers that works for all purposes,” he said. “So I think (it’s OK) as long as you explain why you picked the ones you picked.”
The New Mexico Higher Education Department sets the University’s peer institutions, but UNM approves the selections. Peer institutions provide formulas for legislative funding and salary comparisons for faculty positions, Chisholm said. He said UNM pays its faculty about 10 percent less than its peer institutions.
“Our faculty salaries haven’t kept up with any peer groupings,” he said. “They tend to average at about 90 percent of the faculty salaries of the Higher Education Department’s (peer) group. When I look at the adjacent states, it’s still at about 90 percent.”
CU Boulder is one of UNM’s peer institutions, but CU’s director of Institutional Research and Analysis Lou McClelland said Boulder does not count UNM as one of its peer institutions. She said Boulder is in the Association of American Universities (AAU), a group, Chisholm said, UNM President David Schmidly wants the University to join.
McClelland said Boulder has been a part of AAU for quite some time.
“It’s an invitation-only group,” she said. “We exchange data through the AAU, so there is data available to those institutions that would not be available through other public resources.”
In 2008, New Mexico State University changed some of its peer institutions, said Candice Guzie, interim director of the Office of Institution Research and Support.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
“We looked for similar qualities like sizes, ethnic breakdown and mission statement,” she said.
Chisholm said UNM’s original peer group was picked on selective criteria, such as mission statement and size. He said the Board of Regents wanted UNM to pick peers that are geographically close, specifically no more than four universities east of the Mississippi.
“They didn’t want any of the California schools because they are considered very unique and probably not comparable,” Chisholm said. “In UNM’s case, they looked at mostly land grant/flagship universities in the region, the mix of programs and relative size.”
Chisholm said that if UNM finds new peers, he wants to add more criteria to help determine the comparability of the institutions, such as number of commuter students, and graduation and retention rates.
“And income is big,” he said. “I think sometimes income (is a bigger factor) than diversity.”
If UNM changes its peers in the future, Chisholm said, it will use parts of NMSU’s process. He said UNM might add a school like the University of Houston or Temple University as a peer.
“We would probably have a balance of institutions whose students are similar to ours, and some that have a research mission similar to ours,” he said.
In the past, Chisholm said his office researched adjusting UNM’s peers, but it’s a long, involved process that needs legislative support. But he added that if UNM altered its peer groups, it would put the University’s faculty salaries and formula funding into perspective.
“We want to update and modify the institutions,” he said. “We have to involve all the relevant parties and go to get data and analysis. There just has been so much stuff going on with the budget right now.”
