Last week, UNM’s Board of Regents held a special meeting with the Alumni Association to discuss better communication between the two organizations, in the wake of communication failures which led to a stalled on-campus project costing eight times more than was estimated.
As a result, the regents are extending their reach of involvement into the association, just months after reintegrating Health Sciences Center governance under the regents’ oversight.
The project in question is the construction of a memorial courtyard for Karen Abraham, a UNM alumna and longtime head of the Alumni Association.
The courtyard’s construction, which was scheduled for completion this month, was placed on hold when projected expenses for the project ballooned from its initial amount of $50,000 to over $400,000, according to documents from a Board of Regents finance committee meeting in August.
The budget discrepancy took the regents by surprise as the Alumni Association hadn’t communicated this update, leading to the special meeting held to clarify issues and improve communication between them.
As it stands, UNM and the Alumni Association are independent of one another, operating as separate entities to work toward the best interests of UNM and its alumni.
The miscommunication between the two entities not only caused a halt of the construction, but also disputes about the handling of the Alumni Association and UNM funds.
The meeting led to an agreement between the University and the Alumni Association meant to foster better communication in the future, hopefully preventing future conflicts such as the one they’re currently facing.
The Board of Regents approved a measure for stronger enforcement of accounting reports from the Alumni Association each fiscal quarter, as well as a measure to place two regents on the association’s board of directors.
The agreement states that one of the two regents appointed to the Alumni Association Board of Directors will be a member of its Executive Committee.
The elected members from the Board of Regents will preferably be UNM Alumni. If one or either of the elected members did not attend UNM, the Alumni Association will amend its bylaws to allow for the elected regents to serve on its board of directors.
The newly approved agreement also requires that the Alumni Association provide the memorial courtyard project’s proposed budgets, financial plans, project contracts, payment schedules for expenditures, and plans for the design, construction, and ongoing maintenance phase of the project, which have previously not been provided to the University.
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“This new (agreement) enhances the shared value of our being one university,” said Regents Vice President Marron Lee, “and will serve to align the strategic, financial, and long-range initiatives of the Alumni Association, the Alumni Office, and the University as a whole.”
