President David Schmidly appeared in front of UNM’s faculty on Feb. 25 (Ash Wednesday) facing numerous jeers, taunts, boos, and snide remarks. Is it just me or does the whole University community seem hell bent on crucifying Schmidly? Last time I checked it is 2009, not 1692. We’re in Albuquerque, New Mexico and not Salem, Massachusetts. You’d think it were a scene straight from the Salem Witch Trials…In case you’ve been living under a rock recently, the University’s faculty voted no confidence in Schmidly (and President of the Board of Regents Jamie Koch and Executive Vice President for Administration David Harris… but this post will only focus on the ol’ Schmidmeister). It seems every day I pick up the Daily Lobo, there is some article by an up-and-coming journalism student who thinks they’ve written a Pulitzer prize-winning piece by interviewing someone at UNM who bitches and moans about something the prez has done wrong. Frankly, I’m tired of reading such rubbish. I am probably one of the rare few who won’t join the “burn-Schmidly-at-the-stakes” club.
With legislative budget cuts right around the corner, Schmidly is facing one of the biggest financial situations in UNM history. He’ll have to find some way to balance UNM’s budget without cutting jobs or raising tuition too much. Schmidly has said he does not want to cut necessary student services. In a time when the University community should be coming together to help in the budget-building process, it is instead being torn apart by incessant bickering and fighting. Some are even calling for President Schmidly’s resignation. To be perfectly honest, we are pretty lucky he hasn’t taken his $250,000 (or more?) golden parachute and said to hell with us all and let us figure it out on our own... remember Caldera?
That’s not to say Schmidly hasn’t made some mistakes along the way (like freezing faculty salaries, then realizing a few months later that maybe he should freeze administrative salaries, too). For crying out loud, the man is only human!! However, through everything, Schmidly has never stopped championing students. The President has spent numerous hours meeting with ASUNM and GPSA representatives, and he’s even attended ASUNM Senate meetings to get feedback on key issues affecting students. He can be regularly seen courtside cheering on our student-athletes, and he’s held numerous question-and-answer sessions and forums on a variety of topics. He even types a message every Monday morning to help keep EVERYONE in the UNM community connected. Bottom line: he’s trying.
Contrary to popular belief, the point of this post is not to defend President Schmidly or administrative actions. (Because I honestly don’t agree with some of things going on right now either). However, I do want to call attention to the domino effect—one person joins the “I Hate Schmidly” fan club, and soon everyone is hopping aboard the bandwagon. Maybe we shouldn't be so quick to throw stones and boo? After all, the economic down turn is not Schmidly’s fault. And—he’s not Harry Potter who can wave his magic wand and fix everything.
Schmidly has been here for a little more than a year, and he hasn’t yet had his chance to leave a mark on this University. Why don’t we shut up, stop complaining, and let the poor man do his job? Or, are we no better than the condemning fools who threw 'witches' into the river tied up and when they drowned, they weren't a 'witch'?
I agree that administrative controversy can be overwhelming and even boring when there does not appear to be a reasonable solution on the horizon, but how can you expect people to sit back and relax? Their well being (cough pay cough) is dropping, and they want answers and/or compensation.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I agree with your examples of Schmidley doing a good job. Hanging out with the students? Sports games, and blogs? These are not the things I expect a university president to be paid his salary for. He SHOULD be working non-stop to figure out the solution to the budget cuts. An adviser at the ASUNM meetings to represent him would be much more effective in utlizing his time.
Being a student that is currently only taking online classes, I have not been around campus to hear about all of the events that have been happening with President Schmidly. I am one of those people that have been "living under a rock", or rather, just out of the state!
ReplyDeleteI was aware of the fact that the hard economic times are effecting UNM's system of operations, but I was not aware of the details at all. I receive Schmidly's Monday Morning E-mails, but I will admit that I never even finish reading them before hitting the "delete" button.
I will agree in the fact that he is trying. He wouldn't write those e-mails every week if he wasn't, nor would he be making mistakes. Mistakes are not a sign of weakness, incompetency, or being incapable of doing a job. It is a sign of being a human, and making decisions. Even if they turn out to be a wrong decision, it was still made, and all he can do is learn from it. He has been president for a very short amount of time, and it's unfair to assume he will be a pro at it from the very beginning. Even with experience, it is a new school and a whole new job. You can't strap a snowboard to someone's feet and expect them to not fall after one hour of practice. It's unfair, and it's unrealistic.
I am not defending him either, but I am agreeing with you 100% on the fact that students talking negatively about him will not solve all of the problems. If anything, it will only make his job harder, because I'm sure he, too, reads the Daily Lobo. How would you feel if you were doing your best at a job, and the only publicity you got was undeserved bad publicity? I know it would stress me out, and discourage me. Why not show some support instead, and hope for the best?