University of New Mexico Parent Guide
President's Letter
The news of the death of one of our graduate students in a tragic accident in the mountains above Santa Fe last week has been met with shock, sorrow and regret - the latter because many of us never got to meet Megumi Yamamoto. By all accounts, she was a fine young woman and an exceptional scholar. Her friends and colleagues in Physics and Astronomy and the Office of International Programs and Studies have honored her with glowing tributes, and we join them in remembering Megumi in our thoughts and prayers. On behalf of the University, we will be sending condolences to her family in Japan.
Welcome back and congratulations to parents who have a student here for the summer semester. I say “congratulations” because taking summer classes is a way to reduce the cost of a college education and expedites the process toward graduation.
One of our objectives at UNM is to improve what educators call our “graduation rate” – that is, the amount of time it takes for our students to obtain their diplomas. As many of you know, at UNM, too many students take too long to graduate, and it’s a University priority to help more of our students graduate more quickly.
Over the coming years, we hope to expand the range of summer school options to our students, to provide added incentives to them to keep pursuit of a degree on track.
I recently joined members of the Board of Regents, Dean Brenda Claiborne of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Alejandro Aceves, the distinguished former chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and others in breaking ground for UNM’s new Science and Mathematics Learning Center. Once completed, this innovative new facility will provide interactive, state-of-the-art classroom facilities and teaching laboratories to engage future UNM freshmen in mathematics and science courses taught by faculty in the Departments of Biology, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Earth and Planetary Sciences and Mathematics and Statistics. These Arts and Sciences departments consistently comprise the highest enrollments for undergraduates within the University. Many thanks for the generosity and forward thinking by taxpayers of the State of New Mexico, the Bank of America and all the donors who are making this project possible.
On the athletics front, UNM's women's tennis head coach Kathy Kolankiewicz recently received a letter from NCAA President Myles Brand, informing her that her team has once again been named a recipient of the NCAA Public Recognition Award. This honor goes to teams with an NCAA Division I Academic Progress Rate in the top 10% of all squads in their respective sports. We add our congratulations to that of the NCAA. Kathy and her team of student-athletes demonstrate a commitment to the classroom and to their sport. They are an inspiration to us all.
And speaking of inspirations, congratulations to the UNM Sports Medicine staff and head trainer Dave Binder who've won the George F. Curtis ATC Award as the best in the Mountain West. The New Mexico sports medicine staff is divided up into 38 student trainers, nine graduate assistants, four assistant athletic trainers and one head trainer - all of whom show professionalism and quality of care now recognized as next to none.
Although the UNM community faced some difficult moments last year, we accomplished a lot and I am grateful to the Board of Regents for their favorable evaluation last week. In their Goals for the President in the coming year, the Regents stressed the importance of accountability, communication and ongoing campus-wide dialogue in the year ahead.
Each of the Regents’ 13 Goals is available for you to examine online, and can be viewed online at: http://www.unm.edu/president/documents/Regents_Goals_Key_Indicators_FY09_rev8-12-08.pdf.
We’re now in the process of amplifying the Regents’ Goals with a set of benchmarks for their fulfillment – what I call our “Adelante Objectives.” “Adelante,” of course, means “forward,” and it was the theme for my installation remarks when I was sworn in as president. Let’s use the year ahead as an opportunity for each of us, the entire UNM community, to learn from our experiences.
Here’s to a successful and productive summer semester!
