UNM Must Become All Things for All New Mexicans

A free offer: I'll give this blog and it's name to the University of New Mexico for $1,000. It's a steal!

UNM is so hide-bound with it's traditonal division between being a serious academic institution who supports world-class graduates, and being local ra-ra sports teams. So the Alumni Department publishes Mirage three times a year for the alumni and alumnae, full of gossip, good stories and news about UNM alumni and current sports of note. Go Lobos! Meh.

OTOH, the Vice President or Provost of Research side of UNM publishes it's own lay-oriented survey of the most interesting exploratory work by UNM students and faculty called Quantum.

Who knows what the independent New Mexico School of Law (at UNM) and the University Health Sciences program (at UNM) and the University Hospital (at UNM) publish. Do the alumni who receive Mirage also read Quantum? No. The university is schizophrenic. Too many personalities.

S   i   g   h.

Then there are all the other graduate departmental newsletters and magazines that go to their special graduates. My, aren't we proud of our provenance!

Oh, and then there's that radical "community-powered" radio station, KUNM and a TV station called KNME with all their programs that have almost nothing to do with UNM, but receive student fees. At least KUNM devotes an hour each Friday to interview faculty of interest. KNME? Zilch.

The internet is a whole new animal I can't describe.

Lets get real here, really serious about how the University markets itself and its successes. And the faculty will have to come off their ivory (ivy-covered?) pedestals and talk to the people (who pay a very small fraction of their salaries, but who UNM needs to support the institution and keep it from becoming a overblown community college).

UNM should consolidate all its paper-published articles for a lay audience into one sandbox, one publication for mass consumption. It's called sharing (or cross-fertilizing). UNM is a great and big institution that does a myriad of great things for the world and New Mexico, but it's apparently crowded with brilliant silos and fer sher no one imagines that anyone else is interested in what they do. Every silo-dweller and silo-builder should get in the sandbox and share their good news with everyone they can! Including the public, taxpayers and legislators (not to mention the federal government and private grantors).

The University needs to take a lot more interest in its broadcast entities and use them to proclaim the work of all University programs. Like when did a favorite Anthroplogy professor get a chance to record an hour for public broadcast?

How's that working for ya'? NOT

UNM can't maintain its paranoid and selfish attitude. Shout out the good news to EVERYONE!

Call this new monthly magaine New Mexico Review (like my blog!) and push it out in print on the newstands as hard as you can. This is not an original idea.

MIT was first with their monthly Technology Review that is sold on newstands and mailed to alumni. The only distinction is that alumni get a newsprint insert with all the alumni news and gossip of note, along with the glossy public news of all the great stuff MIT is doing! And UNM's publications can become a foundation for regular programs on KNME and KUNM!

What great stuff is UNM doing, and who knows? Who cares?

Please buy my blog!

Pre-Professional University Athletes

NCAA Division I games are an incredible misdirection of college cash, energy and adminstrators' enthusiam. AND a burden on 98% of students who don't participate. And remember, student-athletes CANNOT be paid for their work on behalf of the university's marketing department.

Here's the pitch: WHAT IF a university declared that 98% of students would play sports instead of spectating? Looks a lot more like NCAA Division III games, or just like more fun for everyone. I live in a dream world. Wait, it looks a lot like England!? Huh?

On 2 Dec. 2010, The Albuquerque Journal gave space to the president of New Mexico State University to declare: [editorial comments added]

". . . Considering all universities with Division I athletics programs, 103 out of more than 120 [83%] use budget transfers like we do to support their athletics programs. On a national level, universities transfer an average of $10.2 million to athletics programs. NMSU, in fiscal 2011, transferred $4.1 million, well below the average.  [because they are wealthier and even more deluded than NMSU on average]

"The fact is the vast majority of athletics programs like ours require some support from instruction and general budgets. [because the games lose money] If we look at that budget transfer in light of our overall university budget, our total athletics budget as reported to the state is $16 million, just 2 percent of our total university budget (all sources, all campuses) of $682 million. The $4.1 million transfer is less than 1 percent of that total. Yet the athletics program supports 425 student athletes whose graduation rates are 20 percent better than our overall student population; who represent greater diversity than the general student population; and who through their performance on courts and fields provide a solid connection to NMSU for our alumni and friends. [that's called PR and marketing. Most companies pay a lot for that service!] That connection also played a significant role in our success in raising $256 million for NMSU's first capital campaign, exceeding our goal by more than $30 million." [What?! no one is proud of NMSU except because of its WAC teams? What does NMSU stand for in New Mexico?]

In simple terms, NMSU is giving each of 425 "student-athletes" a direct scholarship of almost $10,000 per year. Okay, it does cost almost $17,000 a year for an undergraduate to live on campus and attend NMSU, so that's an attractive scholarship, but the athlete sees only a fraction of the money.

How much of that $17k are the athletes paying out of pocket?

Now to be considered with this transfer of $4.1m every year from the instructional & general (I&G) budget is all the costs of supporting these athletes who are one (or a million) step away from professional sports, including:

trainers, medical supplies, luxury locker rooms, uniforms and helmets, referees, and the cost of maintaining the fields, and the rent of using the fields for these teams instead of some other paying customers, like outside adult clubs. All these costs are on top of the usual $17k/student costs.

Looking at the math: 2.5% of the students receive a direct subsidy of $4.1m to allow them to train and test to graduate to the professional basketball, football and baseball leagues. Out of the entire enrollment of the university of 17,238 students, only 2.5% actually play these games, and only perhaps four students will play pro sports after they leave NMSU each year. How many actually do?

WAIT! Semi-pro sports at NMSU create great PR and entertainment for the public (taxpayers) and the students every year, and help to build "spirit." What a joke! What is a university? A stadium?

How many and how much in scholarships and subsidies did NMSU give to its other non-academic but publicly entertaining students this year? Name one program outside sports. Name one student.

What the president of NMSU said, but no one heard, is that State cannot make a "profit" from its NCAA Division I sports, and only 17% of schools who are members of this elite club actually make money.

In the meantime, the so-called Olympic sports at NMSU and UNM struggle to defend their sports and get enough money for their teams to practice with a coach, use the fields and locker rooms, and travel to "away" games. Oh, and their opposing teams have to use locker rooms when they visit Las Cruces, too.

In the history of college athletics, the current system evolved after the first modern Olympics in the 1890s. Sports were intended to be an extra-curricular, non-sectarian, and moral enterprise that inculcated in students the ideas of self-sacrifice, sportsmanship, discipline, and fairness, and these ideas would shape their lives after college. These games in the historic tradition of the Greek Olympics could supplant religion inside the colleges as THE source of moral education.

How's that working for ya'?

Back to 5th-grade math: 2% of college students get this extracurricular education. 98% don't.

Universities have been suckered in to become FREE farm teams for professional football and basketball teams and leagues. Imagine that the NBA and the NFL spent, say $20,000 per student athlete per year, for each student who had potential to become a professional player? That would take a $4m burden off of NMSU's budget immediately! And the students would actually get PAID to train and play for the pro leagues someday. Hmmm. That sounds likes professional Baseball and their farm teams, like our Isotopes who we love.

What's wrong with this picture? D'oh!

98% of students at NMSU and UNM subsidize the 2% who play football and basketball - and they don't see athletics as an essential part of their life after graduation, except from a comfortable chair and a cold beer in hand.

What's wrong with this picture?

One out of five Americans is obese, prone to Type II diabetes and an early death. We need to play more!

I propose a simple solution: New Mexico's proud "NCAA Division I" universities, whether they're ranked in the top 120 american "Division I" colleges and universities academically or not, should give up this pro-sports farm-team fantasy and quit deluding their recruits. The purpose of NMSU and UNM is to educate New Mexico's young adults to thrive and compete in the international world ahead, not to entertain the folks of the Western Athletic Conference.

The solution for NMSU is to invert the formula: 98% of students will play sports every year and learn life-long games that they enjoy playing and that will help them stay fit. Student fees well spent. There is no dishonor for NMSU or UNM to move to NCAA Division III, cut their losses and get more students on the field every day.

Let the games begin!

Republican Traitors and Felons Get a Pass

The Republicans are building an amazing track record of treason and felony.

Not too many years ago, there was the Iran-Contra affair, where both "Colonel" Ollie North and "Rear Admiral" John Poindexter were convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice - after they were caught selling arms to the Contras in Nicaragua and working with the Iranians, both declared enemies of the United States. Who gave them the 'Get of Jail Free" card?

More recently, there's the treasonous act of "outing" an intelligence agent of the United States, apparently led by "Vice President" Dick Cheney and his fall guy, "Scooter" Libby. Who gave them the 'Get of Jail Free" card?

Oh, and then there's the illegal use of torture allegedly sanctioned by both "President" George W. Bush and "Vice President" Dick Cheney (again), And, again, I ask, who gave them the 'Get of Jail Free" card?

Once upon a time, the United States stood for civility and the humane treatment of prisoners of war, both because it was right, and because it worked!

We prosecuted foreign torturers and the their leaders. Americans have little standing to do that ever again. Perhaps our Canadian friends will pick up the burden of righteousness and humanity.

When did we give up our leadership and our morals?

Gossip as Politics

Have you noticed that what we call "political debate" in America is just a refined version of gossip?

It's all about the "money race," the "state race," the "race race," the outrageous comment race, and worse.

Are these self-sacrificing lambs and wolves really qualified for the jobs they seek? Like we need a state prosecutor for Governor? We need a good roofer for Lieutenant Governor? We need a flaming jerk for Representative in US House District 2? NO!

I'll stick to experience over partisan enthusiasm this year. Vote for the folks who actually know what they are doing! Vote Denish-Colon.

President Bill Clinton was right. Vote Democratic.

Now if the Repuglicans would just get off their rich, fat, tanned obstructionist asses, perhaps we could actually resolve some of the problems America has faced since 2001. Without blowing everything up, peering into everyone's bedroom, or bankrupting everyone left standing.

No Erosion in Ethics Today; Greed is Good!

In today's The Sunday [Alburquerque] Journal, a sydicated financial genius named Gail MarksJarvis from the Chicago Tribune explained how the middle class use of "strategic defaults" on house mortgages is an "erosion in ethics. http://www.gailmarksjarvis.com/ Thank God we don't do that in New Mexico!

But, just gag me with a pound of gold. Ethics in money are eroding? Like, since when: 1880? 1980? 2010?

For many years, our neighbors, our banksters have patted themselves on the back. Paid themselves billions in bonuses EVERY YEAR! Finally a syndicated, self-proclaimed personal financial advisor noticed that ethics in money are eroding! Oh, thank God! There's hope, again!

Back of the envelope calculation: every year for the past 3 years, 100,000 house mortgage holders across the United States "chose" to default on their house mortgages which are underwater by $100,000. The total loss to the banksters each year might be $10b (in 2016). In the meantime, in between time, somehow the banksters found the wherewithal these past three years to give themselves billions of dollars in bonuses EVERY YEAR! [emphasis added] Even after the mortgage payors, i.e., the citizens, agreed to give the banksters over a trillion dollars in subsides to save their f****** financial asses.

Do I feel that my ethics have eroded? Are the Rich different? Am I as blind as a professional personal financial advisor in Illinois? NO!

We need to revive an honest, old-fashioned American ethic: to invert Franklin: a penny earned is a penny kept. Our dear "symbolic analysts" across the U.S. who told us how to get rich in 15 minutes need to take a break. Let's get real. Let's make things that people need. Let's grow food that people can eat. The land and our talent are still the basis of real wealth.

A New Beginning

Welcome to the New Mexico Review, an ongoing commentary about New Mexico, USA in the 21st Century. I'm just one person, and I sign myself as New Mexico Native. Stay tuned. Thanks for reading!