Message from President David J. Schmidly

Mes­sage from Pres­i­dent David J. Schmidly — Thurs­day, April 21, 2011

When I came to UNM in 2007 I com­mit­ted to serve as uni­ver­sity pres­i­dent for at least five years. My con­tract will be ful­filled on June 1, 2012 and I’ve decided to leave the UNM pres­i­dency at that time. Last Mon­day, I noti­fied both the pres­i­dent and vice pres­i­dent of the UNM Board of Regents of my inten­tions in writing.

I’m let­ting you know of my deci­sion 13 months in advance for a cou­ple of rea­sons. The Regents have the impor­tant task of choos­ing the uni­ver­sity pres­i­dent, and I want to give them ample time to con­duct their search.

I also want to make it clear that I will con­tinue to do my job here. With the Regents, I will be set­ting goals for the com­ing year that will be real­is­tic, yet still strive to move the uni­ver­sity for­ward, even in the face of lin­ger­ing eco­nomic difficulties.

I know peo­ple will spec­u­late about the role my health played in my deci­sion. I can tell you that I’m feel­ing fine and that health is not an issue. Rather my deci­sion grew out of a sense of future and fam­ily. What I real­ize as I grow older is that I want to spend more time on things I trea­sure. I want to play with my grand­chil­dren and enjoy my fam­ily. Once I ful­fill my duties as pres­i­dent, I want to go back to teach­ing and doing the research I so love.

Together we have worked hard dur­ing the past four years, and have built upon a remark­able insti­tu­tion. I expect no less for the fifth year, which I pre­dict will be engag­ing and pro­duc­tive. I thank you for your sup­port and look for­ward to the com­ing months.

Sin­cerely,

David J. Schmidly