Provost’s Wednesday Communiqué — October 10, 2012

Provost’s Wednes­day Com­mu­niqué — Octo­ber 10, 2012

It is not about grad­u­a­tion rates and test scores. It’s about what those things mean to the out­come of human lives. It’s about poten­tial real­ized or squan­dered, dig­nity enhanced or denied. — Salman Khan (Khan Academy).

Foun­da­tions of Excel­lence: In the last nine weeks, I have posted infor­ma­tion about the nine dimen­sions of the Foun­da­tion of Excel­lence (FOE) ini­tia­tive. As we have already dis­cussed, the FOE is an “ini­tia­tive designed to study all aspects of the first year of col­lege and to pro­duce a plan for insti­tu­tional improve­ment lead­ing to higher lev­els of stu­dent learn­ing and per­sis­tence in col­lege.” This ini­tia­tive has already been launched and we are aim­ing to have the plan com­pleted by early Spring 2013 semes­ter, in order to start full imple­men­ta­tion shortly thereafter.

The Impact of Edu­ca­tion: As we keep dis­cussing the costs and ben­e­fits of edu­ca­tion, the con­ver­sa­tion has mostly focused on eco­nomic out­comes. Accord­ing to the site http://apps.unitedway.org/forecaster/, edu­ca­tion ben­e­fits are also “linked to health, life expectancy, voter turnout, incar­cer­a­tion, self-worth and dig­nity, and prospects for one’s chil­dren.” The web­site includes a tool to fore­cast how life might improve for all of us if edu­ca­tional out­comes were to improve. Check out some of the spe­cific improve­ments for New Mexico.

State of Aca­d­e­mic Affairs Report: After my first year on the job, I felt it was impor­tant to put together a report that pro­vides an overview of all our schools/colleges and units includ­ing an account­ing of our major activ­i­ties and goals as they relate to goals set by the Regent’s Academic/Student Affairs Com­mit­tee. Please take a look by vis­it­ing: State of Aca­d­e­mic Affairs and pro­vide feed­back to provost@unm.edu.

Bonds C & B: Also related to the impact of edu­ca­tion: As we head to the polls on Nov. 6, please remem­ber to and encour­age oth­ers to vote on Bonds B & C. Bond C requires no com­mit­ment in the form of new taxes to the cit­i­zens of New Mex­ico. The lan­guage that vot­ers will see on the bal­lot reads as fol­lows: The 2012 Cap­i­tal Projects Gen­eral Oblig­a­tion Bond Act autho­rizes the issuance and sale of higher edu­ca­tion and spe­cial schools cap­i­tal improve­ment and acqui­si­tion bonds. Shall the state be autho­rized to issue gen­eral oblig­a­tion bonds in an amount not to exceed one hun­dred twenty mil­lion dol­lars ($120,000,000) to make cap­i­tal expen­di­tures for cer­tain higher edu­ca­tion and spe­cial school cap­i­tal improve­ments and acqui­si­tions and pro­vide for a gen­eral prop­erty tax impo­si­tion and levy for the pay­ment of prin­ci­pal of, inter­est on and expenses incurred in con­nec­tion with the issuance of the bonds and the col­lec­tion of the tax as per­mit­ted by law?

Bond B would pro­vide funds to make cap­i­tal expen­di­tures for pub­lic library resource acqui­si­tions. The bonds would not exceed $9,830,000. The lan­guage that vot­ers will see on the bal­lot for Bond B reads as fol­lows: The 2012 Cap­i­tal Projects Gen­eral Oblig­a­tion Bond Act autho­rizes the issuance and sale of library acqui­si­tion and con­struc­tion bonds. Shall the state be autho­rized to issue gen­eral oblig­a­tion bonds in an amount not to exceed nine mil­lion eight hun­dred thirty thou­sand dol­lars ($9,830,000) to make cap­i­tal expen­di­tures for aca­d­e­mic, pub­lic school, tribal and pub­lic library resource acqui­si­tions and con­struc­tion and pro­vide for a gen­eral prop­erty tax impo­si­tion and levy for the pay­ment of prin­ci­pal of, inter­est on and expenses incurred in con­nec­tion with the issuance of the bonds and the col­lec­tion of the tax as per­mit­ted by law?

Dean Search Time­lines: In the last few weeks, there has been a flurry of activ­i­ties regard­ing our searches for deans, and I have heard many con­cerns about the com­pressed time­lines for such searches. In all searches, I have tried to bal­ance the need for quick deci­sions with estab­lished processes and fac­ulty over­sight. In the case of the dean of the Office of Grad­u­ate Stud­ies we had a short win­dow for the selec­tion of an inter­nal can­di­date, and while I ini­tially intended to hire an interim dean, I received feed­back that many poten­tial can­di­dates would only be inter­ested in the posi­tion if it were a reg­u­lar appoint­ment. We also needed to hire an interim dean of the School of Law due to the depar­ture of cur­rent Dean Kevin Wash­burn to Wash­ing­ton, DC. The selec­tion of Pro­fes­sor Bar­bara Bergman as the interim School of Law dean was com­pleted quickly in con­sul­ta­tion with the Uni­ver­sity sec­re­tary. We are cur­rently engaged in a national search for the vice pres­i­dent for Research, which will take place under a nor­mal time­line. I am work­ing closely with the Com­mit­tee on Gov­er­nance and the Fac­ulty Sen­ate to bet­ter com­mu­ni­cate with regard to the con­duct of searches.

New Mex­ico CS for All: The lack of Com­puter Sci­ence and Com­pu­ta­tional think­ing in K-12 is one fac­tor in the low num­ber of Com­puter Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing majors at US uni­ver­si­ties. The Santa Fe Insti­tute (Irene Lee, PI) and UNM’s Com­puter Sci­ence Depart­ment (Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor David Ack­ley and Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus Ed Angel, co-PIs) were just awarded an NSF Com­puter Edu­ca­tion for the 21st Cen­tury (CE21) grant “NM CS for All” to address this prob­lem. Using the Extended Uni­ver­sity (EU) on-line sys­tem, the three-year project will involve 60 high school teach­ers and 1200 high school stu­dents across New Mex­ico. Each Fall Semes­ter, the high school stu­dents will enroll in a dual credit course in Com­puter Sci­ence deliv­ered through EU with the assis­tance of the teach­ers who will take their own CS course dur­ing the Spring Semester.

Be Part of the Solu­tion: Pres­i­dent Frank has ini­ti­ated a focused and broadly inclu­sive strate­gic plan­ning process believ­ing that as UNM cit­i­zens, we each have a duty to help shape what we want our uni­ver­sity to be in 2020. In order to par­tic­i­pate, please go to UNM 2020 and con­tribute your ideas and comments.

Inau­gu­ra­tion: The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Inau­gural Instal­la­tion cer­e­mony for Dr. Robert G. Frank, will be held on Sun­day, Nov. 18, 2012 at 2 p.m. in Pope­joy Hall. UNM fac­ulty mem­bers are invited to par­tic­i­pate in the fac­ulty pro­ces­sional at the cer­e­mony. If you are able to par­tic­i­pate, we ask that you fill out the regalia signup and par­tic­i­pa­tion form on the Inau­gu­ra­tion web­site (click on Fac­ulty Signup). It is impor­tant that fac­ulty plan­ning to par­tic­i­pate in Pres­i­dent Frank’s instal­la­tion cer­e­mony fill out this form, even in the case of fac­ulty hav­ing their own aca­d­e­mic regalia. The dead­line to order regalia was Fri­day, Oct. 5, 2012. Fac­ulty who sign up to par­tic­i­pate will NOT need to pick up a ticket to attend the event. Fac­ulty will be seated together in a des­ig­nated area. Please do not hes­i­tate to con­tact the Office of the Uni­ver­sity Sec­re­tary if you have any ques­tions or concerns.

Chaouki Abdal­lah, Provost & Exec­u­tive Vice-President for Aca­d­e­mic Affairs

A PDF ver­sion is avail­able at: Provost’s Wednes­day Com­mu­niqué. Your feed­back and input are wel­come at: provost@unm.edu or at the elec­tronic town hall. Please also see the Provost’s Blog.