President's Weekly Perspective – 11.26.2012

Good morning.

I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving celebration and are rejuvenated for the final sprint to the end of the semester.

Lottery Scholarship Summit
It's no secret that the Lottery Scholarship, which has provided a college opportunity for so many New Mexico students, is facing some challenging times. The Legislature will be addressing this issue in its upcoming session that starts in January. Our student leaders are organizing a summit on Tuesday, Nov. 27 in the Lobo room in the SUB to ensure that student voices are included in the dialogue. The summit will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Guest speakers and policy makers will present the issues and there will be a forum for student input into the various options.

This summit is open to the entire UNM community, but is really focused on providing student input on ways to preserve and stretch the Lottery Scholarship. I encourage all students to participate and ensure that your voice is heard. The Lottery Scholarship is an important asset for New Mexico students, and its future should be determined with input from those who benefit most from it.

Reporting Out
As you all know, I invested my first 120 days at UNM in a Listening Campaign. The campaign ended in mid-October. Though, I still have many more opportunities to meet with you and listen to your thoughts and concerns, I would like to share with you a summary of the points, from the 120 Day Listen Campaign, which you will find by clicking Listening Campaign.

As part of that listening campaign, we also held an Economic Development Summit, and the report from that event can be found at: Economic Development Summit.

Hanging of the Greens
Please join us for the traditional Hanging of the Greens on Friday, Nov. 30. The event starts at 5:45 p.m. outside the UNM Bookstore and will end at U House with cider, hot chocolate and biscochitos, and the presentation of the holiday wreath. We are also collecting unwrapped children's books that will be donated to the UNM Children's Hospital. For more information, visit: Hanging of the Greens.

Training
As we are start to wrap up the year, I've been asked to remind you all that the 2012 University-wide required training courses must be completed by Monday, Dec. 31, 2012. All staff and faculty are required to take Preventing Sexual Harassment 2012, Basic Annual Safety Training 2012 and Ethics: A Framework for Ethical Decision Making 2012. However, many employees may have additional training that is required. For more information, please visit: http://hr.unm.edu/articles.php?article=2012-university-wide-required-training.

Have a great week, and Go Lobos!

Bob