Through a partnership between the Provost’s Office and the Office of the CIO, The University of New Mexico has finalized an agreement with Adobe that allows UNM to license all main campus and HSC students, and interested faculty and staff, for the full Adobe Creative Cloud. 

The agreement, which allows students to install the software on their own computers and devices, adds UNM to a select group of “Adobe Creative Campuses” across the country that are leading the way through innovative digital literacy curricula critical to the success of students and educators alike. 

Adobe Creative Cloud includes a wide variety of applications used to create, edit, and publish content—from documents and magazine layouts to videos, photos, audio tracks, web pages and Augmented Reality experiences. This allows UNM to expand digital literacy initiatives in classrooms and online and supports creative teaching strategies already underway in departments.

"Adobe and UNM are committed to bringing digital literacy to its entire academic community and providing students with the soft skills necessary to succeed both on and eventually off campus. By fostering creative problem-solving through Adobe's Creative Cloud, UNM is inspiring innovation across all its academic disciplines and empowering its students with the skills they need for an increasingly demanding workforce." — Jonathan Hammond, vice president, Adobe Education

What is most exciting about this initiative is the potential impact on the academic mission of the university. Through this agreement, UNM is providing its faculty, staff, and students with the means of production to express their ideas in a digital world, and adding digital fluency to the set of competencies that faculty, staff and students can apply to 21st century problems and innovations. Moreover, application of digital production tools provides a means to advance our shared calling to research, teaching, and service that advances the common good in New Mexico, the nation, and the world.

“Adobe and UNM are committed to bringing digital literacy to its entire academic community and providing students with the soft skills necessary to succeed both on and eventually off campus," said Jonathan Hammond, vice president of Adobe Education. "By fostering creative problem-solving through Adobe's Creative Cloud, UNM is inspiring innovation across all its academic disciplines and empowering its students with the skills they need for an increasingly demanding workforce."

“At its heart, UNM’s academic mission consists of two fundamental, equal and intertwined dimensions,” said UNM interim Provost Rich Wood, who helped negotiate the agreement. “First, UNM conducts research, engages in creative production, and writes or otherwise publishes its work. Second, UNM draws on that research and creative expertise to teach and mentor the next generation of leaders for society. There is a range of creative activities that includes discovery of new knowledge, and the creation of new ideas and works of art.” 

“In the work leading up to this agreement, UNM has been inspired by the energy and enthusiasm expressed for this initiative by its faculty, staff, and students,” said CIO Duane Arruti. “UNM is excited to see the projects that its faculty, staff, and students will create, and we look forward to the innovations and creative works that will emerge from classrooms, studios and research labs.”

Adobe Creative Campus

As part of the agrement, Adobe is partnering with the UNM Board of Regents to make a $100,000 investment intended to support The University of New Mexico's campuse-wide digital literacy initiative championed by the Provost and CIO's offices. Supporting the University in this way ensurs financial resources are available to invest in faulty enablement, student  development, infrastructure or otherwise as thre parties have mutually agreed upon to support this bold initiative.

“Within the libraries, we’re partnering with central IT to create a physical facility with interesting new studio space that’ll serve students, faculty and staff, that will enable them to do things right here in the library,” said Richard Clement, Dean, University Libraries.  “The library is a place where we have traditionally emphasized information literacy and without that kind of literacy, our students can’t succeed. Adobe Creative Campus is very much a forward-looking suite of tools because these are the true digital kinds of tools that people will use for their entire lives. This enables our students to become fluent with these tools and is going to enable that kind of success. It’s very exciting.”

The initiative will also support an Adobe Creative Classroom in the Honors College. “One of the fundamental purposes of an Honors College is to provide both an opportunity and a location where all of the institution's faculty can engage in experimental pedagogical and curricular design,” said Greg Lanier, Dean, UNM Honors College. “The Adobe Creative Classroom in the Honors College will be used as a site for experimental course design that will be available to all UNM faculty to explore ways of improving both Honors and Non-Honors classes.”

Additional training will help instructors build assignments drawing on this software in courses throughout the university, systematically supporting innovation in GenEd courses, online offerings, and every degree program. UNM students will emerge with software skills crucial to success in all kinds of careers, from cultural production and the fine arts to business innovation and from the non-profit sector to government service in the 21st century. 

For specific questions about Adobe Creative Cloud, visit FAQs

For more information, visit Adobe Creative Campus.