RYAN HOLDS OPEN THE UNM ADMISSIONS DOOR

April 1, 2003

RYAN HOLDS OPEN THE UNM ADMISSIONS DOOR

Associate Director of Admissions Robin Ryan stood ready to pinch hit for Director Cindy Stuart who was out of town. It appeared a trip to Santa Fe to speak out against lowering admissions standards for transferring student athletes was in order.

"We are very much opposed to it. We maintain one set of standards for all students. There are both constitutional as well as NCAA concerns associated with lowering the standards," Robin said.
Talking to legislators demonstrates that working in admissions is not all about sitting behind a desk, Robin said, but plenty of paper pushing still exists.

Although UNM is a big machine, the system itself is made up of a lot of individual people. "We are a bureaucracy, but we are here to help the students navigate through it," she said.

If a student must be denied admissions, "we work with them to take courses at TVI or other two-year schools to boost their skills," she said.

Robin recently helped a staff member whose son was attending UNM while still in high school. "A student can be enrolled concurrently at UNM and in high school," she said. A concurrent enrollment student must re-enroll each semester and then apply for admissions when ready to attend UNM fulltime.

"The student's mother, a UNM employee, was unaware that her son needed to re-enroll the second semester. I worked with her to get current transcripts, signatures from his high school principal and counselor as well as getting the student enrolled in a UNM course after deadline," she said.

All in a day's work at Admissions.

A native of Silver City, Robin has personal and family connections around the state and to UNM.

She earned her undergraduate degree in English from the College of Santa Fe. The "City Different" had been her home away from home for many years. She earned a master's in public administration from UNM in 1989.

Her father, Murray Ryan, served in the State House of Representatives for 30 years. Every year, mom and dad and the youngest Ryan children - plus the family dog - trekked to Santa Fe and lived there during the legislative session.

"It was a wonderful growing up experience. I think we were very fortunate," Robin said.

Although her father held the office, he wasn't the one with the political persona. "My mother seemed more like the politician. She was outgoing and gregarious," said Robin. Her mother, Marian, died in October 2001 after a long battle with cancer.

One of Robin's siblings is Dr. Murray Ryan, Jr., a physician in Española.

For years, Robin was called, "Murray Ryan's daughter." Now, when she travels to Española, she becomes, "Murray Ryan's sister."

"It's okay, though, because now my dad is 'Dr. Ryan's father' to people there," she said.

The elder Ryan is a 1945 West Point graduate. "One of my father's greatest pleasures was returning to see his grandson, Nick, graduate in 2002, West Point's bicentennial year," she said.

Dr. Ryan, and wife Debbie, are Nick's parents. "Nick is stationed at Ft. Rucker, Alabama, where they're teaching him to fly helicopters," she said proudly.

Robin had twin brothers, Kerry and Kevin. "Kerry has a construction company in Silver City," she said.

Kevin was a 1984 graduate of the UNM School of Architecture and Planning. "The running story in the family was that Kevin would design a house and Kerry would build it," she said.

That was not to be. Kevin died of AIDS in 1991. (accompanying story)

Robin has yet another UNM family connection. Her aunt, her father's sister Mary, is married to David Darling, former dean of the UNM College of Education.

Robin, the dutiful daughter, travels to Silver City at least once a month. After 56 years of marriage, her father's life has changed. And, said Robin, "I promised my mother I would look after him," she said.

"I went down to watch the Super Bowl with dad," she said. Both father and daughter are Chicago Bears fans because of former Lobo great Brian Urlacher. They also cheer for Notre Dame, and of course, they pull for the Army in Army-Navy games.

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