Student-Teacher Relationships Play Vital Role in Higher Education

UNM and CNM students and faculty present their perspectives on what makes for a quality education at New Mexico's two choices for higher education.

by DARRICK HURST

One of the factors prospective students may take into consideration when choosing the institution of higher education they will attend for the next several years is the interaction with faulty that they can expect to experience, and how much they can expect to pay for that experience.

Albuquerque’s two choices for college, Central New Mexico Community College and the University of New Mexico, each offer students a different learning experience in their approach to their professors.

“One major difference I noticed between UNM and CNM were the class sizes,” said recent CNM graduate Jonathon Shores. “CNM just had much smaller classes, so it was easier to talk with your teachers because they knew who you were. On top of that, UNM didn’t offer the degree I wanted — photonics.”

According to the most recent UNM fact book, in fall 2006, UNM had an enrollment at its main campus of 25,817 students. In that same year, there were 2,688 faculty members on staff at the main campus to teach those students. CNM’s most current information listed a fall 2004 enrollment of 22,077 students and a faculty of 1,289.

“I’ve heard that a general psychology course at UNM can have as many as 800 students in one class,” said Sarah Minor, a medical laboratory sciences major at CNM. “In that same psychology class at CNM, I had a class size closer to 10 students. I’d much rather have those smaller class sizes than a huge class you can get lost in and the professor doesn’t even know who you are.”

However not all students hold the conviction that smaller is better.

“I like having a class I can disappear in,” said Tony Au, a UNM business student. “It means the professor is that much less likely to know who you are and have a problem with you.”

Stephanie Holinka, a faculty member at both CNM and UNM, has her own insights into the student-teacher relationship.

“I teach technical writing courses at UNM and CNM,” said Holinka. “I’ve taught in the classroom and through online courses. A particularly noticeable difference between UNM and CNM students from a teacher’s perspective is that CNM students seem to have more drive for being there. UNM students just kinda roll into class and don’t care because the lottery scholarship has allowed all these kids to go to college when they otherwise wouldn’t. The CNM students are more diverse age-wise, but they tend to be there because they want to be and there’s more drive and ambition in my students there than at UNM.”

The New Mexico Success (Lottery) Scholarship was established in 1996 and provides tuition scholarships to graduating New Mexico high school seniors who attend a New Mexico public college or university. During the 2005-2006 academic year, 7,654 Lottery Scholarships were awarded to UNM students and 4,358 to CNM students.

Inevitably, one of the factors directly impacting faculty at these institutions is the aspect of pay. In 2005, the average salary across all ranks of instructional faculty at UNM — which uses a system of 19 levels of pay grade from “helpers” up to “executives” — was $73,269.

CNM declined to release faculty salary information in a phone request, but Holinka noted “CNM pay may be lower, but so is the tuition.”

“Certainly the tuition made going to CNM more appealing to me too,” Shores said.

In fact, the average tuition for a full-time resident at CNM in 2004 was $440 — much less than UNM’s $4,335 average in 2006.

UNM saw an increase in tuition from 2001 to 2006 of 55 percent, whereas CNM only experienced a 15 percent increase in tuition from 1999 to 2004.

Following UNM and CNM’s partnership signed into agreement in August of last year, students may begin to see more overlap in the teaching styles of the two colleges. The partnership is designed to strengthen dual enrollment for students, making it easier for them to attend CNM for lower division courses for the first two years and UNM later for upper division and graduate courses. The collaboration also means the creation of more gateway programs that help students who may not be prepared for university work to take some remedial classes at CNM first.

Written March 13, 2008

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