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UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO Preliminary Comments
In the UNM Strategic Planning process we have conducted what often is called an Environmental Scan. We asked a group of nine thoughtful faculty and others, each with expertise in a topic such as our demographic, political, economic, business, educational, and cultural environment, to write a ten to fifteen-page summary of their best thinking on what UNM will face in the next decade. Given the inherently uncertain nature of such an endeavor, it is clear that many people will disagree with details of the Scan; accordingly, I hope they will share their thoughts with us so that our planning can benefit from the broader understanding of the environment we are likely to face. Up to this point in the planning process, the Planning Task Force and all working committees have used the Environmental Scan in a draft version that is in substance essentially the same as the attached final version. It is this final version that will be used in the balance of the planning process, including the writing of the Plan itself. The scan is a living document, however, and we invite comment; revisions will continue to be made at appropriate intervals. I believe that the Environmental Scan committee has done a commendable job at doing a nearly impossible task, and I want to thank the member here for their contribution. Brian L. Foster
State Physical Environment
Water
State Demographic Environment
New Mexico has a significant number of people and groups whose cultures and values have derived from their historic ties to the land and who live chiefly in pueblos, villages, or reservations. These groups are mainly Navajos, Apaches, Pueblo peoples, and Hispanics. Opportunities to participate fully in the industrial and post-industrial economy are limited where these people live. Value in these communities tends to be placed on family and culture and on having the young people stay to work and raise their families. There has not been a long tradition of participation in higher education. New Mexico has become a majority-minority state, i.e., a state with a nearly unique population in which no ethnic, racial, or cultural group represents an absolute majority. The non-Hispanic white, or Anglo, population accounts for 49% of the total population. In 1996, Hispanics of all races accounted for just under 40% of the state’s population, while Native Americans made up 9%, African Americans 2.6%, and Asian Pacific Islanders 1.4% Between 1980 and 1997 net migration accounted for about 32% of New Mexico population growth, with 68% coming from natural increase. With the slowdown in the New Mexico economy relative to surrounding states, domestic net migration since 1997, as estimated by the Census Bureau, has been negative. Historically, domestic migration has been the most important factor in the growth of the Anglo population in New Mexico. In contrast, higher birth rates and lower median ages have been greater contributors to the increases in the Hispanic and American Indian populations. Unless the state’s economy significantly outperforms those of neighboring states
and California, it may well be that the net migration of Anglos will be below
historical rates over the next ten years. Thus, New Mexico is likely to
experience over this time a relative increase in the non-Anglo population.
In addition to the above, New Mexico has experienced some in-migration from
people from Latin America, particularly Mexico. These foreign nationals
have formed communities that will attract further international migration from
the same areas. Viewing the above factors from the perspective of higher
education, it is important that an increasing fraction of those turning 18 and
of traditional college age is likely to be Hispanic and Native American.
State Economic and Industrial Environment Industrial Base
In part because of the presence of UNM and the national laboratories, New Mexico has been at the cutting edge in the development of new technologies. Although the commercial application of these technologies has lagged considerably, New Mexico has successfully spawned a number of commercial high technology ventures; we have not yet seen major success in providing the nourishing environment in which these nascent high technology businesses can mature. With significant investments by Intel and other high technology firms, manufacturing, especially of electronics, has emerged as a key sector, now accounting for some 17% of the gross state product, up from the 6% share that this sector maintained throughout the 1980’s. Despite this investment, however, the manufacturing sector today accounts for only about 6% of the total non-agricultural employment. This figure contrasts sharply with the U.S. average of 14.4% and is extremely low even by the standards of our region. Compensation of workers within the manufacturing sector remains at 4% of the gross state product—the same share observed in 1977. Nevertheless, electronics now dominate New Mexico’s exports to the rest of the world. Most of these exports are destined for Asia. Despite our common border with Mexico, only 3% of our exports to foreign countries were to Mexico in 1998. The virtual dearth of corporate headquarters has made the New Mexico, and particularly the Albuquerque metro, economy vulnerable to corporate restructurings orchestrated from headquarters elsewhere. This has contributed to the loss of major manufacturing facilities, including those of Digital Equipment Corporation and Siemens. Moreover, three New Mexico high technology start-up firms recently have been bought by corporate giants with headquarters elsewhere, while another local firm (MUSE) has announced plans to locate its headquarters in Massachusetts. There is also positive news, however—e.g., Intel’s massive expansion of its Albuquerque facility, and the location of Eclipse Aviation in Albuquerque. Today there is a new approach to economic development in New Mexico that emphasizes development of industry clusters, or groups of businesses that are related, including those producing for final demand as well as the whole network of supplier industries. For example, major industry clusters that have been identified for the Albuquerque area include microelectronics/semiconductors, optics/lasers, information technology, and biotech/biomedical. This new emphasis is evident in the state’s new economic development initiative and also provides the underpinnings for the “New Generations” initiative in Albuquerque and the industrial recruitment efforts of Albuquerque Economic Development (AED). By focusing on particular industries and their suppliers, this strategy can help to create that critical mass necessary to attract and keep similar and related businesses. This new strategy holds considerable promise, particularly if it is combined with efforts to develop the industrial and social infrastructure, to increase access to capital by developing venture capital sources, and, most importantly for UNM (including its branches), off campus graduate and education centers, and the Extended University, to expand and develop a skilled and educated workforce. The spectacular scenery, outdoor recreation opportunities, and artistic and cultural traditions have made New Mexico attractive to tourists and to those who would buy a bit of paradise. Much wealth has been made buying and selling real estate and developing land, with some 5% of the state gross domestic product coming from construction and 10% from real estate. State and local gross receipts tax is collected on construction activity as well as on engineering and architectural services and sales of furnishings and appliances. State and local revenues tend to rise and fall with the construction cycles. In the past few years New Mexico has attracted a number of back-office operations and call centers. Initially concentrated in the Albuquerque area, there are now a number of ventures in progress in smaller cities around the state. Indian gaming has also taken off and several Pueblos are in the process of developing destination resorts. Some of these efforts promise to bring a new group of tourists to our state. Digital technologies and the transformation to a knowledge-based economy in the last decade means that the demand for workers who can create, apply, and use Information Technology (IT) cuts across all industry segments, including manufacturing, services, transportation, health care, education, and government. As these industries mature over the next ten years, there will be increased opportunity for students who merge backgrounds in computer science, mathematics, and other sciences with more general business skills and experience. Effective workers in the future will need a variety of skills, including technical knowledge about IT, business knowledge and experience, and organizational and communication skills. Employers recognize that the pool of qualified workers is inadequate today in certain occupations and is on a downward trend. The National Alliance of Business reports that unemployment is at a 30-year low and demand for employees with technical skills is escalating. One projection of near-term worker needs from the Hudson Institute says that 60% of future jobs will require training that only 20% of current workers possess. Demand will increase dramatically for students who have an increased capacity to think and work globally. Expectations are that: (1) industry will not be place-bound and neither will education; (2) industry will be global as will education; (3) most commerce will be internet-based and so will much of education; (4) adult learning will be a larger portion of the market for higher education because industry will require re-education and retooling of the workplace; (5) a more customer-driven model of education that permits learners to design their own programs, determine class schedules and choose instructional delivery systems will become the norm; and (6) restructuring to permit more flexible institutions and reallocation to eliminate redundant and non-economic programs will be required. Poverty New Mexico ranks 48th among the states in per capita income and has the highest rate of poverty among the states. Income and poverty problems are not distributed evenly across the state, however. Two counties in the state (Los Alamos and Santa Fe) had per capita income above the national average in 1997, while 10 of our 33 counties were among the 250 with the lowest per capita income. The largest city, Albuquerque, falls between these extremes; for example, both per capita income and family income are above El Paso and Tucson but slightly below Colorado Springs. Nor is poverty uniformly distributed among ethnic groups. According to the 1990 census, the rate of poverty among Anglos in New Mexico was 11%, while the rate was 28% for Hispanics and 46% for Native Americans. Tax Base and Government Revenues The state’s broad based gross receipts tax has generally served the state and local governments well, but growth in this revenue source has slowed markedly in recent years as a result of several developments: (1) loss of tax base due to legislative action (lost base includes half of for-profit hospitals, jet fuels, prescription drugs); (2) lost tax base due to changes in the economy and business practices (Lovelace carried out a corporate restructuring specifically to avoid gross receipts taxes; many primary care physicians have left private practice to become employees of entities not subject to gross receipts taxes); (3) slow growth of the economy; (4) e-commerce; (5) gambling, which substitutes for taxed expenditures such as other recreation. Many of the areas where the economy is growing the fastest, in terms of either jobs or total output, are not subject to the gross receipts tax. The income tax, with a progressive rate structure designed to compensate for the regressive nature of our gross receipts tax, has increasingly come under attack. Our marginal rate (8.2%) is the same as Idaho’s, is below Oregon (9.0%), California (9.3%), Hawaii (8.75%) and Montana (11.0%), but exceeds those for Arizona (5.04%), Colorado (5.0% flat tax), and Utah (7.0%). Texas, Nevada, Washington, and Wyoming have no income tax. New Mexico’s tax structure, our poverty, and the composition of our industry pose revenue limitations for the state. Unlike virtually every other state, New Mexico makes no use of the property tax for funding public school operations. Instead, these are almost totally funded by the state through the state equalization formula. The property tax is an extremely unpopular tax in New Mexico. Historically, many people lost their land due to unpaid property taxes, and many others have paid the tax to become land rich and cash poor. Rapidly rising property values have resulted in rising property tax assessments that have penalized long-term residents, particularly in the Santa Fe area. In any case, New Mexico property taxes are among the very lowest in the country, whether measured on a per capita or an income base. Despite the fact that the state’s economy is expected to grow and perhaps even prosper over the next ten years, several factors suggest that the state’s tax revenue will continue to grow at a slow pace during this period. First, state taxes are unlikely to increase significantly because of public pressure to maintain or reduce current tax rates. Second, there appears to be little current interest in altering the state’s tax structure in any substantial way. Third, the fastest growing segments of our economy in the near future are likely to be those that produce the least growth in gross receipts taxes (e.g., manufacturing for export, back-office operations, casinos, e-commerce). Thus, while economic progress in the state may eventually lead to a significant growth in the state’s general fund, this growth in the general fund is likely to lag behind the growth of the state’s overall economy during the immediate future. Given the variety of significant and competing needs for public funds within the state and given recent historical trends, it seems unlikely that higher education’s percentage share of the state’s general fund will increase dramatically in the coming years. Furthermore, since it is highly unlikely that the number of higher education institutions in the state will be reduced, the competition among institutions for the limited state funds available will remain high. The most likely opportunities for increased state appropriations to higher education institutions appear to be 1) revisions in the higher education funding formula, 2) the continuing effort to build legislative and community support for higher education’s role, and 3) the ability of colleges and universities to work collaboratively and to share resources in certain areas. Finally, given the current per capita income within the state and given
that a relatively high proportion of UNM’s students are in-state residents,
many UNM students will continue to have difficulty paying for their educational
costs. As a result, many who do enroll at UNM will continue to have
to work while they are students to pay for these costs.
State Medical and Health Sciences Environment
While UNM continues to see patients regardless of ability to pay as part of its public mission, revenues to support such care are rapidly diminishing. The 1997 federal Balanced Budget Agreement has decreased funding to public hospitals, and state and federal funding have decreased even as the numbers of uninsured and costs to deliver care and health professional training have increased. In the fall of 2000 a critical Mil Levy property tax vote was passed in Bernalillo County to support the University Hospital operations. University Hospital is dependent on those funds for carrying out its public mission. Over the next decade public policy will continue to grapple with health care as a market commodity versus a social good. The four sides of the health care box—payers (managed care organizations), providers (physicians, clinics, and hospitals), patients, and purchasers (private business and public payers) will remain barriers to change as each advocates improving its own position at the expense of the others. Cross subsidization of care for underinsured and uninsured will diminish. The number of uninsured will grow. Choices will come down to whether an employer mandate, individual mandate, single payer, or some combination of these will prevail. Health care educators, researchers, and safety net service providers will have to adapt to the rapidly shifting environment. There will be exponential growth in distance education, telemedicine, and education of patients as their own primary care managers and more sophisticated consumers of health care via new technologies and web-based interactive venues. UNM’s Physical Environment Driving Forces
Albuquerque’s housing affordability index has historically been near that of Washington D.C. and San Diego. Lower land and housing costs in Rio Rancho, Los Lunas, and Belen have attracted people to move to those communities despite their jobs being in Albuquerque. This land development pattern contributes to lengthy commutes, automobile congestion, and negatively affects air quality. Access to affordable housing will affect the city’s ability to attract new business and industry. A few owners with large land holdings dominate the land market, particularly in the East Mountain area, the West Mesa, Mesa del Sol, and the northwest quadrant of the metropolitan area. Infrastructure investments at the fringe compete with demands on the city to invest in revitalization of the urban core. Albuquerque Metropolitan Area
Pressures to limit growth and conserve water are likely to slow the pace of development on the West Mesa and in the East Mountain areas. Albuquerque will struggle with its competing priorities for new urban growth and concern with the environmental impacts, and threats to the region’s quality of life. Downtown Albuquerque is expected to be redeveloped to include more entertainment, housing, cultural, service, and retail businesses. The downtown may provide some off-campus affordable housing with Central Avenue acting as a major transit corridor linking old town and downtown with UNM, Nob Hill, and the Fairgrounds. Albuquerque will develop key corridors including Central Avenue, San Mateo, Louisiana, Coors and Montgomery Boulevards, as well as urban centers uptown and downtown. The strategy will be to raise densities, provide good transit, promote housing development, and support retail and service businesses. Over the period of the scan, the city will increase regulatory and economic incentives to develop vacant land in the urbanized areas. The city will continue to promote policies to encourage investment within the 1960 boundaries (Montgomery to Gibson, and Tramway to Atrisco), increasing in-fill development from about 9% to 15% of new construction. As the density of Albuquerque increases and development of the fringe
slows, exurban communities such as Placitas, Bernalillo, Rio Rancho, and
Belen will continue to grow. Developers and landowners, particularly
in the northwest part of the metropolitan region, will continue to support
a competitive market for affordable housing. Mesa del Sol is unlikely
to develop significantly over the next ten years beyond entertainment venues,
a few planned industrial facilities, and some housing near the airport.
Lower priced housing will continue to develop in a suburban pattern through
Isleta Pueblo, Bosque Farms, Los Lunas, and Belen.
The Main Campus
As planned, the campus will develop at a density and physical profile consistent with its present appearance. New construction will accommodate a student population of 35,000 and will be limited to specific building sites. The architectural style will reflect the Territorial and Pueblo Revival style that gives the campus its present distinct character. On the main campus the building coverage will be limited to 20% of gross land area and the building height will not exceed 2.5 stories. On the edges of the campus, height will be limited to 1.5 stories. Over the next ten years UNM will have to respond to the need to replace aging utilities and infrastructure, devoting a major portion of its annual capital budget to this need. Except for a few new facilities and building additions such as those for Architecture and Planning, Women’s and Children’s acute medical care, Chemistry/Earth & Planetary Science, and Engineering, most construction will focus on renovation and rehabilitation of existing structures. UNM will continue to control land along the North Golf Course and will develop its holdings along Lomas and University Boulevards. Interdisciplinary research and teaching will create demands for innovative
spatial relationships, exemplified already by the renovation of the old
bookstore for joint use by Biology and Media Arts. Student housing,
classrooms, and student service facilities will be developed in response
to student needs, demands, lifestyles, and learning styles.
The North Central Region
UNM’s Branches External Funding: Federal and Industrial Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, this research and development environment has begun to change dramatically. Spending in real terms for R&D from the federal government peaked in 1988 and has been declining ever since, with then notable exception of NIH. Today the U.S. spends a smaller percentage of its GNP on research than any other first-world country. This trend is likely to continue during the next decade and beyond. Barring some unforeseen event, federal budget surpluses now forecast probably will be used mostly for tax cuts and for programs other than higher education. It is very unlikely that overall federal support for higher education will be notably increased. It should be noted that UNM’s share of federal funding increased dramatically during the last few years, even in the challenging environment noted above. It seems likely this is due to the outstanding faculty researchers we have attracted to our ranks. It will be necessary to retain these faculty and attract others of similar caliber over the next ten years to be able to be equally successful in the future. Industrial support for basic research has also dwindled in many fields, particularly the physical sciences, over the last two decades. Although some technology-based industries formerly had a long-term research horizon, the current focus is on much shorter terms. This “outcomes driven” research has also been embraced by the federal funding agencies. This pressure will bring about more partnerships among government, industry, and academia and will raise many new issues with respect to intellectual property, conflict of interest, technology transfer, etc., during the coming decade. If the last century was the century of physics, the present century is likely to be the century of biology, materials, and information technology. The only area of significant growth in federal research funding has been in health-related research fields, as witnessed by the explosion of the NIH budgets at the expense of NSF, DOE, and DOD—the latter two of which are especially threatened. Even accounting for research trends and fads, it is clear that information technologies, the biological and biomedical technologies, and the nano- or engineered materials technologies are going to continue to be the hot fields. This is because they are so permeative and fundamental In addition to research funding, UNM receives federal dollars for student financial
aid, student support service programs especially in the scientific and engineering
fields for minority students, program delivery especially in the health and
education areas. These will continue to be important in the coming years.
In addition, universities in the first states to become “minority-minority (NM
is one of the first) will have the opportunity to develop and implement programs
and policies to enhance the educational, economic, and health status of the
state within a unique cultural and economic context. These programs and
policies should attract national attention and funding, as they may well serve
as models for other regions of the country that are experiencing similar demographic
and economic shifts. Perhaps the most salient issues in higher education concern instructional technology. The next decade will see the rapid introduction and implementation of new instructional technologies. Computer, storage, and communication technologies will become cheaper, faster, smaller, and more reliable. Internet access will be omnipresent and the cost per bit of information transmitted will continue to decline. Coupled with the demands of students raised with this technology, universities will be faced with the need to engage in effective faculty training, enhance classroom support, and augment distance education dramatically. Information technologies will have mitigated the physical constraints of time and space. Networked personal computers already allow people to access vast amounts of data and information at any time and from anywhere in the world where access is available. During the next decade access will become greatly expanded globally and will be essentially universal in the U.S., so that people will be much less constrained by fixed geographical locations or strict time schedules. Interactive multimedia web-based applications and combinations of complete web and web-enhanced courses for asynchronous learning from the campus, the dorm, home, or anywhere there is Internet access will be increasingly available. Universities will integrate this technology to not only enhance instruction, but also to conduct the business operations of the university, such as admissions, registration, financial aid, advisement, and cashiering. Increasingly, students will be non-traditional, part-time, and working adults who will expect a wide variety of quality courses to be offered at convenient times and at a pace that is convenient to them with an affordable cost. The likely impact of Information Technologies cannot be underestimated. Successful universities in this new environment will be those that develop comprehensive IT strategies that go well beyond a collection of activities and divided responsibilities. The changes that universities have undergone in the past did not significantly alter their fundamental mechanisms for storing, accessing, processing, and disseminating knowledge. Information technologies, however, are challenging to higher education in that they change these mechanisms in fundamental ways. Fundamental technological change ultimately results in fundamental structural change, regardless of whether the affected participants join or resist the change. History teaches us, however, that those who resist become less relevant. In short, new technologies are affecting everything, and the national dialogue on instructional applications, management information systems, and student support systems will raise expectations for UNM in this area. Moreover, as successful applications elsewhere take hold, UNM’s competitiveness for students and faculty will depend on our ability to meet the accomplishments of others. Other key issues are:
The recent Kellogg initiative done in close association with the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges gives extremely heavy weight to what it calls “engagement” of public universities. This emphasis is a reflection of the increased demands on the major public universities in areas of economic development, K-12 education reform, health care, continuing education and professional development, cultural opportunities, agriculture, and other areas for which universities are positioned for social leadership. This national discussion will greatly increase expectations of UNM by our major stakeholders. Globalization of business, instructional programs, fine arts, literature, science, and nearly every aspect of life is stimulating a new look at globalization of higher education. It is no longer an exaggeration to say that all students need global competencies; overseas study, language competencies, ability to work in multicultural settings, and other elements are widely discussed, but there is no real consensus on how these and other goals can or should be achieved and by what standards they can be evaluated. If we hold as a standard the international competencies of, say, European university students, it is clear that we have not even begun. Faculty roles are being widely reconsidered in many ways: e.g., the role of part-time faculty and full-time non-tenured lecturers, the balance of teaching, research and service, the reward and evaluation systems for faculty performance, and the integration of research and service into the curriculum. A powerful example of the impact of such higher education discussions is the extraordinary rapidity with which post-tenure review was adopted widely. Individual universities and colleges find themselves in an extraordinarily competitive environment as they vie with one another for federal funds, students, faculty, rankings, and political support. The new reality is that enrolling a quality freshman class requires sophisticated marketing, aggressive financial aid packages, and so on. Similarly, universities are increasingly competitive in placement of their graduates. This competitive environment will greatly increase as the private sector assumes an ever greater presence in higher education, competing for the students for whom public universities only recently were the sole higher education providers. Legislators, regents, parents, businessmen, donors, students, professional associations, accrediting bodies, granting agencies—all of our stakeholders are insisting on increased accountability and oversight. Much of this new interest stems from widely perceived lapses in quality of teaching, community responsiveness, compliance of many kinds, financial management, and so on. There is growing demand for learning outcomes assessment. Increasingly, leading public universities have turned to responsibility center management, performance based budgeting, and other measures that fundamentally change the way universities have been run and evaluated. Virtually all research universities are engaged in a difficult and contentious discussion about the commercialization of intellectual property created by faculty—about the place of IP and its commercialization in universities’ mission, about what is proper in the underlying relations between universities, their faculty, and industry, about the role of such activities in the universities’ contributions to economic development, and not least of all, the future role of such activities in generating revenue for the universities. The very nature of teaching and learning is undergoing fundamental re-examination. The lecture format on which we have so greatly relied is questioned; active learning, collaborative learning, service learning, and undergraduate research experiences are among the most important topics of conversation. These conversations are likely to change the way instruction—better, learning—is done in universities. Funding strategies for public universities are changing as state appropriations continue to decrease as a proportion of state budgets and as a proportion of the university budgets themselves. For major research universities, it is now common for 20% or less of the total operating budget to come from state funds. Funding is related to many issues discussed above. Tuition has risen greatly to the point of serious political and market resistance and has limited potential for further increases. Increased research funding puts stress on infrastructure. Revenue from intellectual property has surfaced as a major source in some institutions. Public universities are now far more aggressive in fundraising than in the past. This revenue squeeze comes at a time when enormous investments in information technologies are required. Cost-containment, enrollment management, and other strategies have become more important, though often bringing changes that faculty find offensive—often identified as creating a corporate environment on campus. These issues will remain important for the foreseeable future. A large proportion of tenured faculty at U.S. universities will retire in the next few years, and this generational shift will make more urgent a discussion of the roles and numbers of non-traditional faculty in comparison to tenured and tenure-stream faculty. Issues of faculty professional development, training in new instructional technologies, and the balance of teaching , research, and service will need to be reexamined in the light of state political priorities and federal funding realities For more that 20 years U.S. students have been entering science and engineering curricula in decreasing numbers. Currently, at the graduate level, more than half the students in U.S. universities are foreign nationals. This trend will likely continue during the next decade, especially since the federal government has increased the number of visas for students in technical fields but has not crafted policies to encourage more U.S. students to study science and engineering. The lack of effective K-12 instruction in mathematics and scientific fundamentals undoubtedly contributes to this problem. Finally, even the credentials of faculty are changing in important ways,
and graduate education—perhaps the most distinctive element of research
universities—has been radically transformed. The Ph.D. has become
an intermediate degree in many fields, as post-doctoral experiences have
replaced the doctorate as the terminal credential for faculty. The
Ph.D. itself has changed in important ways. The master’s degree as
an intermediate step to the Ph.D. has all but disappeared in many fields
as it becomes a consolation prize for those students who are not admitted
to Ph.D. programs or as many M.A. and M.S. degrees are transformed into
quasi-professional credentials leading to occupational opportunities.
The Council of Graduate Schools, the AAU, the NRC, and many of the scholarly
societies are deeply engaged in discussion of these issues.
Members of the Environmental Scan Committee Ralph Arellanes, Vice Chairman, Hispanic Round Table of New Mexico
Copyright ©
2000 The University of New Mexico.
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