The forum was attended by approximately 15 individuals, 7 of whom were members of one of the three Business Functions Committees.

Facilitator: Bill Miller
Recorder: Julie Weaks

Brief overviews of committee reports were presented by the following individuals:

Committee Name                         Presenter
Infrastructure Committee             Roger Schluntz, Committee Chair
Operations Committee                Carol Stephens, Committee Chair
Finance Committee                     Max Kerlin, Chair
 
 

The following observations were offered by individuals attending the forum:

• I have read the committee reports, and there seems to be a conflict between one committee report that says that UNM should increase admissions requirements and another one that says that UNM should increase enrollment.

• I attended one of the brainstorming sessions where we used sticky notes, and I never got a copy of the summary from my session. (Dottie Clough?—College of Nursing)
• The faculty are complaining that the timing for these open forums is very bad. They are being held during the last two weeks of the semester when faculty are very busy with finals, etc. We do not see the process as including very many faculty and would like to see more inclusion of faculty.

• The additional forums that are scheduled are not good timing for faculty either—they are during the first two weeks of the spring semester. The first two weeks and the last two weeks of the semester are not good times for these kinds of sessions. They should be held at times other than these.

• There could be an accreditation issue here. Hugh Wittemeyer says that there was a comment in the NCA report that faculty turnout for accreditation was very poor. That same thing is happening concerning strategic planning.

• Dean Schluntz says that he anticipates that faculty may comment on the report in other ways (besides attending an open forum). He says that he would anticipate that faculty my elect to comment via e-mail, written responses, etc.

• Dr. Miller comments that we have to overcome the cynicism of prior planning processes.

• Max’s committee report says that we will have to address issues of internal allocation of costs. I am concerned that this means cuts to places like CIRT and the library. (Kerlin responds that on the contrary, CIRT and the library would be anticipated beneficiaries of this kind of a reallocation of costs. An example of what the report is talking about is that there are over 50 special projects funded by the state and they do not pay any overhead.)

• Bill Gates is giving away millions of dollars. We should get together a proposal to take advantage of that. We should be able to use new programs as an incentive for the legislature to give us more money. (Weaks responds that the legislature tends want to reduce UNM’s state funding as we demonstrate that we are able to generate external funding and that it is a constant challenge to educate them about how grant and contract money can be used, how it enhances economic development in the state and why the institution incurs expenses when it accepts external funding.)

• We would like more information on what the administration is doing to educate the legislature.

• There are several points that I would like to emphasize that I do not see mentioned in the reports (Jack McIver, Chair of Physics and Astronomy)

1. Bookkeeping seems to be done at every level in the University. This is very inefficient. There must be incredible savings available if this were consolidated. I do not know where EMIS is, but we have not seen anything yet. We should move forward much faster with this initiative.
2. I would like to be able to get a FRS report that I could read some day.
3. FRS reconciliation should be done at a higher level. Much of the business we have to do all the time should be done at a higher level by regrouping and consolidating resources. There is duplication of effort among departments We could be more efficient
4. I&G budgets have not gone up in years for non-personnel costs. We use IDC to cover increased costs.
5. More and more charges are being sent to departments to pay.
6. Increasing technology is expensive and it is unclear how we should pay for it.
7. It would be helpful for HSC and the Main Campus to operate using the same paperwork. There should be uniform standards. There must be duplication between the two sides of campus.