Regent says next UNM head must understand "our culture."

The person who replaces Louis Caldera as president of the University of New Mexico must be a fund-raiser, a lobbyist, schmooze with our congressional delegation, be able to run a major university like the big corporation that it is, have a background in academia, and -- oh yeah -- work for what we'll pay him or her.

That's the rough job description laid out in this morning's Albuquerque Journal story by Olivier Uyttebrouck.

But the ideal candidate, according to UNM Regent Jamie Koch, will be someone "who understands our culture here -- the state culture," meaning, Koch told the Journal, that the next pick is likely to be a New Mexican.
But just what does that mean?

There's a negative definition attributed to Territorial Gov. Lew Wallace, best known to history as the author of "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ," who once wrote "All calculations based on our expectations elsewhere fail in New Mexico."

Then, there's former Gov. Toney Anaya's famous blast toward the end of his term in 1986 in which he called New Mexico a "banana republic," for which he later apologized.

We'd like you, our readers, to come up with your own definition of "New Mexico culture" in 25 words or less, e-mail it to bdaniels@abqjournal.com and we'll post your answers on ABQjournal.com. And we'll publish the best entries in an upcoming edition of the Albuquerque Journal.

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