The University of New Mexico can improve its graduation and retention rates by continuing to increase admission standards and reassessing the way remedial courses are taught at the state flagship university, incoming President Bob Frank said Thursday.
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Q&A With Incoming UNM President Frank
Frank, currently provost at Kent State University in Ohio, starts a five-year term as UNM president on June 1 after David Schmidly’s contract expires. Frank, in an interview with the Journal, said the university is already doing many things right, but he hopes to find areas that can be improved to better serve students and begin to improve UNM’s disappointing 45.1 percent six-year graduation rate and 74.1 percent freshmen retention rate.
“I think UNM should set a standard for itself over time for being a university that really tries to serve the highest, best prepared students in New Mexico, in time,” he said. “Right now, I think you have to go very slowly to address that. You really have to start at the lower end of where the skills deficiency is, which is basically math or reading skills.”
Frank pointed to a revised teaching model for basic math courses at Kent State that has helped students who struggle in math and often choose majors just to avoid the subject.
“It opens up some of the kind of (science, technology, engineering and math) areas that we want to see more kids major in, lets kids succeed in degrees like nursing, where we lost a lot of students because they can’t do basic math very well,” he said.
UNM already is moving toward higher admission standards, increasing the number of high school courses required and minimum grade point averages. But the university has drawn criticism that as standards increase, access could be limited for some New Mexico students.
“Overall, at the end of the day, at the end of the time I’m president (hopefully) in 10 years, I would imagine that the admission to the university might be a little more competitive than they are today, and we would have all sorts of resources that would help kids compete to be ready for that,” Frank said.
“So we’re not turning kids away, but were preparing them to be a student at UNM…”
Frank’s contract will include the possibility of a bonus up to $25,000 per year for showing “measurable improvements” in student retention and graduation rates. UNM should strive toward improving its graduation rate to 60 percent, he said, but that will take time.
UNM also needs to continue to develop its relationships with Central New Mexico Community College and Albuquerque Public Schools to improve the pipeline students travel between high school and a bachelor’s degree, he said. Frank praised the work Schmidly has done in improving UNM’s relationship with the city’s other schools.
But before anything can get done when Frank takes the helm at UNM, the first job is building trust with university faculty, some of whom insisted that Frank’s perceived leadership style was not a good fit at UNM.
“Obviously the faculty are looking at this transition with a high level of scrutiny, and they want a president that they believe listens to them and understands their needs and is sensitive to what it takes to build a great university and to do their daily work. I think I understand that, I just need to convey to them that I understand that,” Frank said.
Frank on Wednesday was selected unanimously by regents to be UNM’s 21st president. He is expected to receive a total compensation package up to $492,000 per year, at least $102,000 less than UNM pays Schmidly.
In a wide ranging interview with Journal reporters and editors Frank also addressed other areas of the university including:
♦ Athletics: “The president has to accept that accountability and live and die with it, so to speak. So I intend to do that. That means I’m going to look carefully at the athletic programs, the values, the integrity of the program. My first meeting with the athletic staff, I will talk to them about my belief that these are student athletes, not athlete students.”
♦ Research: “By building effective partnerships to these already best-of-practice enterprises that exist in New Mexico (like the national labs), we can advance the research enterprise here, I think quite successfully.”
♦ Fundraising: “I think UNM has a significant amount of potential in fundraising, and I think it’s going to take some focus from the president, from the foundation, from the development officers and the deans, … So I think it’s an area of opportunity. Some of that opportunity is not in New Mexico. New Mexico graduates are all over the place.”
♦ Vice Presidents: “You know, to be honest, I’m not sure the numbers are greater than some other universities, but it’ll be part of my hundred-day agenda to really drill down and understand more about how many we have and what their responsibilities are.”
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal
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