Schmidly: Future of State, UNM Linked

New Mexico’s future prosperity depends on being innovative, and innovation lies within the University of New Mexico, outgoing president David Schmidly said.

Speaking before the Economic Forum of Albuquerque on Thursday, Schmidly said UNM’s success is tied to the state’s. The president, who will step down next month, will return to UNM as a tenured professor, but not until after he takes a yearlong sabbatical to write several books. Schmidly will be replaced by Kent State Provost Bob Frank, a UNM alumnus.

Schmidly, who received a standing ovation after his nearly 40-minute speech Thursday, said New Mexico relies too heavily on federal and state government jobs.

“We’re getting ready for the second wave of the double whammies, and that’s cuts in federal spending,” he said. “That’s gonna have a big impact on us. New Mexico could lose as many as 20,000 jobs. … And we have to be prepared for that.”

One solution: improve education in New Mexico, Schmidly said. For UNM, that means tightening admissions standards, such as increasing the required minimum GPA and requiring high school students to take three college prep courses. It also means improving graduation rates and continuing important partnerships with Kirtland Air Force Base and the Los Alamos and Sandia national labs, he said.

Having so many federal research and technology-advancing institutions makes New Mexico unique, and the state should take advantage of that in different ways, Schmidly said.

“How do we use that to build a new economy, one that’s not built around state and federal jobs?” he asked. “That’s what people tell me they want to see happen, and I think that’s our future.”

One way to use local resources to their full advantage is to push the national labs to have closer working relationships with universities, Schmidly said.

Another way to prosper is to invest in higher education, especially in the state’s three research universities – UNM, New Mexico State University and New Mexico Tech. Schmidly cited the state of Utah’s $111 million investment in two major research centers at Utah State University and the University of Utah in 2006. The investment, approved by the state Legislature, was meant “to strengthen Utah’s ‘knowledge economy’ ” by recruiting the world’s top researchers, according to the state’s Office of Economic Development,.

So far, the number of science and technology jobs in Utah has risen by 10 percent, Schmidly said.

“It’s not rocket science,” he said.
— This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal