KUNM Call in Show: Tuition Increase - UNM Pres. Gerald May and ASUNM Senator Antonio Anaya

- Transcript
The third day of a sit in here at schools, hall students, and their supporters are protesting a 7.9% tuition increase that was approved by the UNM Board of Regents on Tuesday. And there have been some negotiations, the negotiations have broken down at various points. We understand they're about to start up again. There have been rather large rallies both yesterday and today here on the campus of UNM. And today we have with us, UNM President Gerald May, and also Antonio Anaya, who is among the student leadership here at the University of New Mexico. And we'd like to provide an opportunity for some discussion of some of the issues here. We invite our listeners to call us at 277KUNM, and you can direct your question either at President May or to Antonio Anaya, a student here at UNM. I should mention that we would like to keep this relatively informal, and we'd basically like to avoid getting bogged down in a debate type of situation, but we're primarily interested in bringing information to our listeners.
Good afternoon and welcome to the program. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Marcus. President May, I'd like to start by asking you essentially to justify or to give the justification for the 7.9% tuition increase that was approved by the Board of Regents this week. I regret that the Board didn't have more of a chance at the meeting to explain its stand before it took that position. That has to be put in context. We're talking about $100 a year, $50 a semester. That raises the total tuition and fees for next year to $1,370. The need for that, as the Regents saw it ultimately, was to put together a package that continue to fund the kind of priorities that they have set up. Those priorities are very clear. Those are educational quality issues.
One of those is clearly faculty and staff salaries compensation. One of those is support of the instructional program for which we didn't get enough money from the legislature. One of those is also to get the physical plans, particularly the classrooms, in order so that we can provide the best quality instruction to students. Thank you very much, President May. Antonio and I on the face of it, $100 a year in additional cost to students for attending UNM doesn't seem like very much money. I'd like to address that in two parts. First the actual $100. $100 to a lot of students who do attend school at UNM is a lot of money. The average age of the student at UNM is 26. That means a lot of these students have families they have to support, and $100 is a lot of money to these people. There are a number of students at the $100 will determine whether or not they can stay in school. There's a bigger issue here that we have to look at also, and that's one of the primary reasons that we have taken the stand that we have, is that tuition has increased 65 percent over the past five years.
It's more than doubled. Now, we're taking this as an economic issue. The regions appear to be erecting a barrier to gaining an education. There are people who are shut out, we're seeing decreasing and minority enrollment, decreasing the lower income enrollment at the university, and we think it's a big problem, and this barrier can directly be linked to tuition increases. So it is the $100, and it's much more than just the $100. Thank you very much. President May, I spoke with the Director of Financial Aid here at UNM John Whiteside a couple of days ago, and his feeling was that he did not think that this particular tuition increase is going to force anyone to quit school here at the university. There has been some mention of possibly increasing financial aid. Do you expect that that, do you see that as a solution? As part of the proposal, which unfortunately it wasn't articulated at the meeting, indeed the regions have proposed to set aside almost 10 percent, 8 percent, of the tuition increased
revenue for exactly that purpose. And the exact way in which that financial aid at $150,000 should be used is something that we'd be very happy to talk to students about, because certainly on Tuesday we heard exactly what Antonio is saying about, say talking about, that there are many families, there are many students to whom $110 is a lot of money. Two points, one is that the Pell grants, it's our understanding that the Pell grants next year will go up enough to offset that increase, and the Pell grants are for those that are really at the very bottom of the economic scale. We also are willing to shape that additional financial aid, that is that the university might set aside, to meet the special needs of those that can demonstrably show that they're not able to come. Clear interest of all of us, common interest with students, and clear interest of the board,
I can speak on the board on this issue because it's one that we always talk about to make sure that we don't disenfranchise anybody from coming to the university that's able. I'd like to remind our listeners that if you have a question or comment, you can ring us at 277KUNM, and you can ask a question to President May, or Antonio Naya. Go ahead. If I could make a comment to what President May just said, number one, a lot of the proposals that President May spoke of have just surfaced since the students began their demonstration, so that's one thing that should be brought up. We see an inconsistency in that the regents have proposed setting aside a portion of this tuition increase to fund those individuals who will be most hurt by it. It seems to be putting the cart before the horse. We see other means for generating that income, and we don't see a need for such a high increase.
President May, the students have indicated that they would much rather have, they have suggested a figure of 3.9% for a tuition increase. To this point, I guess there has not been agreement with that on the part of the university administration, are you willing to reconsider the 7.9 figure and perhaps think about scaling that down? First of all, it's not my position to reconsider the Board of Regents' constitutionally required to make that decision. If indeed it were to be scaled back to 3.9%, there would be things that the university couldn't do that we believe are good for the long-term interests of the institution, and certainly the regents have, as they made that decision, have been concerned with what they should be, and that is the long-term issues of the institution, that is the long-term quality of education. I understand, excuse me, President, May, that it's your job to make a recommendation to the Board of Regents on the question of tuition.
Would you be interested in reconsidering your recommendation in terms of the figure for the tuition increase? We would have to decide, we have spent three weeks now internally going through the priorities of the institution working with the Regents Finance Facilities, working with student leadership. On this issue, we've all agreed that the programs that we can fund from this $100-year tuition increase are necessary for the long-term. And so those are things that we would all have to agree that we could put on the back burner if we had to go to 4%. Mr. Naya. If I could, first of all, explain our 3.9% proposal, I think that needs to be done. What the 3.7% increase would do is generate approximately $1.9 million. Now of that, a portion would go towards a 5% faculty staff and administrative salary increase. We wholeheartedly believe that the faculty and the staff and certain administrators are in the need of a salary increase. I'll address a part of that later.
However, we do not feel that other sources have been explored. So we're not 3.9% proposal. What we've done is proposed, number one, taking 3.9% directly towards faculty and staff salary increases and taking revenues from other sources to make up for the deficiencies of between the 7.9 and the 3.9. That would include putting a freeze on upper level administrative salary increases, which would generate approximately $300,000, transferring money from our land and permanent fund, which is basically property, the university owns throughout the state, and also some revenues from ticket sales, level ticket sales. So we think these are legitimate compromises, legitimate, we're coming from on the 3.9%. We think it's a legitimate proposal and it's somewhere to start. So we have been continually frustrating, frustrated, is that the regions do not appear to want to move at even negotiating at our proposals, even taking our proposals seriously. So that's where the frustration comes in, is the unwillingness of the regions to look at our proposal.
President May, I'm interested in your thoughts on some of the aspects of this proposal, specifically the freeze on the salaries of administrators making more than $42,000 a year. A couple of points, I sure sympathize with what Antonio is saying, I think that those are the kinds of productive thoughts that should have been factored in a long time ago where we can talk about them. There are some of them that may be feasible, some of them that may not be feasible. I mean, ask your question directly with respect to administrative salaries. Our latest survey of salaries, and we always compare our salaries to our peers, that's sort of a national group, on faculty is about 4% below the nation, I'm sorry, below our peers, not below the nation, about 11% below the nation. The administrative salaries are about 8% below our peers. And so it wouldn't be responsible on my part to freeze the salaries of administrators who also do a valuable job at this administration at this university and become even less
competitive when we try to go into the market for administrators. Mr. Naya? First of all, I'm very disturbed, we constantly refer to the peer institution. I don't think it's fair to compare us to institutions in other states where basically the average individual is making more money. New Mexico is one of the lowest states in per capita income, and to compare us with an institution in the state where the per capita income is higher, you have to take that into account when you're looking at how, you know, how salaries should be as far as administrative levels. The governor of this state makes $60,000, and there are many administrators who make more money than that. And we think that's an issue that should be looked at. Do these individuals really need to, excuse me, salary increases when they're already making $70, $80, $90, $100,000? Can they make that sacrifice? That would be an excellent gesture on behalf of the administration. An excellent gesture on behalf of the administration.
Is that $5,000 that a certain individual will be receiving? Is that really mean a lot to a person who's making $90,000? That's what we're coming from. And to compare us with these peer institutions, I don't think it's accurate or fair. I'd like to remind our listeners that if you have a question or comment, you can call us at 277KUNM, that's 277-5-866. Mr. Anaya, it appears that negotiations will resume, perhaps today. In the process of negotiating, of course, one would expect a certain amount of give and take, how committed are you and is the student leadership to that figure of 3.9% at some point would you consider coming up on that figure? At this time, we're sticking from to our 3.9%. We haven't, we've tried to open negotiations with the regents to discuss the 3.9% that hasn't happened. We've heard a lot of discussions on the other demands, but we still stand from on the 3.9%. Before we can even consider coming off of that, which at this time we do not want to do, we have to open up dialogue and we've tried to do that and that has not occurred.
So what we stand now is we are going to stick to our 3.9%. President May, one of the issues that has come up, in fact, one of the demands that students made earlier this week, was for a task force that would look at the impact of tuition increases, specifically on low income and minority students. Now, the University of New Mexico has been getting quite a bit of attention, certainly during the legislative session, there was some pretty strong criticism. There are Department of Labor investigators from Washington here at UNM who are looking into minority hiring practices at the university. What are your thoughts on the impact of this tuition increase on low income and minority students? Well, that's as part of this package that we talked about. We've set aside, we've proposed to set aside $150,000 right off the top for additional financial aid to be shaped with the students to decide on where that should be used best. Secondly, we've proposed $175,000 to be put aside for special minority recruitment retention affirmative action kinds of efforts.
That may not be enough, we think that we should do more, and in every departmental budget, we'll look for those kinds of priorities. But the fact is that that $100 a year increase would fund those kinds of additional initiatives, we're very sensitive to that. You have some thoughts on this, Mr. Naya? Yes, I do. Again, I want to state that a lot of these things that Dr. Mages referred to, a lot of these possibilities of shifting funds have just now occurred since we began our demonstration. Secondly, we do not feel the administration is acting enough. These kind of programs should have been brought forward earlier and not at this time. The associate students of University of Mexico, ASUNM, we established a minority recruitment and retention committee on our own using student fee money to address the problem of minority recruitment and retention. We did not feel the administration had been dealing significantly with that. So we took the initiative to do that, and it bothers me that we would have to do that ourselves.
In fact, we think that's the responsibility of the administration, but we're sensitive enough to that issue to address it. But again, we are hearing some talk from the administration about shifting some funds, but I haven't seen any specific proposals as to where that goes, and perhaps those will come up in the negotiations. However, the 7.9% increase, it has to be established that that is just too much and that is something we will not stand for. As it may a few minutes ago, you mentioned that the students have come up with some useful ideas and that perhaps these ideas should have come up earlier in the process. Now one of the things the students are asking for is some more formalized involvement from the outset in the university budgeting process. Do you see that happening? Is that something that can be negotiated? Two part question, I want to make clear that those initiatives were in our discussion a month ago. In other words, they are part of the proposal we brought to the regions with the $100 a year increase.
So those are not. Now we would be, we're saying that if we need to shape that in a different way to meet the needs we heard about on Tuesday, we're certainly open to that and we were able to do that. We also welcome student input and we have had student input and perhaps not broad enough student input into the early budget allocations process. That is the process that goes on before we bring the proposal to the first meeting of the Finance and Facilities Committee. And we're happy to have, as a matter of fact, this year we've had faculty involved in that. We've had deans involved in that. We've had administrators and we've had students, we've briefed the students, but we're happy to do that in a more formal way and bring them in earlier. That's not a problem for us. Are there student members of this particular committee that you mentioned or committees that work on the budget? There are not student members on that committee because we deal with various constituencies. There is a faculty senate budget committee with which we work and that's the only formal body I know of.
Mr. and I have your thoughts on how students might be involved in the budgetary process initially to have some greater impact. We definitely do need more say in the budgetary process that was one of our demands. We feel that is necessary because of the current situation what has happened. The regents came in with 7.9% at the beginning of that meeting. They knew that they were going to walk out with 7.9% at the end of that meeting. It did not matter what we said. We need to get into that level on the Board of Regents in the Finance Committee where the actual decision is made, I want the tuition level is going to be. We need to get in on these committees that Dr. May spoke about where actual decisions are made. They listen to our input and whether it's actually taken seriously or just being patronized I don't want to comment on. What I am saying is that this is not enough and again some of the going back to the point that some of the things that Dr. May said that we're going to explore have been a result of what we've done in the past couple of days. Do you expect to in your negotiations to push for this kind of more formalized involvement?
Definitely. That is going to have to be part of an agreement to end this demonstration. Our phone number is 277KUNM and I believe we have a caller on the line. Go ahead. Please are on the air. Hi. I have two questions. One for President May and one for both guests. First of all, with the tuition increase and the increase in revenue, will students be getting something more for their tuition or will the quality of education stay at the same level? Let me get that out. My second question is this is not the first tuition increase. In fact, it's one of a series of exorbitant increases and if it doesn't stop here, where will it stop? Is there some end goal here? Is there some point where this will all come to an obvious end or will it just go on and on and on? Okay. Let me relay your question because since we are broadcasting from school's hall or guests do not, are not able to hear the phone calls.
President May, the question is, with the tuition increase, will students be getting something more out of the university? We're in a position at the University of improving quality and what we can say is that what's more is we're supporting the instructional program more. So we should be able to tell students that they will get better value. We're going to be supporting the departments more, we're going to be supporting the library more and specifically the educational program. And clearly, when we retain our good faculty and motivate our good staff, then that also means better value for the students. So we pledge ourselves to better quality. Okay. I guess the other question that the caller had was essentially, can we expect to continue to see tuition increases of this size year after year here at UNM? That's a good question.
You know that the region's passed a policy with extensive hearings on campus that would say that they would limit the increase in any one year to 10% and in any five years to 50%. I think that we are in for a period of time in which tuition will increase. Maybe not at this level, but just philosophically, because there's very little you can do at the institution to reduce the unit cost. After all, we're talking about people and we're talking about a very labor intensive environment and we're talking about classrooms that are fixed in size and so are costs and because of the continuing cost of libraries and the continuing cost of computing, we anticipate the cost going on up. I'd like to address that question also. As regards to, are we going to see an increase in our education with this increase in tuition? I cannot address that. You know, I cannot see into the future. I cannot look into a crystal ball. But what I can see is that our intuition has doubled over the past five years. It's kind of 65% and we have not seen an improvement of 65% in the quality of education and I'd
beg to say, have we seen any improvement in the quality of education given here at UNM? I'd like to see we've seen some, but definitely not doubles. So that is an point that I think history speaks for itself on that fact. The question, actually, I'd like to ask you now, the regions adopted a policy of placing a cap of 10% in any one year. The 7.9% increase this year does fall below that 10% cap. And so in that sense, it does seem reasonable at least in the sense that it falls within the guideline. I'd like to address that. That's very important. The tuition and fee task force that was set up to formulate this policy did contain student input as well as community input and administrative input. We felt the student input was not enough, basically a lot of the votes came down to the administration over the students where the administration basically had the up vote, which so, even
when we were objecting to stuff, we were basically being voted down. The final proposal, as I understand it, 10%, not to increase, 1%, 10%, breaks down to about 8.5, given several factors, however, was accepted by a couple of student leaders. But this was under the condition, you know, that 10%, we were looking in the past of increases of 12, 14, 16%, we needed to set a cap by establishing this policy. What we didn't want to see and what was what is happening is the regions pushing that. It's like saying, okay, you can go from 1 to 10, so they're going to go to close to 10 as possible. In fact, I believe they started at 10 and they came down to 7.9. So I think that policy has heard us in the fact that it's basically opening it up saying, okay, you go on 0 to 10%, and they're going to be pushing 10%. Okay, I'd like to take another call. Go ahead, please, you're on the air. Yes, I understand that your gifts cannot hear me. Yes, I'll have to ask questions.
I just have a couple of comments from Mr. Nia, and that was that Mr. Nia seems that I agree with their argument and everything, but that they should be presenting more facts as in comparative statistics, as comparing the tuition as compared to other state institutions and the percentage of the tuition to the per capita income and also the salaries of administrators, say Mr. May, and compare his salary with other administrators across the country at public universities. The caller is asking for essentially a comparison of administrative salaries here at UNM with other institutions across the nation, and I believe actually that you essentially addressed that earlier. Marcus, I just said that our latest survey shows that we are 8% below our peers, and our peers are the numbers, and there's the open to dispute, as Antonio says, but these are
the institutions picked for us by the legislature to whom we should compare ourselves. I think another point the caller made is that one should also look at the per capita income here in New Mexico, and that that should somehow be factored into these comparisons as well. And that's why we are lower. And secondly, though, that we should compare with parity with faculty and administrators. My point was simply that that's a measure that we use, but administrators are not over parry paid compared to the faculty. That's all I'm saying. Go ahead. What we're saying by our proposal to put a freeze on upper level administrative salaries is that if the university is feeling a crunch, and that's apparently what's happening, if they feel they have not been properly appropriated by the legislator, it should not be in turn increase putting that burden on the people who can afford it the least. We feel that people who can't afford it are the individuals who are making $70, $80, $90,000 a year.
I can sympathize with Dr. May in that perhaps we might lose our competitiveness nationwide but you have to look at the big picture, the big economic picture. New Mexico is 42nd. I believe in per capita income in the United States. We simply can't afford a pair of administrators high salaries. Okay. I'd like to take one more call. I know President May that you have to be getting along in just a few minutes. I'd like to take one more call. Go ahead, please. You're on the air. Yes. Yes, hello. Yes, go ahead. I was at the Regents meeting on Tuesday morning and what I saw brought up was very important. One issue that was completely ignored by the Regents and I have yet to hear addressed by President May. And that is the divisiveness of pitting the students pocketbooks against those of the faculty. Okay. I have seen the faculty respond in the Lobo with great distaste and really anger that they were not approached and that they would really reject. Okay. Let me go ahead and get that question out to our guest. The question is the issue of pitting students against faculty and staff in the direct connection between the apparent connection between the tuition increase and faculty staff salaries.
Let me answer that because that's clearly not anybody's intention. We are all on the same side. We're working on the same side and I'm sorry that it's been characterized that way. In fact, we're saying that students pay to receive some value. They're paying about 20% of the cost of education and that's the increase goes toward the rising costs of education. Mr. Nye? Statements have been made by the administration, by the Regents, by even I believe the governor spokesperson saying that if the students want to see their professors paid more money, they're going to have to agree to a tuition increase. And we have not characterized in any other light than what we've seen. We've met with several members of the faculty operations committee, which is basically the Senate faculty representatives and they told us that they felt that they were being pitted against the students. They came out with a resolution stating just that.
Now it can be interpreted in a number of ways as to the fact that they're saying the only way that faculty salaries are going to go up is to see a tuition go up. But the way we interpret it, the students interpret it the way the faculty interpreted is that we're being pitted against each other. And the administration can interpret that one way, the general public can interpret that one way. We think it's fairly obvious on how that looks when you tell us that. Okay, at this point we're going to take a short break, excuse me. We have a couple of more callers on the line actually and we'd like to take another call. Go ahead, please. You're on the air. Thank you. It's clear that providing a quality education costs a great deal of money. But there's only a certain amount that the student can be expected to fund and the legislature is responsible to a great extent to pay for the cost of education because of the long-term benefit to the community. It's not clear to me that everything that's been done that could be done to lobby the legislature to support UNM to a greater extent.
It seems the legislature in this state doesn't really appreciate the cost of education but that it's an necessary investment. Okay, I think that's it. I think that's it. I think that's it. I think that's it. To get what we can out of the university and not hit up the students who up till now have been an easy target. Okay, let me go ahead and get that across to our guests. The caller is saying that perhaps we ought to be looking to the state legislature instead of students to come up with the funding to fund faculty salary increases and so on. And the question is, has the university done as much as it can to obtain those appropriations from state lawmakers? I think we've done everything possible and I understand, I think that Tony and I would agree 100% that we work together on that issue of getting the legislature to support their institution as fully as possible. What they do is reduce the load on the consumer, that is the parent and the student. Mr. Naya?
Again, I agree with Dr. May 100% that the base revenue does come from the legislature. It comes from the taxpayer in the state of New Mexico. However, we did receive a significant increase over our last year's appropriation and however that's broken down, you know, can be interpreted in different ways. However, what we're saying, it doesn't take away from what we're saying, if the administration feels they were under appropriated, they should maybe be making that an issue. What we're saying is we feel the appropriations are there within the budget that was passed down from the legislature to work with a tuition increase that is less than 7.9%. We came in saying we want a no tuition increase, we've negotiated, we've bargained, we've gone to 3.9 and we've put forth what we feel are reasonable proposals and we just want to be listened to by the Board of Regents and that has not yet happened. Okay, we have another caller on the line. Go ahead, please, you're on the air. They reconsidered. Our phone number here is 277KUNM, that's 277-5866. In case you just tuned in, our guests today include University of New Mexico, President
Gerald May and also Antonio Anaya, who is a student here at the University, a member of the student senate here at UNM and a leader of the student organization that is involved in a sit-in in President May's office. We have another caller on the line. Go ahead, please, you're on the air. Hello, you're on the air? Hello, yes. Yeah, go ahead. I'd like to say that after listening to some of the proposals by Senator Naya, I was impressed that he actually had a plan to make up for the so-called needs that the Regents said were needed. And I just wanted to give him support to guests that are not wilt under the administration's training they need to have higher salaries. This should not be a matter of keeping up with the Joneses after a certain amount of
money. A good living is a good living. And there may be more benefits to working in New Mexico besides just the amount of money. Thank you. Thank you very much. That caller was essentially expressing gratitude and support, Mr. Anaya, for your efforts on behalf of students. We have another caller on the line. Go ahead, please, you're on the air. Hi, I'd just like to express my president's may claim in credit for the affirmative action programs that have now taken place at the university and the minority retention and enrollment programs. I think those have come about mostly in large parts by the activism of students and faculty. And I wish he would just give credit where credit is due. Okay. President May, this caller is, I guess, questioning you're taking credit for some of the affirmative action initiatives. I recall that during the Regents meeting on Tuesday, your special advisor for affirmative action, Margaret Montoya, gave a report and it actually sounded from her presentation
that the university is making some financial commitments to affirmative action. I guess the question this caller has is where the credit for that belongs. Maybe it's a small question, were those your initiatives? Well, I think their proposals that the board that we brought before the board is an administration and they are part of the package within the Regents package that they passed on Tuesday. It's not important, ultimately, where those ideas surfaced, those have come out of a long series of discussions among all of us during the year. Very good. Once again, our phone number here is 277 KU&M 2775866. And if you'd like to go ahead and call, we're going to take a short break right now. President May has other business to attend to. Will we be back in just a few minutes? So please stay tuned.
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Yes, Peggy. A couple of tickets, actually we have five tickets that we want to give away with our basic membership pledge. So we're not asking for anything more than the basic membership. The tickets are five tickets to hear Paul Ehrlich. He's an environmentalist. He's going to be speaking on April 17th, which is just days away. And he'll be speaking, speaking at Pope Joy Hall and the topic he's going to be talking on is the state of our environment. So after the Alaskan oil spill, I'm sure he'll have a lot to talk about. And these are in conjunction with UNM's Centennial Speakers series. So for a basic membership, you can have a ticket to see Paul Ehrlich. I'm sure it'll be very interesting. So if you want one of those, give a call at 277-4357, tell the phone person, hey, I want one of those tickets to Paul Ehrlich. I want to hear about our environments. So is this a single ticket or a pair? Oh, I love to see. It sounds like it's a pair. It's a pair.
So you can take your significant other with you. But you can do it by giving a call to 277-4357. We really need your help. We do this only twice a year and, you know, we don't like doing it, but we have to because a third of our budget comes from you, the listener. The other third, we worry about elsewhere, but you need to call. Okay. You need to call right now 277-4357, that's the number to call. And right now, we're going back to our call-in show and back to Marcos. Thank you very much, Peggy. Thanks, Peggy. Hesing, this is Marcos Martinez. We're continuing our call-in program, which is coming today from Skoles Hall. President Gerald May had to leave, still with us, is Antonio Anaya. We will be taking some phone calls, but first I'd like to ask Mr. Anaya, what might be happening over the next few days? Are students prepared to stay here through the weekend? Does that look like it might be a possibility? We've set all along and we're recommitting, I guess, to the fact that we will stay here until we are satisfied that our demands have been met.
Student support is only gaining, community support is only gaining, and I think that's a big part of our negotiating tape chip, and I think that's a big reason why the administration is coming to us and making some conciliation so far. This is only going to grow, and it's only going to be more beneficial for the students. So the administration is hurting by dragging it on, but we're prepared to stay as long as it takes. Very good. I believe we have a caller on the line. Go ahead, please. You're on the air. Yeah, I was wondering if Mr. Anaya thought that President May is going to leave if he doesn't get a pay raise this year. That's an interesting question. It actually leads to a larger question. The caller is asking whether you think that President May might leave if he doesn't get a pay raise this year. I have heard at least one person calling for President May's resignation. How does that figure in with what you're doing? In response to the first part, I haven't heard to anything about his leaving if he doesn't get a pay raise. I think that'd be pretty silly. Officially, the group has not come out with a stand demanding for President May's resignation,
but it has surfaced as an issue in discussion, and we've heard it from other individuals, but we are not at this time taking a stand demanding his resignation. But I will confirm that it has come up, but that's not what we don't think that would be productive at this time. You mentioned that students are prepared to stay here for the duration. I have the impression from being here in school's hall that the police presence seems to be a little bit more, there seem to be more police here today than there were yesterday or the day before. I was curious whether there was some correlation between the increased police presence and the apparently increased, well, some of the statements that have been made by students about the possibility of civil disobedience and that type of thing, the issue of civil disobedience has come up. What can you tell us about what form that might take or what we might see happen? Currently, the stand that we're taking in the form of civil disobedience that we're taking
is very light, and to some, can even be questioned as being civil disobedience. We've come into Gerald May's office, we've sat down, we've allowed people to work and we've been very cooperative. However, if this continues, we're prepared to escalate the level of civil disobedience to obstruct business in Gerald May's office, to obstruct business in schools, how to shut down schools, how if necessary. And I think the administration recognizes that, and that's why we're now seeing them beginning to want to negotiate with us. We hope we don't have to get to that point, but understand we are fully prepared to do anything it takes within the law to do that, and by taking over President May's office if we were to do that is perfectly within our right of expressing free speech in the dissatisfaction in the mistreatment that we felt occurred at the Regent's meeting on Tuesday. One final question, Mr. Anaya, I'm curious about your impressions of the way in which the local media has handled this story.
You can always try to hope for the best with the media. My experience working with the media is very limited. I'm upset that the community is perhaps getting the wrong, the wrong impression of what's occurring here. What is occurring here, and I'd like to clarify that, is students taking a stand against an unjust policy and is clear that it is unjust. The community has come out saying it's unjust. The students have come out saying it's unjust. What has happened in the media, in my estimation, is that the media is pitting the students against the faculty. They're buying into the line that the administration has tried to promulgate. What we're saying is the faculty and the Senate are not fighting against each other. In fact, we're one voice. The faculty and the community, excuse me, the faculty and the students have come out together on many issues, and we're working very well with the faculty. Okay. I think we may have a caller on the line, Larry. I'm looking at our engineer here. I'm waiting for the order.
Okay. I think actually I'm going to go ahead and wrap this up at this point. Antonio and I know that you have a busy afternoon today and you have some business to attend to. I would mention to our listeners that the faculty senate here at UNM has held an emergency meeting this afternoon. I'm told that they have passed a resolution, unfortunately, I don't have the details on that. However, I would invite our listeners to tune us back in at five o'clock, actually stay with us until five o'clock. At five o'clock, we will have that information as well as an update on the situation here at schools all where a student's sit in a president's office continues. Thank you very much, Antonio and I, for being with us today. Thank you, and I'd like to thank the community. Excellent. This is Marcos Martinez. Our engineer on site here is Larry Cronin. I'd also like to thank Benjamin Jonas for handling some of the logistics back at KU&M, and we'd like to send it back now to the studios of KU&M. And thank you very much, Marcos. We will join you now for asking you for more support at 277-4357.
Please call in right now. Now is the time to do it. Don't delay. There's one more day to do it, and that's it. Yeah, are we on over here? No. Okay, we are now. There is just one more day and a few hours, and that is it, and celebration 89 is going to be over. Let me tell you, you have been coming through in a major way, especially yesterday and today, we are somewhere around $4,500 for today. It looks like we could well set another record. The way that that's going to happen, and the only way that that's going to happen, is if you keep coming through with your decision to support the public radio service that you listen to, 277-4357, make that $25 membership pledge and become a member of KU&M. And oh, I was supposed to check on this.
Why don't you go ahead and talk about that? Well, we talked about it before that if you pledge $25, you can get a ticket, a pair of tickets. I take it back to Paul Erlich, who's the environmentalist. He's going to be speaking at Pope Joy Hall on April 17th, and what he's going to be speaking on is the state of our environment. We all know that our environment is in a state right now, particularly with that Alaskan oil spell. And I know that there's some things happening up in the Hamas, so I'm sure he has a lot of things to talk about. That's only $4, $25 membership. That's just a basic membership. That includes zan. So when you give a call to 277-4357, tell the telephone volunteer, I want a ticket to see Paul. And I cannot stress how important it is for you to go to your phone right now. And call 277-8-E-L-P. And the reason is, is because we're finishing up our second to last day of celebration 89. You've only got one day left to call up and make that pledge in support of community radio, KUNM Albuquerque. What we're doing here is we're broadcasting to every segment of the society that we can. We're trying to meet the needs of all segments of society.
We are community radio, and we're also listeners-supported public radio. And what that means is that one-third of our budget comes from you, the listener. And the only way that we can stay on the air and continue to pay our bills is by your continued support. That's right. And the way that you can continue your support is by calling 277-4357-277-HELP. Why not make that basic membership pledge right now $25? That includes a subscription to our program guide, Sounds Heck, if you'd like to charge your pledge to Visa or Mastercard, we'll even take care of that for you. Our phone volunteers are standing by down the hall from where we are the phone hotline to our phone volunteers is 277-4357-277-HELP. Even if you only listen to one program on this station, it's up to you to do your part to support this station. Those who don't listen, well, they don't support. But those who do listen are the ones who are important. If you're listening or supported, please call 277-4357-277-HELP.
You've probably heard one of your friends' names on the air who's pledged. Then why don't you join that friend right now and give us a call at 277-4357. Do it before you leave work. As Benjamin said over here, we do have an installment plan. If you have a $60 pledge, you can pledge $5 a month. We'll take it. If you do $120 pledge, that's only $10 a month and we'll put it on Zounds. If you don't have a phone and you can't call, you can send a check in. You can even send a money order. You can send cash, but watch it. We know those postal workers anyway. The way you send it to is KUNM, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. The Zippy code is 87131. We appreciate your support and we need your support. We are waiting for those phones to ring right this very moment at 277-4357. We have the potential here for another record-breaking day and I would love to see it happen. I think you would love to see it happen too.
Well, I'll tell you what, if you want to see it happen, you're the one who's going to have to do it. As we have said before, the last day and half of celebration 89, it is never going to get easier than this, we're running out of time, you've got to make the decision now. I bet many of you have been sitting back listening to all of this and thinking, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's true. I do listen to KUNM a lot. I do value the service that they offer a lot. Boy, I enjoy a lot of these programs. I can't get them anyplace else. Yes, this is really something we're supporting, but somehow you haven't yet made it to that phone. Don't delay another second. Just get up, make the decision, move to your phone, call 277-4357, do it right now. And the point there is don't procrastinate. If you've been putting it off all week, get up, go to the phone, 277-4357-277, help time is running out.
Just one day left. Help us meet our goal and help KUNM stay on the air and maybe you've just discovered KUNM. All the more reason to become a member right now. Right from the start, you'll be helping to support your listening habit. And it only takes a minute to pledge. Our phone volunteers are standing by at 277-7 help. They will take your, take some basic information like your name and address and the amount you'd like to pledge. In a few days, you'll be getting a statement from us in the mail and there will be an envelope included in which you can mail your payment back to us. If you'd like to do the installment plan, that's fine. If you'd like to charge it to Visa and Mastercard, that's fine too. If you'd like to mail it, KUNM, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, 8-7131 is our address. But however you choose to pay, please do it now. 277-7 help. You know, you're probably wondering, why should I have to pay for radio? Well, we're one of the few countries in the world that don't, you don't have to pay for radio, you don't have to pay for television, you know, things like that come free over the air. But non-commercial stations like KUNM, we survive on the support from the community. We survive, you know, from lots of different ways.
And that's because we don't broadcast commercial stations. Well, exactly. And the reason why we don't broadcast commercials, one of the things that allows us is a lot of freedom. A lot of freedom to give you different kinds of information. We are not tied into advertisers. We do not have to do what they tell us to do because we don't take in their dollars. We take your dollars. We listen to what you want to hear on the air. We program for you. We don't program for a big conglomerate out there. We program for you, that's very important. That's why we need your help, 277-4357. So don't let somebody else pay your way. We're talking to you. Don't let the other guy carry your weight. We're listener-supported public radio. That means we need your help. If you're listening to this program, if you're standing by for the KUNM evening report, well, you're a listener of KUNM. That means that we need your help, 277-HELP, even if you only enjoy one program or if you enjoy all the fun programs on KUNM, you can show your appreciation by becoming a member and joining the KUNM family.
And of course, with a pledge of $25 on up, or if you're a student or senior citizen, $15 on up, you'll receive in addition to 24 hours a day of quality programming. You will also receive our monthly program guide sounds, which features listings for all the programs that come up throughout the week. We have over 40 programs per week here on KUNM. And inside the pages of sounds, you'll find articles on blues and jazz, Putney and Gordon Spencer contribute articles to that every month. And you'll also find listings of all the specials that are coming up in the various themes that will be taking place on the free-form shows and on the jazz programs. So if you'd like to have those listings, call 277-HELP with your Pledge of Support. And also, you'll be keeping KUNM on the air. 277-HELP. You know, Benjamin, it's really interesting, the Pentagon's phone bill last year, or not for the last year, but for 1986, was something like $84 million. Oh, my goodness. Now, KUNM's phone bill for 1986 was only $10,000, but $10,000 is a lot of money. And where we make phone calls to our national public radio, we make thousands of phone calls.
You know, when I was music director, I called all over the country to probably 50 different record companies trying to get all sorts of records so that we could play them on the air so that you, the listener, could hear them. And we got all sorts of very interesting obscure records, rare records, records that you never going to hear any place else. We got them for KUNM. So that's why we ask you for just a basic membership of $25. For $25, you get 168 hours of programming a week plus a year-long subscription to Zounds. So something else I read the other day is there's a camp for cabbage-patched dolls. Believe that in Maine and the charge for sending your cabbage-patched doll to camp. For one week is $150. Now, that's sending a doll to camp. Well, you can send us your money for a whole year, $25. That's all we're asking. So give us a call. 277-4357.
Make those phone volunteers down the hall work. It's 277-H-E-L-P. And although the primary purpose of a membership drive is to increase support by encouraging those of you who are not yet members to join right now, we'd like to show our appreciation for those of you whose past and present support has made KUNM public radio possible. Thanks to each and every one of you for being part of KUNM's past. And we hope you continue to be a part of KUNM's future by renewing your membership, listener loyalty, membership loyalty. Those are the key, one of the critical factors in our listener support. We thank you so much, all the people that have been loyal members to KUNM over the years. Please call 277-H-E-L-P and renew that membership. And if you're new to the area, maybe you've just discovered KUNM. We've had a lot of people calling in saying, well, yeah, I used to listen to public radio back where I used to live. And it's so nice to be here in Albuquerque and hear the old familiar voices like Bob Edwards and Susan Stamberg and Leanne Hansen, who's now on performance today.
And they've called up and said, yeah, this sounds like home to me. And I'd like to continue supporting public radio in my new community of Albuquerque or wherever they have moved to within Central and Northern New Mexico. And the number that they called was 277-745-7277-H. And that's the number that you can call. Right now, to play your support, there's only a day left. The time to do it is now. You know, Leanne Hansen and I used to have diets together in London. Did you? Yeah. Really? Wow. You know, the basic five-pound diet, but we want the basic membership from you. And you're probably wondering out there, if you can afford a membership, and you can. But only you can make that decision. I mean, consider how much money today did you spend for a cup of coffee or a lunch or a soft drink or a candy bar, whatever? I mean, how much did you spend for your last concert ticket? I know the little fee concert tickets were something like $18. Wow. And what we're asking from you is only $25 for a basic membership.
If you feel more generous, there are other categories such as 35, 60, 120, 89, whatever, whatever you can afford. But a K-O-NM basic membership averages out to about a minimum of 48 cents a week. Oh my goodness. Now that's less than most cups of coffee. And speaking of loyal memberships out there, I remember when we first started, I was started doing membership drives up here at K-O-NM. I think that was 1978, is when we became NPR affiliated. We were up here and we had people who'd been listening for years pull through and looking at our basic membership, I don't believe it's changed since when we asked for membership back in 1978. I mean, think of all the things that you've had in your life that have gone up, taxes have gone up, food has gone up. But the basic membership to K-O-NM has not gone up. If it has, it's probably gone up five or ten dollars. That's not very much in ten years. We're not asking a whole lot from you, but we are asking for your help. So give us a call, 277-4357.
We appreciate it. That's 277-HELP. And that's the hotline to the phone volunteers who are standing by to talk to you. The phones are even wet. Are they? Yeah. They are red. They are hotlines. We need to pick them up. Wow. They're ringing. That's special. So all those pledges coming through their Rachel, they are hot, but we still need more support. We've got one day left to meet our goal. And you know, the money that K-O-NM receives from the federal government, though, through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is not a gift. The amount of money we received depends, in part, on the amount of local money that K-O-NM can raise. Let me break down our budget. We have about a third of our budget. We come from student allocated fees. The other third comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And the last third comes from you, the listener. So you can see that listener support is a very healthy portion of our $300,000 a year budget. We need your help. 277-4357-277-HELP. You know, a lot of that money that we get from listeners is also matched by the government,
dollar per dollar, sometimes two dollars per dollar. So whatever you send in, a lot of times is matched so that we can raise our budget. Therefore bring you better quality programming. You're probably not aware that a lot of programs that we have, such as all things considered morning edition, a prairie home companion, a mountain stage, those programs that you probably listened to, cost a lot of money. Now the public radio system has grown very large. There's not only national public radio, there's American public radio, and there are a few other things, you know, systems thrown in there too. And to be a member, for K-O-NM to be a member, and to get these programs, cost a great deal of money. These programs are not free. Therefore, this is why we have to come to you, the listener, and ask you for a basic membership. And remember, if you're interested, we have those environment, two pairs. No, actually, we have five pairs of tickets to see the environmentalist, Paul Ehrlich. You can take your significant other to go here that great environmentalist, April 17th,
that is part of the UNM's Centennial Program because this is the 100 years of UNM. They're celebrating. We're celebrating. We have a $35 pledge level. We also have the K-O-NM T-shirt, which is just swift as can be. It's very nice. It's got a Southwestern border on it, and it says that you do celebrate public radio 89.9 FM, and everybody will know exactly what you stand for when you wear them. And you know, when you're thinking about all the expenses that we have here at K-O-NM, maybe you haven't thought about in addition to our programming, which costs $93,000 a year from NPR. We have electricity. We have phones. We have postage. We have supplies, equipment, salaries. And we don't receive any direct revenue from the University of New Mexico. We do have the allocated fees from the students. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting gives that other portion that I mentioned before, and also you, the listeners, support one-third of our budget at 277-4357-277-HELP. That's where it comes from, folks.
277-HELP. You can call in with a basic membership pledge at $25. And you'll receive, in addition to the 24 hours of quality programming on K-O-NM, Zounds, which will arrive at your doorstep every month, describing all the programs we have here at K-O-NM. You can pay by check or money order, or you can charge it to your visa or master card, or you can talk to our about phone volunteers about the installment plan. Whatever you do, now's the time to act. It just can't be any easier than going to the phone and dialing 277-HELP. That phone is looking at you. It's crying out, call, call. So do it, call 277-HELP. You know, a lot of you are probably driving home from work right now, and you're probably stuck on I-40 wondering what to do. Well, if you have a mobile phone in your car, you can certainly give us a call at 277-4357. That's 277-HELP. You don't have a phone in your car, like me, you have a very old car.
- Producing Organization
- KUNM
- Contributing Organization
- KUNM (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip-207-84mkm4s6
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip-207-84mkm4s6).
- Description
- Program Description
- KUNM call in show covering tuition increase. UNM Pres. Gerald May and ASUNM Senator Antonio Anaya discuss their positions on the issue. 00:43:33 marks end of tuition hike content and immediately goes to pledge drive.
- Description
- On cover: Host M. Martinez Remote from Scholes Hall Office ? VP of Research
- Created Date
- 1989-04-13
- Asset type
- Program
- Genres
- Debate
- Media type
- Sound
- Duration
- 01:00:03.024
- Credits
-
-
Producer: MM (M. Martinez?)
Producer: LK
Producing Organization: KUNM
Speaker: Anaya, Antonio
Speaker: May, Gerald
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
KUNM (aka KNME-FM)
Identifier: cpb-aacip-c25493abeeb (Filename)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Generation: Master
Duration: 01:00:00
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
- Citations
- Chicago: “ KUNM Call in Show: Tuition Increase - UNM Pres. Gerald May and ASUNM Senator Antonio Anaya ,” 1989-04-13, KUNM, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed October 18, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-207-84mkm4s6.
- MLA: “ KUNM Call in Show: Tuition Increase - UNM Pres. Gerald May and ASUNM Senator Antonio Anaya .” 1989-04-13. KUNM, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. October 18, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-207-84mkm4s6>.
- APA: KUNM Call in Show: Tuition Increase - UNM Pres. Gerald May and ASUNM Senator Antonio Anaya . Boston, MA: KUNM, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-207-84mkm4s6