Report from Santa Fe; Steven Gamble

music Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico. An organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Taos, New Mexico. Hello, I'm Lorraine Mills, and welcome to report from Santa Fe. Our guest today is Dr. Stephen Gamble, the president of Eastern New Mexico University. Thank you for joining us. Oh, yes, ma 'am. Thank you for having me, Lorraine. Well, you've been 16 years a president. You came in the prophetic year of 2001. Yes, ma 'am, I did. And you have guided this extraordinary university through lots of things. I'd love for you to tell me, well, of course, your background. You have a PhD in American history and your vice chair, the Council of University Presidents. And you've been very active in a lot of things. But I'd love for you to tell me first before we talk about the specifics of Eastern, but how

has higher ed changed in the 16 years since you've been at the helm of Eastern? That's a good question. It's changed a lot. One is I think it got more in the line with positive national trends in terms of assessment, and in terms of being accountable. Before we used to just basically get our money and go out and do the best we could with it. Now we have to account for the money. We have to justify it. And if we can't do that, then rightfully so, the legislature or somewhere along the line, we're going to lose that money. I think it's also changed in terms of the type of student that we've received. I mean, the technology age has hit full scale that the students of New Mexico. We've had to become a lot more technologically savvy and provide state -of -the -art technology at a higher level than we ever have before. We've also had to adjust to some fairly harsh times with funding. I was here through

2009, 2011, when we lost a good deal of our funding. And now, again, because of a lot of things are beyond our control, we're going through that again. So it's been an interesting 16 years, and I think higher ed is stronger in New Mexico right now than it was in 2001. In fact, I'm sure of that. So you referenced quietly that there have been several periods in your presidency when there's been bad economic times and when all of the state and the universities have suffered. And yet, your enrollment, you have record high enrollment. I think it's up 60, 70 percent in 12 years, even this very spring. You're up again, I think 20 consecutive years of record in moments, possibly the only New Mexico school to achieve this. I think we probably are, but there's a lot of hard work getting it done. We've really gone into more online

courses than ever before. In fact, that's another big change from 2001 to 2016 is the arrival of the importance of online education. But we've worked hard to do it. We recruit mainly from rural areas. That's where we get the majority of our students. But we're really happy for those that come from Albuquerque and Santa Fe as well. It's been a lot of work, but it's paid off. So as I was preparing for this, I received a list of 40 citations, national citations, where you have been in the top, of online degrees, of most efficient low cost and high quality award after award after award. But I imagine the shift, because now people can get what kind of online degrees can they get? And some of your MBA programs are rated number one in the country for your online work. You can get bachelor's administration, you can get master's degrees in both business administration and in education and

in other fields. It's amazing what can be done online these days. And we've tried to stay current and we've tried to do the best we can. As for the awards, normally the awards look at cost and we are inexpensive compared to almost anybody you want to look at. But they also look at quality and we think we have the combination of those two to really produce a good product. And it's good to be recognized nationally. So I was asking you earlier, how much it is now per semester tuition and fees? It's approximately 2 ,850 per semester tuition and fees. That places us the fourth lowest in the Southwestern part of the United States. Now the third lowest is New Mexico Highlands. They've done a really a masterful job in maintaining their costs as well. But we don't serve in a fluent student body. Over 40 % of our students are what are called PEL eligible. That's the lowest rung on the federal government's ladder of ability to pay for college. And 2 out of

5 of our students almost half actually are on that rung. So we try to be as affordable as we can because we know who we serve. In all that affordability or how we're making some standing improvements. And I remember we spoke before you're doing a lot of improvements and enhancement of the buildings. And rather than tear these beautiful stone and brick buildings and you are remodeling them. So one of the projects I really want an update on. This beautiful library was called the Golden Library, not that it was made of gold. But it was named after. After Floyd Golden, yes ma 'am. But now it's going to become the Golden Student Success Center. And when will it be ready and what are the changes that you have at the library? It ought to be ready May or June of 2018. So about roughly a year and a half from now. The changes are

that it's first of all going to be still the traditional library. It's going to have all the functions that the library currently has will be in the new Student Success Center. But we're combining that with, as the name says, student success opportunities for the students. We're going to move tutoring. We're going to move a graduate commons. We're going to put a veterans area in there. So distance education is another occupant of this new facility. It's, we want it to be a one stop for students, one stop shopping really for students that need help. Or that really just want to master this area of their education and they need help to do it. In that library, you have, I call it really to me, it's the Crown Jewel of the library. But you have the Jack Williams and special election. And it is the Crown Jewel, that is very true. This was the state and the library of the famous science fiction pioneering author, Jack Williamson. But it's the third most extensive science

fiction library in the country. Yes, ma 'am, it is. And we're very proud of it. And it's going to have a special place in the library. It's going to be an improved location for Jack's papers. We actually have a replica of his, or actually, I think it's the exact furniture that was in his office there as well. It's a very special part of a very special building. And you've got his Hugo Awards and his nephew awards. Oh, yes. And it is just an extensive collection. What I love is that you have some of the early, because he first wrote for some of the early magazines. Oh, it's far back is the 20s. Yes. And so you have collections of those early wonderful magazines with those wonderful early science fiction companies. It covers, it's just thrilling. And we have scholars from around the country come in to use this collection because this is where they can find the primary documents. And every year in April, you have the Jack Williamson lectureship. Absolutely. We're the leading writers at George Martin and Melinda Snagrass

and Connie Willis. Oh, Connie is the longtime MC. Yes. But they come and I invite everyone to look into this and to go because they do panels and workshops on writing and on selling screenplays. And it's a lot of the new forms of film are all kind of a little science fiction band or fantasy band. So there's amazing opportunities. And also the campus is so beautiful with your beautiful lawns. Well, we think we have a very, very attractive campus. We're very proud of it. We, with the library, renovation continues our theme of we call it stewardship through conservation. We know we can get more bang for a buck out of renovation, so we do. We've built one new building since 1990, one new one. But we've renovated a lot. The new one, by the way, is the broadcast center. We're K -E -N -W. I was going to, yeah. The new department of communication is located. And this is an amazing

educational opportunity. Our home station is K -E -N -W. You're a station at Eastern New Mexico University. We've been on for 40 or 25 years. We're proud of that. Yes. But when the student gets a degree in broadcast journalism from Eastern, they are trained in everything. There's nothing like it in the state. They end up being able to write, to be a reporter, to be an anchor, to edit. They learn everything. So they can really be in this day and age. A lot of people are hiring kind of a one -man show person who can do all those things. And they get hands -on experience. They have their own newscast. It's really a wonderful. Well, being a small university, we tell prospective students. And then we provide this to the students that enroll. They're going to be doing things as sophomores that they might not get to do at a larger institution. Ever. Throughout their career. Yeah. And I love turning on Albuquerque TV or Amarilla TV. And seeing your people. A smiling face of a student that is out there, you know, living the dream that he or she had. Yeah. But you do have one

very wonderful new construction. You finally got your football scene. Yes, ma 'am. We do. It's up and running. It's everything we hoped it would be in terms of the impact on the campus and the community. It was really good to see the people rally behind this project and just, you know, provide the resources to get it done. We're very grateful. And another one of your athletic crowns is that the E &MU Women's Basketball team tell us how they're doing. Oh, yes. I know this have to see how they do. But no matter how they do, we're proud of them. They're really fine young women. Good, well -coached. They're just credit in the classroom and credit when they play basketball. We're very proud of the team. Did I read that your athletes have a higher GPA, grade point average than your regular student? Oh, yes. By more than just a little bit. Yes, they do. Excuse me. And they

graduated a higher rate too. We have a little over 500 student athletes at the institution participating in 14 sports. And athletics is very important to our heritage. You know, when we choose people to honor is distinguished alumni, excuse me, in items like that. Inevitably, there's an athlete or two in that group of four or five. They mean a lot to us. So as the world changes, who brought in? You've got a lot of really unusual masters and bachelor's programs. I think you've got one forensic science. Oh, yes, we do. The student has his own cadaver. Well, yes. Thank you. They are. Yes, we have a cadaver lab and it's well, well stocked. I guess you could say. Yeah. And also applied arts and science. So who's creating these programs? And because they're really unique. Well, we try to identify the need that our state of region has and we try to fill it. I mean, we need more forensic science

out there. You know, there are stories about how the labs are backed up with being able to do the job they want to do. Well, we're providing forensic scientists for them. The Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences is aimed at students that have a two year degree in a vocational or technical area. But they want a bachelor's degree. They can fold that degree directly into this bachelor's degree and within two years have a bachelor's degree that many of them didn't think it was possible because of the path they had taken in vocational technical education. It's very popular and it really meets the need that the state has. Well, we're speaking today with President of Eastern Mexico University, Dr. Stephen Gamble. Thank you for joining us. You are making a change now after 16 years. Oh, yes, ma 'am. You're going to step down and... First of August. Yeah, but who's counting? So they're having a search. Yes, ma 'am. And will you

have anything to do with that? You're just going to let the regents in. Only if they invite me in for some advice or just to get my opinion on something. I really don't think an outgoing president should select his successor. But they're down to 10 semi -finalists now. And I don't doubt that they will come up with somebody that will hopefully be better than I am. That's my goal for them. As you look back, what are some of your favorite projects that you got involved in that you've been able to see through fruition? Well, it's been nice to watch the campus take better form, I think, through innovation. But the things I'll always remember about being president dealing with the students. My two favorite days are one, the start of a semester when the new freshmen come in. I get to meet them. I get to meet their parents. I'm outside the residence hall handing out my business cards to their parents. And they use them. They'll call me if they're a son of a daughter or a counter something. That's just a good day for me. And the day they graduate. That is, they're reaching a goal they've set for themselves. The one that

I have set for them as well as well as the university's faculty and staff. And that's just a wonderful time for me. I know many of the graduates. Oh, I'm sure you do. Yeah, and they're everywhere. And they have the most wonderful stories about their life. I think one thing I want to touch on is you do have an international outreach. But before you explain that, your campus is so lovely and compact. And it's such a harmonious place. I mean, it really is kind of an ideal campus. And so what international outreach you have. I know you had a Chinese component for some time. We still do. We have probably about 120, I would guess, international students. The reason we have the students is we want our own students, the native students, those that are new Mexican, to have interactions with people that are different than they are from different cultures. Because when they leave us, they're going to be entering a world of work,

which is truly global, truly international. And we want them to have had some contact. And the international students we get are just delightful people. We still have, I think, Chinese are the largest number that we have. But we're not trying to, you know, just grow a lot in terms of international students. I mean, it's the taxpayers of New Mexico who sponsor our university. That's what we're there for. We're there to take care of the Eastern part of the state too, hence our name Eastern New Mexico University. But to really take care of our students as best we can, they do need to interact with people who are different than they are. Yeah. That's important to us. Yeah. So we're filming today in the Capitol. And there have been a lot of changes in the funding that's available for higher ed. You've had some big, you've had to take a lot of hits, a lot of cuts, higher ed across the board. How are you able to accommodate that? I mean, what's so hard, as I look at it, is that the university will have long -term goals, 10 -year plans, 20 -year plans.

And you can't go slice enough, 8 % off the top of that, and still get where you need to go with these long -term plans. You have to adjust to the circumstances. But the first thing I'll say is that at any time that the state has a budget problem or a budget crisis, we know higher ed's got to be part of the solution. I mean, we understand that. We prosper during good times, and in bad times we share a fair amount of the portion of the thing. But we managed to do it well, I believe, without just going back to the students and their families and saying, hey, we're going to charge you a whole lot more tuition and fees. We don't do that. In fact, the other schools in the state don't do it either. I think everybody, all four -year and two -year institutions are very sensitive to the fact that it goes back to my previous statement. We don't serve in a fluid clientele. We serve people who've got a lot of ability, a lot of ambition, a lot of potential, but not a lot of resources and money. So we have to. This time we're cutting through attrition. No one's going to lose a job, but we're probably going to cut

somewhere around 30 positions from the institution. But we will do them as they become vacant. We'll shift people around, but that's about all we can do at this point to come up with a balanced budget for the institution. So you talk about a clientele or students that are not exactly flush. And so how much does the lottery scholarship and the success of the lottery scholarship? I know they're looking at making some changes to it, but how does that impact your student policy? It impacts every greatly, every institution greatly. Right for the year we were in, the average was somewhere around 90 to 95 % of tuition, not tuition and fees, but tuition was paid to students who were eligible for the lottery. And they could draw that up until through their senior year. They're talking about if there's not an additional revenue source found about 70 % of the tuition would now be covered. That's quite

a drop. We're hoping that they do find a revenue source that would continue to fund it somewhere in the 90s. There's a lot of students that wouldn't have come to college and would have stayed in college if it weren't for the lottery. That's one of the most generous things I've ever seen a state do for students. I know it was a former Senator Michael Sanchez had really pushed and pushed. And he was known as the father of the lottery and we are eternally grateful to him. Yeah, and I hope that every student has they come through realizes because when you're faced, when you're just starting out and you're faced with these huge expenses, including the books, including dorms and all that, every little bit helps. Oh, and that was more than a little bit. That was really a significant amount for our students. You have some outreach, not only internationally and for the East side, but haven't you made an arrangement with neighboring states if there are certain distance away from you? Well, there is something called the 135 rule that if someone from Texas or Arizona is within 135 miles of a four -year campus,

they can come and pay the in -state tuition. So we reach out to Amarillo and Lubbock, Western and New Mexico State reach out to El Paso. Yes, but the states are reciprocal with us too. They do the same thing for New Mexicans who would like to go to some of the Texas schools. Oh, good. Well, so I love to go there. And again, the campus is so beautiful. One of the things you have on your website is a map of the trees. And they're beautiful trees and they're old. That is true. Yeah. Well, in our part of the state, we value each and every tree. Yeah, right. We'll promise you that. Especially with the winds that we get. Oh, we do. Yeah. As you look back, then, what do you want people to know about Eastern? I mean, I could read all of those number one in this and, you know, top five in that. Well, actually, that they can come there and get a very good education that can change their life. I mean, when we hire faculty, we try to hire good people first. In other words, we want them to be the

type of student, type of faculty that wants to be in the classroom that's current in his or her field. And that embraces, you know, the mission of the institution. Our mission is very simply to provide the best educational experience we can to the students that come to us. We have it branched off for that in the 16 years. I've been there in Everett Frost before me and Bob Muthini. They embrace that as well. That's what I want them to know. We talk about student success. That's really, that's our goal for each and every student. We talk about the personal touch. That's how we try to employ the personal touch that is going to affect our students in such a positive way. But again, at our institution, the thing I'm proudest of, along with the students, is our faculty and staff. Actually, from all the students that I've known from Eastern, they speak so finally about their very close relationships with their professors. Absolutely. You know, it's really a kind of almost family relationship. And they're encouraged. They're never, you know, don't call me. It's not

office hours. They're kind of always there for the students. You know, we have faculty that will call them on their cell phone and say, you've missed my class twice or three times. Is there anything wrong? And I generally tell the students, lie to them. Tell them, yeah, there's something wrong. Just don't say you blew off the course. That's not going to set well with them at all. But again, we just honestly care about our students. I'm sure that's played out at other schools too. But we just really make that as kind of a hallmark of our school. Do you have some events coming up? I talked about the Williamson lectureship in April. What else do you have coming up between now and in the rest of your tenure? I will say we just finished parts of the Gilburton Soul of the musical comedy that was just wonderful, just absolutely wonderful. So that's immediately behind us. Sunday was the last there. We have a number of other events involving the awarding of scholarships,

which we make that a formal, kind of a formal affair. We have other musical artistic theater events that are happening. But I'll tell you what the most important thing that happens on our campus happens every day. And that's just what goes on in the classroom to, again, provide that education I was talking about to change people's lives. That's year in, year out, day in, day out. That's what we do best. I want to go back to the online opportunities. So people can get an advanced degree completely online. Oh, yes, yes. So what kind of numbers are we talking about? How many students you have in these online programs? I'm guessing we probably have about 1 ,200. We have a total enrollment of a little over 6 ,000 people on the Portalis branch. Now, we have two excellent campuses. Also the Roswell, E &MU, Roswell, E &MU, Riyadoso, both are staff with good people and doing a good job for their communities. But in our case, the

online segment of our education is really where our growth has been lately. It hasn't been in the face -to -face freshman. One of the reasons is our residence halls are full. Every fall semester, we fill up every bed in our residence hall. So if we're going to grow, we've got to look at off -campus opportunities. Now, we don't go out and start up study centers or things like that. You know, educational centers in various towns. But what we do is we'll go into a place like Raton even and tell them that, hey, we are willing to come in and offer online courses to your people. Send a counselor up there to talk with them about their degree progress and what they need to take and provide whatever support they need to be successful. Well, I want to mention, and we'll put this, that the website for Eastern Mexico University is www .enmu .edu. It's very easy to navigate. And you can look at graduate programs, you can look at residence programs. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

The regents have done a really good job. And I know that you recently lost a much beloved region. I'm a Susan Tatum, just a wonderful person and an excellent region, just tragic. I remember speaking with her at one of your events up here, just wonderful. The governor has consistently given us good people to be regents. And we're confident that she will appoint a good person to replace Ms. Tatum. Yeah, it's just hard to make the change. It's just sad to make this change, yes, ma 'am. And it's going to be sad for some people who have only known you, who have only been at these and why you've been present. Well, that'd be a lot of them, 16 years. Yeah, right, right. And you know, we graduate over a thousand students a year. And so that is a lot of students out there. So what will you do after August when you stepped down? Well, I tell people this, and I think I'm joking, but I'm not. I just going to grow all gracefully. I'm going to stay in Port Dallas. I like small towns. I like small

town people, small town churches. So my dad lives with me. He's 96. And he's very comfortable in Port Dallas. So, I mean, I'll be involved. The state's got that quarter time retirement, where you can work 10 hours a week. I'm going to do that for a year. Uh -huh. I just nervous about going from work and having much I work now, maybe 50 hours, whatever it is, a week to nothing. I just don't think that's even healthy. So I'm going to stay on for a short period of time and that 10 hour a week capacity. Well, I know that we're filming during the legislative session. So you have all your presidential responsibilities in Port Dallas, and yet you come up here to work for the university, to build bridges, to talk to lawmakers. Part of the job, yes, ma 'am. Yes, but there's a... And then there's the community back and forth. So I'm just happy that we got you while you're up here. You're all splattered to be asked. And I wish you all the best. And thank you for everything you've done for Eastern New Mexico University. And for that part of the state, the one thing I'll admit too, is that I hired really good people, and they've done a really good work.

Well, I thank you very much. Our guest today is Dr. Steven Gamble, who will soon be stepping down in August as president of Eastern New Mexico University. Thank you. Thanks, Lorraine. And I'm Lorraine Mills. I'd like to thank you our audience for bringing with us today on report from Santa Fe. We'll see you next week. Past archival programs of report from Santa Fe are available at the website report from Santa Fe .com. If you have questions or comments, please email info at report from Santa Fe .com. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Taos, New Mexico. Thank you.