Educational Forum; 3; Joe Day Interviews Alex Sanchez, President of TVI

You You You The following program is part of a K-N-M-E series of educational forums.

Welcome to a third in a series of K-N-M-E's educational forums. I'm Joe Day. We're joined in the studio by Dr. Alex Sanchez, president of Albuquerque's Technical Vocational Institute, TVI. Dr. Sanchez was installed officially last October as head of the 20,000 student institute, the second largest post-secondary educational institution in the state of New Mexico. We'll be talking with Dr. Sanchez in a moment, but first a brief look at TVI. For many students of all ages, TVI is the kind of place that fits their needs at this particular point in their lives.

I've been out of school for a long time and they made you feel comfortable when you came back. I like it. It's got a lot of things here that we can go through, computers, everything. Bad labs, they can help you with anything. It's a lot better than a lot of other schools that I've been to. It's pretty good. Teachers are good here and they listen to you and they help you out. There is a positive feeling among many students here, almost one of gratitude, that TVI offers programs that fit into their lives, from the arts and sciences to occupational training, including the trades. Welcome, Dr. Sanchez. You're well known in academic circles in New Mexico and certainly in Albuquerque, but for those of our viewers who might not be familiar with your background, could you give us a little brief biography? Thank you, Joan. I'm pleased to be here. Well, I'm a native New Mexican, my family has been here for generations and I have made my career mostly in New Mexico. I started out at, I went to school at New Mexico State University and got all three of my degrees, including an advanced degree doctorate in education from the New Mexico State University.

I actually have, except for three and a half years, spent in the Air Force for our station overseas in the Far East and also a five-year stint in California, most recently, where I was president of a community college, I've made all my career here in education in New Mexico, starting out at New Mexico State University and moving on to be the academic dean at New Mexico Military Institute. And coming to the University of New Mexico in 1979 and I was here for ten years, and as I mentioned, I moved on to take on a presidency of a community college in California. And I was just delighted when the opportunity arose for me to take over as president of Albuquerque TVI, which I have always admired as a wonderful institution. So you feel as though you're home, really? And to be, you know, asked to take on that role is just a dream. I read a story not too long ago that quoted the Whittier California Daily News, which is

where your community college was, the newspaper article praised your handling of the problems of economics, that is a shortfall in funding, but also said that some students were critical of what they alleged to be your lack of contact with the students. Was that true? So do you think you can rectify that here? How important is contact with students to you here? Well, of course, contact with students is very important and it occurs at different levels. You know, they might have talked to a student that I had no personal contact with. I had lots of contact with students while I was there at Rio Hondo College in California. And I have a lot of contact with students at TVI. It's just that it's impossible to have contact with 20,000 students, you know. And students at TVI, if they make an appointment, really come in and talk to you about issues of tuition or funding or whatever? Absolutely.

I've had several students that I've seen over the few months that I've been here. When you were installed, you announced in your speech a plan by which students who get their associate degrees at TVI would be able to go to UNM for the last two years with a scholarship. And now you and President Peck of UNM announced that. What's the status of that program? Is that underway at the moment? Yes, it is, as a matter of fact, Joe. And I have to give credit to Dick Peck because he's the one that mentioned the idea and then we followed up. And I just happened to mention that during my inaugural talk. But as I understand it now, the University of New Mexico is ready to announce a program of scholarships for people completing an associate degree, either from TVI or from one of their three branch campuses. So it's not just TVI, it includes their branch campuses of the University of New Mexico. But it's a wonderful program. It has many advantages.

We have a built-in retention program for students either going to a branch campus or to TVI so that they have the motivation to complete the associate degree. It can be done at a lower cost to them and at a lower cost to the state of New Mexico. What's the percentage of students who go from TVI to UNM to finish their four years? Do you have an idea about that? You know, I don't really have a percentage because that's hard to figure out. You know, students at community colleges, movie and ad hoc, you know, they're working, many of them are working. They're working. They go out for a semester. They come back in, you know, and so forth. But it's a feeling, it's in just raw numbers. I think it, I've seen some figures that is around 500 or plus, you know, a year that transfer to the University of New Mexico. There's been the announcement that there will be no tuition increase this year at TVI. And that there was money, I gather, in the state budget, to forestall such an increase. Of course, as many people know at UNM, there's going to be a projected 6% increase in tuition.

How have you been able to keep the tuition stable at TVI? Well, I think it's a matter of policy on the part of the legislature that they want to keep the community college tuition as low as possible to create a situation where we have greater access to education, post-secondary education, both at the vocational, technical, occupational areas, which leads to work for training and so forth, and also for the first two years of a transfer program into a four-year degree. It can be done cheaper, it can be done in a way that's more convenient to students and so forth, closer to home, they can live at home and so forth. So it's a matter of, I think, of policy at the state legislative level that they want to keep tuition low. And so therefore, they're willing to put maybe a little bit more into funding the institution's community colleges.

What is the tuition at TVI for? It's well for the, again, our governing board at TVI has had a policy forever, I guess, in terms of the vocational students, we do not charge tuition for the vocational courses. And even though it hurts us in terms of the funding because the state does take credit for that, they assume that we're collecting that and we don't collect it, so it does hurt us in that way, but we feel that it's worth it because it supports workforce training for our area and it supports economic development and so forth. But in terms of the arts and sciences or the liberal studies students, we do charge tuition and that's 2650. There are some other miscellaneous fees, course fees. 54. For credit hour. For credit hour. Well, that's pretty, still pretty inexpensive. Very, very inexpensive. Very, very inexpensive. One of the issues that the faculty has been concerned about is the situation where they

find themselves in and you've come in before, but I'd like to ask you to do so again. Many of the faculty at TVI feel that they're teaching three semesters because you're on a three semester system per year. But basically the same pay that somebody at, say, UNM gets for teaching two semesters. And I know you're trying to rectify that in equity. How are you doing that? What's the status of that? That's almost correct. Let me just make a slight correction that our historically TVI has always been a year round institution. It's been run on a trimester basis since its founding, so that's a historical fact. It fits the occupational programs very well because they usually go year round. The students want to finish as quickly as possible so they can get into a job. The problem really arose when it became a full-fledged community college in 1985. And the arts and sciences was brought in at that particular time.

The arts and sciences, faculty, and those students tend to view themselves more as like UNM students. And many of them will go on to UNM. And many of our faculty that we attracted came from UNM, either had finished their degrees at UNM and were available for teaching here and so forth. So that's sort of the historical background. The fact is that our faculty do get paid on a 12-month basis. They're employed for a 12-month basis. They of course have some time in between semesters and so forth. And basically they get paid a little higher than the average of our two-year sister institutions. But when you look at it on a comparative basis, on a workday basis, you're getting a little bit more but they're working three semesters. That's exactly correct. So on a per workday basis our faculty are not getting a fair shake. And so we're determined to correct that and we're looking at several options to that and we will be making some recommendations to the board on that.

Okay. To equalize that. Yes. But that would have to be ultimately approved by the legislature. I see. No, not really. It's a matter of that the governing board because it's a budgetary issue, right? It's a matter of allocating funds then. That is correct. Because it is going to be very costly. It's going to cost somewhere between $2.5 to $3.3 million. So we're a period of time to really bring us up to date. And we think that we have a plan so that our faculty at the end of the implementation period which will take anywhere from three to four years will be probably the best paid two-year institution faculty in the state. And since we're the premier institution, two-year institution, we think our faculty ought to be compensated likewise. How do you compare with other community colleges around the state? Well right now. Two-year institutions. Now on a per-work day basis, our faculty are not the lowest paid, but they're second to the lowest.

And at the end of this implementation period, we think that our faculty will be the highest paid. Well, I'm sure the faculty will be glad to hear that and I'm sure you're supporting that. There have been efforts in some segments at TVI to unionize. And without getting into the details of where all that stands, how do you feel as the president of the institution, how do you feel about those kind of movements? Well, I feel that I've worked in an environment that has been unionized in California. The community colleges are unionized and so I worked in a unionized environment. Does that mean teachers only or everybody pretty much? Well, pretty much everybody. The classified staff as well as the faculty were unionized and so I'm used to working with unions so that's not an issue for me. I worked very successfully as a matter of fact. With the union, the last year I was there, we had the fastest settlement in the history of the college.

And it wasn't because we gave the store away, it was because we had built up a relationship of trust and they knew how much money was available and they knew what the needs of the institution were. As a matter of fact, the budgeting process was a very collaborative kind of effort with faculty and staff and as a matter of fact, we even included students on the budget recommendation committee. And we're doing the same thing here at TVI, by the way. We're making it a very inclusive process. So the fact of the union doesn't bother me in some ways, it makes it easier administratively to work in a union environment. What it does hurt, I think, it cuts down on your flexibility to move programs, to start up new programs, to phase out programs and so forth. It's a rather cumbersome process to be able to do that. And so from that standpoint, I think it tends to detract from the tremendous ability that TVI has had to respond to workforce development and economic development needs of this community.

So if we have a union, that picture will change a bit and that does concern me and I think it should concern the business community in Albuquerque. But you do expect that it will happen in some areas of the institution that there will be unions in some areas. Oh, I suppose. If it's in the areas of the support staff and so forth, that is not as critical in terms of what I talked about, in terms of flexibility to start programs and programs and so forth. There have been, as most of our viewers may recall, before your arrival, charges of mismanagement of funds at TVI. Without getting into that, do you think that's hurt the image of the institution, which has been very solid in most other areas? You know, I've been all over this community and I've been all over the stage. I've talked to legislators, I've talked to business people, I've talked to students and nobody ever mentions that, you know, what they do mention is the tremendous response

that TVI offers and the opportunities that it presents to students and to businesses and so forth. So I can truthfully tell you, nobody's ever mentioned that to me, you know. Well, with all due respect, you're the president, maybe you're the president because you're the president of the... Well, I think the fact is that all of that has been cleared up and I think our job now is to make sure that it doesn't ever happen again. And we've taken steps to make sure it does not happen again. Let's talk a little bit about funding again. You said in your inaugural talk that funding is insufficient in your view for advising, tutoring, counseling, library services. In other words, things outside the classroom. Yes. What do you mean by that and what do you think you can do about it? Well, there is a process for that and what I meant by that is that the formula that... And we're funded by a formula just like the University of New Mexico or the other institutions in the state, the other... But it's a different formula for the two-year institutions as compared to the four-year institutions.

In my opinion, the two-year institutions formula is not adequate for the kind of job that we have to do with students. And it particularly is not adequate for an institution, the size and complexity of TVI. And we have the student support services, for example, is just one area that students have a tremendous need. They need counseling. They need help with a variety of things because these are students that in some ways have had a tough time with their life, you know. It's not been easy for them to get in there. It's not been easy for them to get in there. It's not been easy for them to come to the institution. And so we try to help them out, you know. We offer wonderful instruction, but that doesn't always assure success for the student. You have to have that supportive environment for the students, and that's what we try to provide. And since it's not a residential campus, so they're in and out anyway. So what you're saying is you'd like to set up more programs where they could talk with counselors and advisors.

Is that what you're saying? Absolutely. And that's what they need, you know. And we know that that sets the stage for a more successful student. So the formula does not count for that. And so we are going to go to the commission on higher ed because that's the round that we have to follow. And I've already been talking to the presidents of the other two-year institutions around the state. And we're going to mount a very significant effort this coming year to convince the commission on higher ed that we do need to revise the two-year formula. The formula for the two-year institutions is old. It was developed back in the 70s. It doesn't account for today's students. And that would involve the legislature, too. Eventually it would, yes. I would hope that the commission on higher ed would make a recommendation to change the formula, which means that we'd have to have more funds allocated. And then, of course, the legislature does. Well, I have to ask you this question, talking about the legislature, the Speaker of the House, Raymond Johnson, who is your second cousin.

Do you think that's going to help you at all in getting some of this funding through the legislature? Well, that couldn't hurt. But let me tell you this, that I've talked to a lot of other legislatures, legislators who are not related to me, and they all love TVI, so they love what TVI does. So that's the important thing, I think, the other is just frosting on the cake, perhaps. Some people have suggested that the state's surplus, if there is any, in any given year, be allocated to public education, including higher education. Do you think that's a good thing, or do you think the surplus, I know you're not a legislator, but do you think that the surplus should then go over to the next year? I feel that, in other words, you think public education, there's money in the state of New Mexico that really should go toward education that really isn't going there. I think that's a wonderful investment for the state to make, and if we do have surplus funds, I think we ought to invest it. And one way to invest it is to provide, for one thing, we never have enough equipment to modernize and to be able to offer students the opportunity to work on equipment and to

learn new things that they will encounter out in the workplace. And so I think that investment that the state could make, in particular, to say equipment for instruction, would be the best investment that the state could make for that money. How would you grade as an educator? How would you grant a former teacher? How would you grade public higher education in the state of New Mexico? A, B, C? I think public higher education in New Mexico is a well-kept secret. I think that we do a far better job than we're given credit for. I wouldn't give it an A plus, but I'd give it an A. Considering a variety of factors, considering the resources that we have, the tremendous amount of diversity we have in our student body and so forth, the tremendous geographical area that we have to cover, I think we should get an A. Speaking about a specific issue that's going on now, the possible loss of maybe 7,000

jobs from Curtin and Dare Force Base, what role can TVI play in training people to work there if there is, in fact, private industry, they do move in this private industry? Have you been looking at that issue? Well, that's one of TVI's strengths is that we're able to do those kinds of things. The workforce training is our main job, that is our concentration, and that will remain the premier job for TVI as long as I'm in charge. So I think that's the most important thing that TVI can contribute to this community. So if there's a need for job training to support any kind of economic development efforts either at Curtin or elsewhere in the community, we're there. That's what we're for. So you're keeping a very close eye on this situation? Absolutely. You talked about equipment shortages in some of the areas, and in your inaugural talk, you set a goal of trying to make every student at TVI computer literate.

How far along are you at this early stage in that effort? Well, we're far long enough so that it's now in our catalog. We have a requirement in our catalog that every student going through a program and completing a program at TVI must show competency in the use of computers appropriate to the kind of program they're in. And so that is a requirement that's already in the catalog. So they have to have completed certain requirements? They either have to complete a course, or they have to complete a module of some kind that makes them capable of using computers appropriate to the program that they're in. Do you have enough equipment to do that, to teach that? We have a considerable number of laboratories on the campus that do have computers, and the computer's labs are open for long periods of time into the evening and so forth, so that there's some self-paced instruction so that students could come in and pace themselves

on completing a competency in computers. So we feel very confident that we're going to be able to do that. Do you find that many students don't have to be urged to do that? I mean, they know that if they're going to go out there in the workforce, they've got a, or even go on for higher, for more education, they've got a, you don't have to convince them. No, no, that's not a problem. I think our problem is to be able to keep up with them, you know, and to offer the instruction that's sophisticated enough to accommodate them. Okay, we've only got a couple of minutes left, and the 30th anniversary of TVI is going to be celebrated, I guess, starting this summer. Yes, July 1st. And very briefly, can you give us an idea of the strengths and the weaknesses of TVI as you see it as its new president? Well, I think the wonderful record that TVI has in responding to economic development issues. I think that Albuquerque owes a lot of the economic robustness of its economy here to the fact that we have the capability to train Albuquerque in Bernalillo and New Mexico's workforce

here at TVI. That I think is the greatest strength of the institution. I think the greatest weakness is the fact that we must not let our past success keep us from looking at new ways of doing things and examining new things that have to be done. In other words, we can't just rest on our past success. And that could be our biggest weakness. Do you work with, to get to these strengths again, do you work with, I know you do, but in what ways, give me an example, a brief example of how you work with a local business, how TVI works with a local business to train people for that business or that industry? Well, let me give you a big example. It didn't occur. Well, I was, well, I've been president, but it occurred shortly before I got here and that is the move of General Mills here. And that move occurred because of the capability that existed at TVI to train the employees that General Mills needed.

And they have told me very clearly that if that capability and that willingness to do the training for the General Mills workforce had not been here that that plant would probably be elsewhere. And so I think that's the kind of strength that TVI has and that's the kind of value that TVI has to this community into the state. You've worked with Intel too, I gather. Oh, absolutely. And we continue to work with them in a variety of ways. In our manufacturing technology program, for example, we not only worked with, this is an associate degree in manufacturing technology that we just approved and are implementing. And it directly supports not only the needs of Intel for their workforce, but also in terms of other companies, Motorola and Phillips, semiconductor, and so forth. All of them have participated in the development of this curriculum, and as a matter of fact, it is such a good plan, it's such a good curriculum that Intel's partner in Oregon is actually

borrowing it from us, Lockstock and Barrel. They're going to do it at Portland Community College in support of the Intel plant there. So those kind of cooperative partnerships, I think, is what gives us a lot of strength. Okay. One final question we have about a minute left. Looking ahead, five years at the 35th anniversary, assuming years still at TVI, and you've told me you intend to be, how many students do you see? What do you see five years from now at TVI? Well, I don't want to focus on how large we are. I want to focus on how good we are and how responsive we are to the community and how much of a partnership we've formed with the various entities in the community. And so, as we look back, say, five years from now, have we fulfilled that mission? You know, that is the important thing to me, not how large TVI is. It's not the numbers, it's the quality. You bet.

Okay. Absolutely. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Sanchez. I've enjoyed talking with you. I'm sure our viewers have gained some information about TVI. You'll probably get some more students just because of this interview, I suspect. Thank you very much. This next Monday night at 730 for our next educational forum, an interview with Peter Hiroshack, Superintendent of Albuquerque Public Schools. For K&M-E, I'm Joe Day.