To:	The NMSU Community
From:	J. Michael Orenduff
Date:	October 24, 1996
Subj:	Strategic planning

I am pleased to announce that the following individuals have agreed to serve on our Strategic Planning Committee:

Jim Peach, Professor, Economics - Co-chair
Cookie Stephan, Professor, Sociology - Co-chair
Kurt Anderson, Professor, Astronomy
Sue Brown, Director, Center for Learning Assistance
Steve Castillo, Professor, Electrical Engineering. NMSU Alumnus
Dino Cervantes, General Manager, Cervantes Enterprises. NMSU Alumnus
Rudolfo Chavez Chavez, Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
Carolyn Cordova, Junior, Finance and Marketing
Manny Encinias, Senior, Animal Science
Miley Gonzales, Associate Dean, College of Agriculture and Home Economics
Christine Marlow, Professor, Social Work
J. Joe Martinez, President, Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce
Bill McCarthy, Professor, Civil Engineering
Laura Gutierrez Spencer, Director, Chicano Programs

I want to thank all of you who participated in the selection process. We are blessed at NMSU with such a remarkable collection of talent that narrowing the list was a difficult task. Indeed, I fudged somewhat by selecting two chairs rather than one and twelve other committee members rather than the original target of ten.

An Executive Review Board will facilitate communication between the Committee and our major administrative and governance components. The Board will also provide input as requested by the Committee and assist in supporting and implementing the final plan. Members of the Board, in addition to myself, are:

A Regent to be selected by the Board of Regents
Danny Arnold, Dean of the College of Business Administration and Economics
Bill Conroy, Executive Vice President
Clyde Eastman, Chair of the NMSU Faculty Senate
Kelly Neville, President of the Associated Students of NMSU
Pat Wolf, Vice President for Student Affairs

1. The choice we face is not whether to change, but whether our change will be planned or fortuitous.

   Perhaps Heraclitus was correct when he said, "You cannot step twice into the same river; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you." The stream of events which constitute life at New Mexico State is ever changing, but not wholly unpredictable. The third consecutive year of enrollment decline hardly took us by surprise, yet we struggle to accommodate it. This should come as no surprise when we reflect that we also struggled to plan well for growth during an even longer series of consecutive increases. The only difference is that unplanned growth in retrospect now looks less unpleasant than unplanned decline. But enrollment levels are not the only change for which we must plan. Reduced Federal funding for research, expanded bureaucratic regulation, increased competition for limited state funds, and electronically delivered education are only a few of the threats we must parry.

2. Our decision-making process should honor our values as an academic community.

   Academic communities value research, evidence, data, analysis, and reasoned debate. These are the tools by which we daily ply our trades, whether we be scholars of agronomy or accountancy. We grant sabbaticals, for instance, based on the quality of professors' proposals rather than on the size or influence of their departments. In the larger body politic, by contrast, decisions are based on the political power possessed by individuals and groups pursuing their self-interest. Resources will flow from Washington, for example, according to the population of the states or the influence of their Congressional delegation. But planning cannot be an exercise in representational democracy. In the first place, there are too many interests to represent; we need a committee, not a convention. More importantly, the members of a planning committee convene to reason rather than to represent. I see no reason why my department (philosophy) should have more representation than the Surveying Department simply because we are larger or because we have a member who happens to be president. I am confident that the individuals selected for the Strategic Planning Committee will rise above turf issues and do what is best for the entire community.

3. NMSU possesses the human resources necessary to manage change well.

   I have often said we are fortunate to be planning from a position of strength. We are gifted with an important mission, a proud history, strong public support, and a favorable location. Yet our greatest strength is our people. You have a record of high achievement, from discovering a planet on the edge of the solar system to winning a Tony on Broadway. We also enjoy a robust multiculturalism. We have more stability than other institutions; people enjoy working at NMSU, so they stay. Even our retirees tend to remain in the community and stay active in the University. We must lead the nation in the percentage of our students who have another family member who attended here. This strong loyalty to the institution will be our greatest asset as we embark on strategic planning.

4. Planning is an occasion for a community to band together.

   So is a disaster, it has been noted, but I prefer planning as the impetus for cohesion. As I have met with departments over the past three semesters, I have been impressed by your straightforward acknowledgment of problems and your willingness to seek new solutions. What seems missing is adequate interaction among people facing similar issues. Like the "democracy walls" in China, the Strategic Planning Committee can serve to link people and ideas which would not intersect within our organizational chart. Any university, and especially NMSU, is a collection of society's brightest and most creative persons. Strategic planning allows us to enlist this incredible resource on behalf of the university. Of course we will continue to devote most of our efforts to our jobs amongst the trees, but we will now have the impetus and the structure for thinking more about the forest. Our view of other units and the university as a whole will become more sophisticated. We will abandon tired jargon and unexamined truisms. Instead of staking out positions by fiat ("You can't have a university without a course in existentialism!"), perhaps we will pursue open inquiry ("How, if at all, is the teaching of existentialism related to our mission?" or "Can existentialism be covered adequately in literature courses rather than by a formal course in philosophy?"). Of course I do not expect the Strategic Planning Committee to deal with individual courses, but the example is perhaps useful. I received a letter from a graduate student in a department which had lost a position in the freeze. I applauded the student's intent in supporting his department and the points which he marshaled to show that it is an excellent department. But when he argued that the loss of one position in a department with twenty-two faculty members would do irreparable harm, I thought hyperbole had got the best of him. While losing a position is seldom a benefit, the size of a department is not a measure of its quality. Surely no one would argue that the departments of our larger peer institutions are better than ours merely because they contain more positions.

5. Our best days are ahead.

   My friend and boss, Paul Sagal, tells me some people at NMSU are in a malaise. Prior to Jimmy Carter using that term, I had always thought it was a French sauce, so I am hardly an expert on the condition. But I suspect that working together with one's colleagues to chart a bright future for NMSU may well be the only cure.

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