By Frank Zoretich
Tribune Reporter
Items included on the new to-do list for University of New Mexico President Louis Caldera:
• Attract more of New Mexico's top high school graduates to UNM.
• Get freshman retention up from the current 75.2 percent to 76 percent.
• Get six-year graduation rates up from the current 40.2 percent for the class that entered in 1998 to 46 percent for the class that entered this year.
• Make quarterly budget reports to the UNM Board of Regents and "improve fiscal controls to assure regents of stricter accountability."
• Seek the board's approval "when a proposed action is of such consequence that it could affect the fiscal condition of the university or its academic mission" or "is of such public importance that the regents should be involved."
• Meet weekly with Jamie Koch, president of the UNM Board of Regents.
These are among 21 "goals and objectives" the regents have decided on as performance review criteria for Caldera now that he's in his second year as UNM's top administrator.
"We've been wrassling with these for a number of weeks," Koch said at a special meeting of the board Thursday.
He was referring to three closed meetings in which the performance review items were negotiated with Caldera, a former U.S. secretary of the Army who became president of the university in August 2003.
"Louis has been here a little over a year, and we felt we should give him some time to get his organization together and become familiar with the university," Koch said. "We expect Louis to be here for four, five or six years."
Koch noted that most of the items on the list were suggested by Caldera. "We're very, very pleased with the efforts of Louis to help us come to this agreement," he said.
After the board unanimously approved the list, Caldera said his personal goals as UNM president were even greater than those it specified.
The board also unanimously approved several changes to its own policy manual.
Among the changes:
The UNM president will "establish for the university a centralized system for fund raising, advancement and development" and "present to the regents for approval" any changes in the university's organizational structure.
"A national search shall be conducted" for appointment of key administrators, "unless there are exceptional circumstances, and the regents have been consulted."
The board also got a first look at, but took no action on, proposals by Koch for significant changes in regents' committees, including the creation of one or two new committees.
Several advisers who usually address the regents during full meetings of the board - the presidents of the Faculty Senate, Staff Council, Alumni Association and UNM Foundation - would instead become voting members of the committees that deal with their concerns.
The faculty and staff representatives, for example, would become voting members of the regents' Academic and Student Affairs Committee.
However, the votes of committees would remain nonbinding on the full board.
The alumni and UNM Foundation representatives would become voting members of a new Advancement Committee.
Michael Carroll, UNM's new vice president for development and alumni relations, would become a member of a new Development Committee. That committee would also have representatives of outside businesses as voting members.
The proposed Advancement Committee and the proposed Development Committee might be combined into one committee.
The presidents of the undergraduate and graduate student governments would remain as advisers rather than voting members on committees.
But the student regent, appointed by the governor as are the other regents, is already a member of the Academic and Student Affairs Committee.
The Finance and Facilities Committee and the Audit Committee would remain made up of three regents.
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