Benson Hendrix dot Com » University of New Mexico

Free Hugs, Get Yer Free Hugs…

Benson — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:20:49 +0000

As seen on campus last Friday, two gentlemen were standing on Cornell Mall, right outside my office offering free hugs to all who wanted them. Just the right thing for a long, drawn out Friday afternoon.

Suffice it to say, they didn’t let me get away after this picture without a hug.

Not So Close, Yet So Far

Benson — Fri, 04 May 2007 23:34:38 +0000

Penn State Women 27

Mighty Lobos 3 (and led 3-0 through a bit of the first half)

Good going to the University of New Mexico Lady Lobos for getting as far as they did. They’ll get ‘em next year!

Tags: UNM Women’s Rugby; University of New Mexico; UNM Rugby

Let's Go Lobos!

Benson — Fri, 04 May 2007 15:48:22 +0000

This weekend the University of New Mexico women’s rugby team has a chance to win the school’s second ever national championship (the first being from the UNM ski team a few years back. Yes, the University of New Mexico has a ski team. Quit laughing.)

Being a former rugger and a graduate of UNM (even played on the men’s team one game before blowing out my other knee), I’m really pulling for the Lady Lobos. They have put together a very formidable program, primarily from athletes in New Mexico!

They’ve made it to the final four, and today they’ll be facing off against a very formidable team in Penn State. But they have been training hard (You can see them practicing in the AM when driving past UNM on the way to work), they have a good coaching staff and they have spent all season training side by side with the men’s team (which gives them an advantage, IMO, because they have actual teammates to scrimmage with – something many women’s teams don’t have)

We’ll find out more today! I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed!

Tags:UNM Rugby

UNM's New Prez

Benson — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 19:38:42 +0000

According to the Albuquerque Journal, the University of New Mexico has a new president. Finally, they picked someone to replace Louis Caldera, the former Clinton-era Secretary of the Army. Although I have to say, having graduated from the University of New Mexico, having someone running the show who had to run an institution like the Army would be a benefit when dealing with that damn teachers union!

Instead of picking the “safe” candidate, New Mexico Tech President Dan Lopez, the regents at UNM went with president of Oklahoma State University, David Schmidly. Schmidly was picked in part because he comes from a larger institution with a medical school. Lopez was the safe pick because he was endorsed by the Hispano Roundtable , and because he runs a college in New Mexico and everyone would have been happy letting him try to run UNM.

(in disclosure, I went to New Mexico Tech for many years before finishing up at UNM, and I have experience with both campuses, and there’s a great deal of difference between New Mexico Tech and its 2200 students and UNM, with over 24K students, a med school and a law school. Both campuses are cool, but vastly different.)

This is a problem I’ve noticed in New Mexico, with schools, with the football and basketball programs, with businesses. We are happy to have people who are… not the best candidate for the job, as long as they are from here, or are willing to say “Working at the University of New Mexico (or in New Mexico) is my dream job” like Rocky Long did. It’s a very provincial attitude, we just want to be loved by the people we hire.

Instead of trying to get the best person for the job, then improving conditions to ensure we keep them around, we want it the other way around. We want someone who is happy with UNM the way it is and is willing to adjust to what is established. Someone who is “just happy to be at the school of my dreams, gosh darn it!” instead of someone saying “look, I’m here and I’m going to try and make improvements to this school. If you don’t want them to happen, tell me now and I’ll use this as a stepping stone to a more progressive school that wants to improve and break into the top (or in UNM’s case even the second) tier of universities.”

But that’s something I don’t think we can handle hearing right now. I hope I’m wrong and this new hire will be able to bring UNM further along the path of becoming a better university.

Technorati: Univeristy of New Mexico, Albuquerque, Lobos