Albuquerque’s educated elite must help our universities expand their impact

It isn’t just New Mexico’s economy that has been stagnant; its intellectual elite, many engineers, have forgotten to take their apathy meds. How can so many techies who were near the top of their Tech School, BS, MS and Ph.D. graduating classes be content with the grim socio-economic indicators New Mexico has earned?

This could be the first time many of these techies have experienced mediocrity; many apparently like it. If following others is the destiny of engineers, it should be apparent why so few women choose to study engineering.

(Despite) the extensive Albuquerque technical and business communities, many graduates of universities outside New Mexico sometimes boast about how the universities they attended are “better than UNM.” Much of New Mexico’s intellectual elite, particularly its techie community, seem to not recognize that an economic renaissance in Albuquerque must be led by the UNM schools of engineering, computer science, life sciences and business and not their outof-state alma mater.

Albuquerque’s technical and business communities must build a relationship with UNM’s technical and business schools, e.g., by UNM creating large, statewide advisory boards, each centered on an economically relevant, hightech industry sector. UNM open houses highlighting its research and education could build public awareness and stimulate local financial support. Albuquerque’s intellectual elite must find ways to help these UNM schools expand their impact on the Albuquerque economy while further growing their international reputations for academic excellence and economic relevance.

Similar arguments are valid for Socorro/NM Tech and Las Cruces/ NMSU.

The goal should be that U.S. News & World Report ranks New Mexico higher education in the top five in the U.S., not 24th.

UNM, NMSU and NM Tech must eliminate defensiveness and become transparent to the public who owns them and, with help from the State Department of Education and the New Mexico Economic Development Department, lead an effort to build public participation in our public universities.

Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory and the employees of these laboratories must commit to supporting UNM, NMSU and NM Tech and further elevating the reputations of their and our universities. For example, these publicly owned laboratories could recruit high quality BS graduates from around the U.S. and send these students to New Mexico universities for graduate study. New Mexico’s university faculty could be generously funded to teach continuing education classes at these laboratories.

New Mexico’s members of Congress should expand their missions beyond constituent services, supporting White House bills and sustaining defense funding for New Mexico. Our congressional delegation should flex their muscle and create legislation supporting more involvement of DOE’s laboratories in local, high-tech-based economic development that goes beyond the technology transfer process and focuses on local economic outcomes. Our congressional delegation needs to shift from emphasis on Victimology 101 and capitalize on the considerable talents of New Mexico’s intellectual elite.

Albuquerque-based professional societies should develop policy recommendations for how the governor, Legislature, our congressional delegation and New Mexico’s major universities can better support economic growth in New Mexico and sponsor more seminars that make New Mexicans aware of technical and economic opportunities, as well as assess how well their elected officials are serving the public.

Energizing New Mexico’s intellectual elite could have profound economic impact.