UNM Closes Bachelors and Graduate Center in Taos

4/19/16

Dear Provost,

On March 30 I received a “communiqué” with a bold subhead from the Provost: “Why Humans, Humanity, and the Humanities are necessary…” As an instructor, who teaches the craft of writing and revision as well as thinking and reading in the Taos Bachelors and Graduate program, I had high hopes for encouragement from the Provost. But as I read the “blog,” I heard conventional arguments and praise for AI and high tech but little in the way of an argument for support of the humanities.

Toward the end of the piece a sentence mentioned the humanities, “…rather than idolizing Silicon Valley and its technical prowess, we do better by learning from Florence and its more complete model of innovation in the sciences, arts, and the humanities.” But the writer said little about the “humanities.” The implied promise between writer and reader was unfulfilled.

Similarly, the secrecy surrounding decisions re: the “extended university” and abrupt cancellation of the service “centers” leaves students, faculty, and employees unfulfilled. As points of enlightened departure for rural students on their educational journey the Taos center under the guidance of operations manager Mary Lutz fulfilled an unusual mission, supporting our program and finding accommodation from various UNM departments as Arts and Sciences squeezed us out.

We faculty members engaged in creating an academic environment that accommodated traditional residents of Taos Pueblo, Hispanic villagers, and Anglo refugees from the mainstream. Many of our native students are first generation college attendees. Our newcomer students are returning to university to renew themselves and their lives. The average age of my students is about 40 years plus I usually have a complement of senior citizens.

My colleagues up here have engaged in a unique collaboration of stimulating consciousness and the concern for mental and physical health while offering sessions on meditation and creative expression. At the same time I served in a more traditional capacity, emphasizing the wonders of the Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian texts, the craft of writing and revision, or courses in “identity” and the history of Southwestern ideas per the books written about the homeland of the students.

I dare say we all learned much from our students, who embody the history and culture of this community and who aspire to synthesize experience and education in accommodating themselves to the contemporary challenges of living in this world as human beings. One cannot substitute “online” education and the imposition of technology for the lively discussion of ideas, a discussion as old as the ancient traditions seen in the work that manifests the human spirit, whether initiated by Plato and Marcus Aurelius or renewed in the work of 20th Century existentialists.

When you see a student’s eyes light up in class or call on a shy learner who gains confidence not only in speaking but in writing down his or her responses as an Emersonian “mind thinking,” one realizes the value of teaching. Surely, Emerson would praise the students who pick up the challenge set forth in “ The American Scholar.”

My students learned to enjoy and take issue with the history of ideas posed by contemporary scholars and writers such as Hampton Sides “Blood and Thunder,” Dave Stuart’s “Anasazi America,” Sylvia Rodriguez’s ““Acequia: Water Sharing, Sanctity and Place, ”R. C. Gordon-McCutchan’s “The Taos Indians and the Battle for Blue Lake,” and George Sanchez’s “Forgotten People.”

I have nothing but gratitude for the opportunity to present in seminar fashion and engage in the Socratic method with my students here at UNM Taos in the Bisttram studio adjacent to UNM’s Harwood Museum of Art. On the other hand I am much chagrinned at the abrupt way in which administrators abruptly and rudely terminated a twenty-year program with a dedicated staff. We understand the constraints of budgets but creative alternatives were not examined.

Now, by its own policies, UNM has contributed to decreased enrollment and the erosion of political support in terms of budget up here in El Norte. Our students are scrambling for alternatives themselves at New Mexico Highlands University and at Adams State in Colorado. We in Taos are survivalists and we shall lobby our legislators. Still, thanks for a terrific ride.

Best

Bill Whaley