The University of New Mexico

Date: Jan 28 2011
Major: Journalism (This Major's Salary over time)
As a journalism student at UNM from 1968-72, I learned and experienced the meaning of press freedom. Those were volatile days of protest by students against the Vietnam War and UNM actually closed down for a week after the shootings at Kent St University in Ohio ("Four Dead in O-hio!). But those of us on the Daily Lobo staff continued to publish and the administration let us. UNM Ferrel Heady was a great man who listened to faculty and students who, like me, had the draft staring at us after graduation. Others simply didn't wanted the war to end. But I digress. The journalism department at that time as led by Tony Hillerman who went on to fame as a mystery writer. He was a good teacher and role model for journalism. John Hightower, a Pulitzer Prize winner taught the senior seminar. James P. Crow, was a former Gannet Newspaper reporter and editor, taught beginning reporting and interviewing. All are long gone now but they were very approachable and helpful to us. Better yet, they nor the administration never interfered with the Daily Lobo. In fact, they lauded us for our audacity and fairness in the reporting.

The UNM campus was going through a lot of growing pains at that time with about 13,000 students. The campus had little of the landscaping you see today and new construction was constant. The Pit was still new and Lobo basketball attendance led the nation for years. Although my freshman year was a near disaster, my overall experience at UNM was among the best of my life.

I am disheartened to read so much negativity from current UNM students on this site. It's been forty years since I walked the campus as a student so, sure, things must have changed. Maybe the academics have slipped judging from the spelling and grammar of many of those comments. Maybe budget cuts and large class sizes have damaged access to learning. Maybe the $6000+ resident tuition is too much for too little. (I paid $155 for fall semester 1968). If a UNM education has been diluted, that's a bad thing. I, for one, will never forget and cherish my degree from the UNM "back then".