New Mexico State University President Michael Martin isn’t one to generally admit any sort of weakness or mistake in public.
That’s why I was surprised on Saturday when he sent an e-mail to the NMSU community apologizing for comments he made that appeared to discount the hard work of students who were protesting the forced departure of two faculty members from the Department of Health Science.
A number of current and former students held a protest on Tuesday against the decision to not renew the contracts of John Moraros and Yelena Bird. The outgoing professors say months of racial and sexual discrimination led to their ousters. An associate dean and the department head have temporarily stepped down pending the outcome of a university investigation.
In a Las Cruces Sun-News article published Wednesday, Martin was quoted as saying the investigations “are matters of faculty personnel, which we don’t discuss at this stage in the process. … We don’t ever have these conversations with students.”
Then he said petitions that included more than 500 signatures gathered by the protesters had very little effect on policy, and said the number of students who gathered the signatures was small and seemed “more like a sewing circle.”
“I could get 8,000 names on a petition in the next weekend to turn Zuhl Library into a sports bar,” the Sun-News quoted him as saying.
That quick and insulting rejection of student activism has prompted outrage on campus, and an organized protest of Martin’s comments this afternoon could draw hundreds, or even thousands.
Martin’s comments have been the talk of campus for the last several days. Much of the anger isn’t even about the current situation in the Health and Social Services college. It’s about Martin’s longstanding attitude that he’s a big fish in a little pond. It’s about what many believe is a patronizing attitude. It’s about years of comments and actions many interpret as indicating that he believes he knows better than everyone else in the university community and doesn’t need to listen to anyone.
‘I take responsibility for my words and apologize’
Martin apparently realizes he crossed a line. In the Saturday e-mail to the university community, he said he continues to have a strong sense of responsibility and dedication and commitment to the university.
“In particular, I feel the need to emphasize my high regard for student input on important issues at NMSU and I believe this is demonstrated by my record of working with students,” he wrote. “I regret that my recent statements in the Sun-News created hurt throughout our community. Let me take the first step toward bringing our community together. I take responsibility for my words and apologize for the pain these words caused.”
“Now I invite others to join me in the healing process that this institution and our community deserve,” he wrote. “We value the diverse opinions of our faculty, students, staff and community members. Fostering open and respectful dialogue is an essential part of the educational mission of NMSU.”
Martin must now back up those words with action. Today’s protest is going to happen regardless of his apology, and he must respect that. Then he and the Board of Regents must begin to foster a culture of openness and dialogue.
They could start by easing the process for allowing public input at regents meetings, ending the current and archaic practice that I’ve written about before. They could also end the similarly archaic practices of not accepting e-mail as a valid form of requesting public records and of charging $1 per page for public records. Making government accessible is the first step toward empowering those it serves.
But the problems go much deeper than that. Great leaders listen before making decisions and bring others on board by sharing ownership with them. Martin has to stop acting as though he knows better than everyone in the university community. Saturday’s e-mail was a strong first step.
At the same time, the university community should give Martin a chance to back up his words with action. It takes a lot for any leader of a large organization to apologize to those who place him in that position.
Update, 1:45 p.m.
NMSU Regent Bob Gallagher said in an e-mail sent shortly after 1 p.m. that only about 40-45 people were in attendance at the protest.
Update, March 18, 9 a.m.
The Las Cruces Sun-News is reporting that roughly 100 people attended.
The last three paragraphs of this posting have been reworded from their original version to clarify their meaning.