Accelerate New Mexico
College of Arts & Sciences
Building the Future for Students, Faculty, and Communities
The College of Arts & Sciences is UNM’s largest academic unit with 24 departments and schools, 45 undergraduate majors, and 57 graduate and doctoral programs. Philanthropic support through Accelerate New Mexico will fund three College priorities: a new home for the humanities, emergency student aid, and resources to retain top faculty.
A new home for the humanities. Emergency aid that keeps students on track to graduate. The resources to keep our best faculty. Here's how you can help build all three for New Mexico.
Overview:
No college outside the health sciences brings in more external research funding than Arts & Sciences. And no college reaches more students: nearly every UNM undergraduate, in nursing, engineering, business, or any other major, takes a class taught by A&S faculty. Beyond campus, our departments work closely with communities throughout New Mexico.
List of Priorities:
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The State of New Mexico has invested $94 million to replace the former Humanities Building, a structure that stood at the center of campus for 50 years. Studio Tsien, in partnership with New Mexico’s SMPC Architects, has designed what comes next: the Humanities & Social Sciences Building (HSS). The HSS Building will feature a community kitchen, a podcasting studio, classrooms for Spanish as a heritage language, Diné, and signed languages, a first-floor living room that opens to Smith Plaza, and a fourth-floor event space with views of the Sandias. With state-of-the-art facilities for gathering, learning, and connecting, the HSS Building will be a space that honors the journey UNM students make during their first semesters in college while supporting the success of generations of UNM students to come.
$10 million in philanthropic support will complete what the State began.
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Unexpected expenses like replacing a laptop or repairing a vehicle should not derail a student’s education or future. This fund delivers rapid support when emergencies arise, keeping A&S students enrolled in classes and on track to graduate. Your support eases financial stress and strain so students can focus on their futures, not their setbacks.
The College seeks $5 million to support these flexible scholarships.
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Every R1 university is competing for the same small pool of exceptional faculty. Attracting and retaining top scholars depends on whether their research is funded, their labs are equipped, and their collaborations are supported. This fund gives Arts & Sciences flexible resources to invest in faculty, so we can respond quickly when a recruitment opportunity or an urgent need appears.
$2 million a year helps the College recruit and retain faculty and gives them the tools they need for both research and the classroom.
Jennifer Malat, PhD
Dean / College of Arts & Sciences
“Dear Friend of UNM,
The humanities have always taught students how to ask the right questions. They are where a nursing student learns to listen to a patient. Where an engineering student learns that the ability to think, write, and persuade is just as essential as mathematics. Where a first-generation student from rural New Mexico studying on a campus far from home first begins to see herself as a scholar.
For 50 years, the former Humanities Building supported that work. Now, a new space will carry it forward. The State of New Mexico committed $94 million to a new Humanities & Social Sciences Building, designed by Studio Tsien and SMPC Architects, with language classrooms for Diné, Spanish as a heritage language, and signed languages on the first floor, and gathering spaces built for this generation of UNM students.
But a building alone does not make a college. Two things do that: the students inside it and the faculty who teach them.
Every year, capable students navigate financial challenges that have nothing to do with their ability to complete their degrees like a car breaking down or a lease falling through. The College’s Student Emergency Relief Fund keeps students in classes and moving forward so that a hard month does not come between a student and their degree.
And every year, we compete with universities across the country for the scholars who make this College what it is. What keeps a great researcher in New Mexico is often whether there are funds for fieldwork or to properly equip a lab. A Faculty Research & Innovation Fund is how the College and New Mexico remain competitive.
Arts & Sciences is committed to providing UNM students with an education rooted in New Mexico, with a global reach. Private philanthropy will carry that commitment forward: for the building, our students, and the faculty who will teach the next fifty years of them. The question this moment asks is who will help shape what UNM becomes.
I hope you will.”
$71.2M
In Externally Sponsored
Research Funding in 2025
122
Patents Held by A&S Faculty
3
Physics & Astronomy Faculty Won NSF CAREER Awards in 2025
$10 million for a building that connects the community to campus. $5 million to keep A&S students on track to graduate. $2 million to keep top faculty. Three priorities. One campaign for the next generations of Lobo undergraduates.