Students are the lifeblood of UNM Engineering, and we are committed to keeping the best and brightest minds in New Mexico. We strive to enhance student success by providing a robust and welcoming foundation, elevating experiential learning, and continuing to heighten the quality of their education in and beyond the classroom. 

We aim to align student support around four strategic priorities: 

Promoting excellence in engineering education by: 

• Endowing a Summer Bridge to Success Program for incoming first-year students 

• Improving the first-year experience with engaging design challenges, a cohort community, and strong connections to engaging faculty in each department 

• Providing peer learning facilitators for undergraduates in foundational courses, providing near-peer mentorship, hands-on, interactive learning, and extra help  

• Expanding the honors engineering program with new course offerings and better integration with engineering requirements 

• Providing additional opportunities for graduate student professional travel  

$10 million of philanthropic support will be required to realize this initiative.

Naming the Engineering Student Success Center to provide: 

• Additional outreach to future students in p-12 and community colleges 

• Excellent student support services including academic advising and tutoring 

• Student professional development  

• Support for students seeking internships, co-ops, and employment 

• STEM workshops and events to build student success 

• Funding for student chapters of professional societies 

$5 million of philanthropic investment will be required to support this initiative.

Increasing graduate fellowship opportunities to attract outstanding applicants to our MS and PhD programs. We propose: 

• Many endowed graduate student fellowships to cover tuition and expenses. These graduate fellowships allow UNM to attract top students and help faculty mentors bridge the uneven flow of outside research funds.  

$13 million will be required to fulfill this initiative.

Creating student emergency support funds to: 

• Provide laptops or other technologies for financially disadvantaged students  

• Ensure time-sensitive funding to address unforeseen circumstances 

• Offer bridge funding for undergraduate students interested in participating in research or pursuing graduate studies 

$2 million will fund this initiative. 

The UNM Engineering Collaborative Ideation Space (Coll*Ide) will facilitate student discovery through project-based work focused on creativity, design thinking, teaming, and entrepreneurship. The space will support group brainstorming, team meetings, low-fidelity rapid prototyping, and creative exploration with hands-on-materials and tools. 

UNM Engineering is dedicated to bringing an exciting and experiential curriculum to students at every level, including first-year students who are in the beginning stages of understanding what engineers do. The Coll*Ide space will serve as both the classroom for a common first-year experience and as open coworking space for students to ideate, hold team meetings, teleconference with project mentors, and more. 

The space will be colorful, collaborative, flexible and accessible.  It will serve as a first stop in developing new ideas, with connecting information to the capabilities of other campus and community fab labs, maker spaces, and machine shops for further idea development and higher fidelity prototyping. 

The Ideation Space aligns with UNM’s strategic goals as it will help attract diverse students and talented faculty to UNM Engineering. Additionally, it will enable the university to better prepare the next generation of professionals across many disciplines, not just engineering. 

The space requires staffing to ensure safety and to support students’ exploration of their ideas and early prototype development and experimentation. Staffing will involve both a permanent staff member and a number of student employees who are collaborative participants in the space, contributing to establishing and maintaining the ethos of the space.   

$2 million of philanthropic funding will help us realize this initiative.

As UNM is one of only 187 “Research 1” institutions nationwide, UNM Engineering competes against universities and industry globally for accomplished faculty. To attract and retain the best educators and researchers, it is essential that UNM Engineering fund endowed faculty positions. In particular, UNM Engineering will prioritize specific areas of strategic importance to the economic growth of New Mexico. These areas align with the academic priorities of UNM and UNM Engineering and would not be specific to any one department in Engineering, ensuring collaboration and equity across campus. The eight priority areas for faculty endowments are:  

• Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems 

• Quantum  

• Bioengineering 

• Sustainability and Resilience 

• Creativity and Design Engineering 

• Advanced Energy 

• Educational Excellence 

• Engineering & National Security 

Additionally, an endowment that could support the retention of mid-career faculty by providing them with discretionary support for 3-5 years, would be invaluable to the School. More general faculty endowments supporting faculty excellence in teaching, research, or leadership in a given department are also welcome.  

$10 million for named faculty endowments for strategic areas.

UNM Engineering also seeks to ensure that department chairs are properly resourced by securing endowment funds to name department chair positions for priority areas that elevate the department as a whole. This funding could support the chair’s initiatives to enhance student learning opportunities or advance faculty research in emerging areas, fund critical lab and classroom upgrades, sweeten faculty start-up packages and student stipends to attend conferences, or other strategic investments that advance the department. 

UNM Engineering seeks to create an endowed Excellence Fund to provide the Dean with the discretion to undertake activities that develop the School’s faculty and staff. 

Similarly, making an endowment gift to formally name a department provides a larger pool of resources for the above purposes, or to strengthen our strategic partnerships within and outside the university.   

UNM Engineering aspires to name the School. 

$2 million for an endowed Dean’s Excellence Fund, $5 million for named department chairs, and $10 million for named departments will fund these initiatives.