By Edina A. T. Strum
Arizona Daily Wildcat
January 15, 1997

Pacheco reviews his goals, feels confident with results

Wildcat: What objectives did you set for yourself when you came to the UA?

Pacheco: First, improving the undergraduate educational experience for students.

Second, making sure the research mission of the institution was not negatively impacted while we were doing that.

Third was establishing a strategic planning process that was institutional in nature rather than simply distributed throughout the institution.

Fourth was trying to establish a more effective governance of the institution.

W: Of the four, which have been accomplished and which are in progress?

Pacheco: All are still in progress, but clearly we have accomplished what I said we needed to accomplish with respect to research - being in the top 10 public universities. And in the area of undergraduate education, we no longer have the bottleneck of students waiting for classes. We had a situation where freshman coming in need the same classes as seniors needed to graduate. We don't have the tremendously long lines of students who are not able to get into their classes. They can get into the classes through the phone registration system much easier. I think there's a high level of accomplishment in all of those areas, but all of them need to be continued.

W: If you hadn't reached these four goals, would you have continued at the university?

Pacheco: Well, I'm not sure. I'd have to speculate. But one of the conclusions I would have had to come to was that my agenda wasn't moving as quickly as it needed to move. I do believe strongly that if you are going to do something, it doesn't happen before five years. Between the fifth and seventh year is a critical time period. I go through a period of self-assessment to determine whether you have accomplished what you think you can accomplish or not, and make a decision to move on or whether you think you have more you could do with a high level of success.

W: When you arrived at the UA in 1991 did you see that undergraduate education was lacking or inferior?

Pacheco: I wouldn't describe it as having been inferior, but I certainly saw that there were ways in which undergraduate education could be emphasized more and improved. It was clear, for example, that we were attempting to enroll too many freshmen. We had the capacity for somewhere between 4,500 to 4,800 freshman. The first year I was here we had 5,800 freshmen. We had to look at how were going to handle the freshmen that were going to be coming here and one of the first things that we did was capped enrollment. As soon as we did that, we were able to identify how many students we were able to accommodate. We set about making sure that we shifted resources into offering courses that were needed for freshmen who were coming in, and, the first couple of years, making sure that we were able to get other students at the other end of the pipeline out.

W: By capping enrollment do you think you improved the quality of the incoming freshmen?

Pacheco: I think that probably is happening, but we're not there yet. We're still trying to respond to some of the other problems. We still don't have a complete handle yet on how we can maintain that 35,000 student level. We have gone down a little further than we expected. So we are still trying to fine tune all of that. Ultimately, it will have the effect of attracting a student body that is better prepared than previously.

W: On undergraduate education, how did you begin the process of change?

Pacheco: I appointed a Blue Ribbon Task Force on Undergraduate Education that included not only people who had a reputation for being very good in the classroom, but also some of our top researchers who had a passion for involving undergraduate students. That committee after about a six- to seven-month time period identified what kinds of things we needed to do to move forward as an institution that emphasizes undergraduate education. That was the first step. Then we set about implementing those strategies by hiring a provost (Paul Sypherd) who had the same orientation and same interests and developed a cabinet orientation that set that as its primary goal for the next couple of years.

W: What do you think your biggest successes have been?

Pacheco: I would point to having accomplished those four objectives. But at the same time, I think our being able to take advantage of some opportunities that arose also will show results down the line. The acquisition of the Science and Technology Park is one of the best things that I think could have happened to this institution. I am really proud that we were able to move that forward. I think there had been an attempt to do that for several years, and we were able to accomplish that. I see that as being extremely important. But really meeting the objectives that we set and being able to do it in a relatively short time, I don't take the credit for that. It was other people who were working with me who made it happen.

W: Has there been anything that you had wanted to see instituted or changed that you were not able to accomplish?

Pacheco: Well, I think that there are a number of things I would have liked. I would have liked for us to have had more financial support for our programs so that it would not have been necessary for us to go through a very painful process of trying to eliminate some programs so that we could support others.

W: Was that simply a lack of commitment by the state to the universities?

Pacheco: That was a part of it, but the other part was a perception that the universities were not being judicious in the expenditure in their funds. I don't think that was necessarily true, but the end result was the same - we had fewer dollars to spend and more things to do.

W: The Faculty of Eleven came out with some negative assessments of your presidency. How do you respond?

Pacheco: It was a small group of faculty. I don't call 240 responses out of a faculty of over 2,000 a representative sample. But even so, if you look at the questions on research and undergraduate education they saw there had been a good deal of progress. I don't know what the motivation for the Faculty of Eleven was for having done what they did. I disagree with the process they used and the way that they reported the information. It had absolutely no effect on my decision because I had already talked to the board (Arizona Board of Regents) about the self-evaluation process that I was going through starting last June. This report didn't come out until last October.

W: Is it possible you will not stay here for the full 12 months left in your contract?

Pacheco: Sure. One side of giving the Board of Regents this much notice is that it would free me to look for other opportunities without having to either deny or affirm that I was looking for a new position. This way it is clear that I am on the market and that I am considering other options and if that happens then I would want to re-negotiate my departure with the board in terms of moving it up. But my current plan is to be here.

W: When you came to the university there was a lot of publicity around the fact that you were the highest-ranking Hispanic official in education. Did that play a role in your leadership at the university?

Pacheco: It certainly didn't have an effect on me, but I think you could argue on both sides of the issue. There are some people who think I should have been more attentive to minority issues. Some people believe I was too attentive to those issues. But from my perspective, I think it's fair to say that regardless of my ethnicity I tried to do what needed to be done for the good of the institution. The fact that I am a Hispanic added some additional responsibilities to me in terms of trying to be a good president and role model to others. But good leadership is good leadership, and I was very aware of that.