A Message from the Director
“The power of compounding investment…sustained investment in talent over time.”
As the Presidential Scholarship Program marks its 50th anniversary, this is a natural moment to celebrate. But more importantly, it is a moment to take stock - to reflect on what has been built, where the program stands today, and what the future can become.
For five decades, PSP has been one of the University of New Mexico’s most enduring investments in student talent. Since 1976, more than 5,000 Scholars from every corner of New Mexico have come to UNM through this program. They have pursued degrees across every discipline and gone on to leadership in medicine, research, education, business, engineering, the arts, and public service. 
At its core, the Presidential Scholarship has always been a New Mexico story: New Mexico students, supported by New Mexicans, building futures here at home.
Over the years, the question has evolved. It is no longer simply whether we can identify exceptional talent. We can. We have. We do. The real question is what happens after that talent arrives at UNM.
In my years working with these students, one lesson has become clear: undergraduate success is essential, but it is not the end of the story. The transition into graduate school, professional training, or advanced research is often where financial pressures intensify and where first-generation and underrepresented students face their greatest barriers.
That realization led to an important evolution in how we think about the Presidential Scholarship Program…not simply as a four-year scholarship, but as a continuum of opportunity.
The Presidential Scholar Graduate Award grew directly out of that insight. It extends the investment that begins at the undergraduate level and allows highly promising students to continue forward when the stakes are highest. Our first Graduate Award Scholar is now pursuing a PhD in biomedical sciences at UNM, building on the foundation that began with the Presidential Scholarship and moving into research with the potential to change lives.
That is the power of compounding investment - not disconnected opportunities, but sustained investment in talent over time.
In its third year of fundraising, the Graduate Award has been embraced as a natural evolution and is positioned as a pillar initiative aligned with the Foundation’s long-term campaign priorities — supporting trajectories rather than moments in time.
What has always made this program distinctive, however, is not only financial support. It is the community that surrounds it. Over the decades, the Presidential Scholarship Program has become a living ecosystem: donors who remain deeply connected, Scholars who mentor one another, alumni who return to give back, and a network that continues to strengthen itself across generations.
Importantly, many of these Scholars choose to stay, build, and lead right here in New Mexico, reinforcing the simple idea that when a community invests in its own students, those students help build the future of the state.