University of New Mexico Press - Reorganization

Reorganization

As a move toward greater economy and efficiency, UNM President Tom Popejoy decided to combine three departments—UNM Press, the _New Mexico Quarterly_, and the Publications Series into one department. Printing operations would move to independent status as the University Printing Plant. As a result of this restructuring, all Press staff lost their jobs on September 15, 1956. The Regents then appointed Roland Dickey director, and in December 1956, four full-time and two part-time employees oversaw Press operations. In 1965, after a visit to UNMP by Frank H. Wardlaw—then Director of the University of Texas Press—Director Dickey visited the University of Oklahoma Press to study their methods under Director Savoie Lottinville.

On December 31, 1966, another reorganization of the Press took place. Dickey accepted a position with the University of Wisconsin Press, and on July 1, 1967, Roger Shugg, recently retired as head of University of Chicago Press, became director. By the end of his first year, the Press had published sixteen new titles, compared to a total of nineteen over the previous three years. Sales income increased fifty-eight percent and the deficit was well below predictions. In 1969, UNMP published _The Way to Rainy Mountain_, N. Scott Momaday’s blockbuster that has become a modern-day classic of Kiowa Indian myth, history, and personal reminiscences. _The New Yorker_ called the book “fascinating” and “beautifully illustrated.” The book is still among UNMP’s all-time best-selling titles.

Around this same time, Jack D. Rittenhouse joined the Press. Rittenhouse left his position as director of the Museum of New Mexico Press, and it was under the direction of Rittenhouse and Shugg that UNMP came of age. The popular Zia paperback reprint series was Editor Rittenhouse’s brainchild and included more than thirty-five titles, including works from Edward Abbey, Larry MacMurtry, and Frank Dobie.

Roger Shugg retired in 1973, and Hugh Treadwell became director. When Treadwell resigned in early 1980, Shugg was once again brought out of retirement to act as interim director until the hiring late in the summer of 1980 of Luther Wilson, who came from the University of Oklahoma Press.