In this article, the authors provide a description of the academic climate in New Mexico. Like many other places in the world today, New Mexico is trying to find an identity in an environment that the authors label "increasingly privatized, corporatized, and militarized." New Mexico's higher education salaries are lower than those in other states. The authors describe the efforts made by the local American Association of University Professors (AAUP) committee to improve the working conditions of contingent faculty.