Other UNM Centers and Institutes

Center for Alcoholism, Substance Abuse and Addictions (CASAA) Founded in 1989, CASAA is one of UNM's largest and most widely recognized research centers. Its mission includes the improvement of addiction treatment and prevention services, and the provision of public and professional training with regard to alcohol and other drug problems.

Research. Research at CASAA focuses primarily on the nature, prevention, and treatment of alcohol/drug problems, with special expertise in outcome evaluation research. CASAA is currently collaborating in evaluation research with community treatment programs in Albuquerque, Española, Farmington, Santa Fe, and Zuni.

Training. CASAA offers several regular training events to statewide and broader professional audiences.

Service. Through federally funded research, CASAA provides free evaluation, prevention and treatment services to hundreds of New Mexicans each year. Each year six pre-doctoral students are placed with community programs in and beyond Albuquerque to develop and conduct evaluation research.

Institute for Applied Research (IARS)
Established at UNM in 1968, the goals of the IARS have been to provide expert assistance to many groups in New Mexico using resources available at UNM. Some of the groups that IARS routinely provides assistance to are government agencies and officials, the business community and private organizations, minority and disadvantaged groups, plus the general public. The IARS is a major component in implementing UNM's commitment to public service and the promotion of social and economic development in New Mexico.

Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) - The Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) conducts economic and demographic research and analysis for the State of New Mexico. The BBER also maintains a major depository of socioeconomic data (the Data Bank) for the State. This depository includes an extensive decennial census collection, along with a wide assortment of other economic and demographic information. In addition, information is disseminated through various publications, including a monthly statistical report (New Mexico Business-Current Economic Report) and the ongoing Census in New Mexico series. Among the BBER's activities is the FOR-UNM Economic Forecasting Service, which provides short-term projections of State employment and personal income. It is widely used by business and government organizations for short-term planning decisions. Separate from the FOR-UNM Service, the BBER also periodically prepares long-term projections of population for New Mexico and the State's 33 counties.

Division of Government Research (DGR) - DGR currently specializes in providing computer based data integration, data analysis, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) services to government agencies and private companies within New Mexico and other states. In addition, DGR provides many UNM students with employment experience useful for their educational and professional development.

The Earth Data Analysis Center (EDAC)
The Earth Data Analysis Center (EDAC) is a service organization of the University of New Mexico, providing services in geospatial technologies. EDAC's expertise focuses on Image Processing, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and Clearinghouse Services. Since its inception in 1964, EDAC has been a leader in providing technical assistance in these technologies for a wide range of users. Their goal is to assist industry, government, and the general public as they apply spatial and spectral technology to their resource assessments.

Latin American and Iberian Institute

Student Organization For Latin American Studies (SOLAS) - SOLAS is open to students from all disciplines, creating a forum for discussion within the university community and educating the public about Latin American affairs. SOLAS members organize conferences and joint activities with Latin American-oriented community groups. Informal weekly brown-bag luncheon meetings and lectures, often by graduate students, are given at the LAII and are open to everyone. SOLAS members also sponsor events such as film festivals, fund-raising events for Latin American-oriented projects, panel discussions on Latin American issues, social gatherings for students and faculty, and a separate ethnology brown-bag lecture series co-sponsored with the Department of Anthropology. In addition, SOLAS members work closely with Planners in Latin America (PILA), a sister organization created by and for students interested in planning issues in Latin America such as land development, natural resource management, energy and water issues, economic development, migration, decentralization, regional integration, NGOs, and grass-roots organizing.

Center For Latin American Resources And Outreach (CLARO) - CLARO staff help New Mexican K-12 students and their teachers expand their understanding of Latin America and Iberia. The CLARO library has nearly 1000 items for sale and loan, with an emphasis on materials for K-8 students because of a scarcity of appropriate interdisciplinary curricula for this group. Selections include videotapes focused on art, history, biodiversity, and music, as well as curriculum guides, audiotapes, compact discs, maps and books. CLARO staff maintain a speaker's bureau and a network of social studies, bilingual, language, art and science teachers in the Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) system. These teachers form the primary constituency of CLARO and participate in on-site workshops offered by CLARO staff, with presentations on Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese culture. The most far-reaching community service event for CLARO staff is the annual Spanish Children's Poetry Contest, open to all first through fifth grade students in Albuquerque public, private and parochial schools. The purpose of the contest is to help children learn about their Hispanic culture and to expose non-Hispanic children to poetry in another language. The poems chosen for the students to present are written by Spanish, Latin American and Southwest US poets.

Resources For Teaching About The Americas (RetaNet) - Resources for Teaching about the Americas (RetaNet) is a project of the Latin America Data Base (LADB), a division of the LAII, to make curriculum materials about Latin America, the Spanish Caribbean, and the US Southwest available to secondary teachers, educational specialists, and scholars. RetaNet is funded by the U.S. Department of Education. LADB staff offer, through RetaNet, sixty-six free online lesson plans on Latin America for high school teachers. These lesson plans assist teachers in developing up-to-date and interesting curriculum materials on Latin America, introduce teachers to local and national resources on Latin America, encourage and coordinate teacher sharing of curriculum materials, lesson plans and resources on Latin America, and serves as a model for development of electronic Internet-based curricula databases.

For further information, please contact the Office of the Vice President for Advancement, Scholes Hall 108, at 505-277-1586 or email dgon@unm.edu.

Comments to dgon@unm.edu