Notables
UNM Regent
Sandra Begay Campbell was featured in the November issue
of New Mexico Woman Magazine in the article Influential
Native American Women.
A scientist
at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Begay Campbell was appointed
to the Board of Regents by Governor Gary Johnson in 2001.
As the
leader of SNLs Native American Renewable Energy Program,
she pioneered efforts to harness solar energy for electricity
and refrigeration.
***
School
of Law Professor James Ellis has been honored with awards
from the New Mexico Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers,
Association of Retarded Citizens (ARC) of New Mexico and his
alma mater, Occidental College.
An expert
in constitutional law, Ellis was noted by all three organizations
for his work to ban executions of the mentally retarded.
In February
2002, Ellis argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case
Atkins v. Virginia. The court agreed that capital punishment
of those with mental retardation was cruel and unusual punishment
under the Eighth Amendment.
Last month,
Ellis was honored with the ARC of New Mexico Presidents
Award.
The New
Mexico Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers honored Ellis
with its Champion of Life award this fall. Professor
Ellis won a seminal victory defying overwhelming odds and changing
the face of death at a national level, said member attorney
Richard Winterbottom.
Occidental
College honored Ellis, class of 1968, with the Alumni Seal Award,
in June. The award pays tribute to alumni who, through concern
for their profession, community and college, have distinguished
themselves and brought honor to Occidental.
Ellis is
profiled in the 2004 issue of Quantum Magazine, UNMs publication
of research, scholarship and creative works, published online
Dec. 10 at http://www.unm.edu/~quantum.
***
Susan
Deese-Roberts, director of the Center for the Advancement
of Scholarship in Teaching and Learning (CASTL) and General
Library faculty, was awarded the College Reading & Learning
Associations Karen G. Smith Special Recognition Award
at the associations annual conference held recently.
The association
has approximately 1,200 members learning assistance professionals
in colleges and universities across the United States and Canada.
Named for
an outstanding member of the association who mentored and worked
tirelessly for the profession, the award is one of its highest
honors. Deese-Roberts is the first recipient of this award.
Deese-Roberts
has won several other high honors from the association,
including the Robert Griffin Long and Outstanding Service
Award.
***
Kenneth
Roberts, chair of the Political Science Department and UNM
associate professor, was invited by the Carter Center and the
Organization of American States (OAS) to serve as an election
observer in Venezuela.
The delegation
of international experts was sent to Caracas and other Venezuelan
cities to observe two scheduled collections of recall signatures
Nov. 21-24 and Nov. 28-Dec. 1.
Roberts
has served as an international electoral observer twice before.
He was invited by The Carter Center to be a member of election
observation delegations to Venezuela in December 1998 and May
2000.
His research
and writing focuses on political economy, party systems, labor
and social movements in Latin America. He is the author of Deepening
Democracy? The Modern Left and Social Movements in Chile and
Peru (Stanford University Press 1998).
The Carter
Center, in partnership with Emory University, is guided by a
fundamental commitment to human rights and the alleviation of
human suffering. The center seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts,
enhance freedom and democracy and improve health.
***
Patricia
Trainor, UNM School of Law registrar, has been elected executive
director for the National Network of Law School Officers (NNLSO).
The NNLSO
has a membership of more than 600 members at 133 participating
American Bar Association accredited law schools, which represents
71 percent of all accredited law schools.
A member
of the network for eight years, she has also served as chair
of the by-laws committee and nominations and elections committee.
As executive
director, Trainor will preside over all meetings and serve as
chair of the NNLSO executive committee.
My
initial goal as executive director is to increase the amount
of research that our organization endeavors in. Hopefully, this
research will result in better delivery services in the student
services area for law schools, Trainor said.
***
Amy
Wohlert, chair of the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences,
has been elected president-elect of the Council on Academic
Accreditation of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
(ASHA), the professional, scientific, and credentialing association
for more than 110,000 audiologists, speech-language pathologists,
and speech, language and hearing scientists.
Im
looking forward to gathering ideas from innovative programs
nationwide and to gaining insight into accreditation processes
in a wide variety of disciplines, Wohlert said. Of
course that knowledge will be used to benefit the councils
functions, but Ill be able to apply it directly here at
UNM.
Wohlert
will serve a one-year term as president-elect followed by a
two-year term as president.