The University of New Mexico

NEWS RELEASE


Contact: Carolyn Gonzales
277-5920 cgonzal@unm.edu

August 25, 2008

UNM Faculty Receive Fulbrights

Several University of New Mexico faculty are recipients of prestigious Fulbright awards that will take them to Latin America to share their expertise and conduct further research.

Michael Morris, research professor, College of Education Administration, is a Fulbright New Century Scholar, a new Fulbright program that brings together a 12 month international cohort of scholars looking at major global issues - women's rights, world health care systems, the environment and sustainability, and, most recently, access and education in education, the themes for 2006-2007 and 2007-2008.

Morris is only the second New Mexican to be named a Fulbright New Century Scholar and the only Fulbright New Century Scholar to focus investigations in Spain.

Morris’ research focused on education and immigration. He looked specifically at the young undocumented, under-aged and unaccompanied minors between the ages of 12-17 who entered Spain and the European Union illegally from North Africa, largely Muslim countries, and the Sub Sahara.

Partially as a result of this, Morris has been invited to be a respondent on a special panel dealing with youth migrants at the World Forum on Migration next month in Madrid where he will comment on and analyze the phenomena and education’s response in a comparison between the US and the EU.

Additional faculty who received 2007- 08 Fulbrights are Justine Marie Andrews; assistant professor, Department of Art and Art History, College of Fine Arts, whose topic is “Gothic Architecture in Medieval Cyprus: Constructing Identity and Reading Reception in Nicosia and Famagusta,” Cyprus-American Archaeological Research Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus. Ruth G. Trinidad, assistant professor, Department of Language, Literacy and Sociocultural Studies, College of Education, looks at “Women's Involvement in Nongovernmental Organizations in Ecuador: Possible Solutions for the Migration Phenomenon,” Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), Quito, Ecuador .

Les Field, professor, Anthropology, College of Arts & Sciences, investigates “ Pre-Colombia: The Social History of the Museo del Oro and the Future of Colombia's Cultural Patrimony,” in Colombia.

Student Fulbrights include Albert Palma, Political Science graduate student, Brazil; John Smeltzer, 2008 Political Science/French/European Studies/and Economics graduate student, Canada, who died unexpectedly this summer in Spain; Zachary Watkins, 2007 English/Philosophy graduate student, Germany.

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The University of New Mexico is the state's largest university, serving more than 32,000 students. UNM is home to the state's only schools of law, medicine, pharmacy and architecture and operates New Mexico's only academic health center. UNM is noted for comprehensive undergraduate programs and research that benefits the state and the nation.
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