 Current Arts and Sciences Newsletter for Fall 2008 |
Hot Off the Press Books by UNM Faculty |
Scientists at UNM, USC and Utah State Study Colorado Magmatism and Uplift
Shallow-marine and coastal rocks of that are 65 million years old drape the Colorado Plateau (for example, the Mancos Shale in New Mexico) so we know that the region was near sea level at that time. Today, these same rocks are uplifted by an average of 2.2 km above sea level.
Researchers at the University of New Mexico, University of Southern California and Utah State University, feel they have deciphered the mystery. Their work appears in a paper titled, “Colorado Plateau magmatism and uplift by warming of heterogeneous lithosphere,” published in the June 18 2009 issue of Nature magazine.  [More] |
 Professor Robert D Miller recently has been awarded a Miegunyah Distinguished Visiting Fellowship for 2010 from the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Miegunyah Distinguished Visiting Fellows are international scholars that spend up to two months in residence at the University of Melbourne each year.
Miller was nominated for being an internationally well known expert in the immune systems of marsupials. His current research is focused on Marsupial Immunobiology, funded by the National Science Foundation. [More] |
| Nepstad’s Publication Receives Outstanding Book Award
Sharon Nepstad, director, Religious Studies and professor of Sociology, published “Religion and War Resistance in the Plowshares Movement,” with Cambridge University Press in 2008. The book just won the Outstanding Book Award for the American Sociological Association section on Peace, War, and Social Conflict.
As the nuclear arms race exploded in the 1980s, a group of U.S. religious pacifists used radical nonviolence to intervene. Armed with hammers, they broke into military facilities to pound on missiles and pour blood on bombers, enacting the prophet Isaiah's vision: "Nations shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks." Calling themselves the Plowshares movement, these controversial activists received long prison sentences; nonetheless, their movement grew and expanded to Europe and Australia. [More] |
UNM Researchers Look to Better Understand Extinction Processes of Mammals
 As the human population continues to grow and resource demands soar, biodiversity conservation has never been more critical said University of New Mexico Biology Department postdoctoral researchers Ana Davidson and Marcus Hamilton in a paper released today in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The paper, titled “Multiple Ecological Pathways to Extinction in Mammals,” represents an important advance in understanding the causes of extinction risk in mammals. The research goes beyond previous analyses on extinction risk by identifying specific combinations of ecological traits that cause some species to be at greater risk than others.
“One-quarter of all mammals are in danger of extinction and over half of all mammal populations are in decline, making it critically important for scientists to identify the characteristics of species that make certain ones at greatest risk,” said Davidson. [More] |
 Ferguson Takes Best Article Award
Eliza Ferguson, assistant professor of history, is the winner of the Stanley Hoffmann Best Article Award of the French Politics Group of the American Political Science Meeting.
Ferguson’s article, "Domestic Violence by Another Name: Crimes of Passion in Fin-de-Siècle Paris," was the lead article published in the Winter 2007 issue of the prestigious Journal of Women’s History. [More] |
 Sauer Leads International Studies Institute
Economics Professor Christine Sauer currently serves as director of the International Studies Institute in the College of Arts & Sciences. Sauer and Melissa Bokovoy, associate professor of history, are co-organizing an ISI program at Schloss Dyck, a castle near Düsseldorf, Germany this summer.
Sauer is also continuing work that Bokovoy began as ISI director to establish a major degree program in international studies through the College of Arts & Sciences. [More]
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 UNM to Start Construction of New Math and Science Learning Center
The University of New Mexico will host a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Science and Mathematics Learning Center on Friday, June 5 at 10:30 a.m. at the current “B” parking lot located west of Clark Hall and south of Bandelier Hall. A reception will be held after the event. [More]
Update to this Announcement, June 08, 2009 from President Schmidly's Weekly Address
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| Groundbreaking Ceremony June 5, 2009 |
On Friday, I joined members of the Board of Regents, Dean Brenda Claiborne of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Alejandro Aceves, the distinguished former chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and others in breaking ground for UNM's new Science and Mathematics Learning Center.
Once completed, this innovative new facility will provide interactive, state-of-the-art classroom facilities and teaching laboratories to engage future UNM freshmen in mathematics and science courses taught by faculty in the Departments of Biology, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Earth and Planetary Sciences and Mathematics and Statistics. These Arts and Sciences departments consistently comprise the highest enrollments for undergraduates within the University.
Many thanks for the generosity and forward thinking by taxpayers of the State of New Mexico, the Bank of America and all the donors who are making this project possible. |
 Arts & Sciences Interdepartmental Teaching Assistantships
The Arts & Sciences Interdepartmental Teaching Assistantship program is designed to help departments find qualified TAs to meet their instructional needs.
Each year certain departments in the College of Arts & Sciences face more of a demand for instruction than they can fill from their graduate student population. [More] |
Dean Claiborne Announces Arts & Sciences Regents Professors
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| Margaret Werner-Washburne |
Zachary Sharp |
Linda Hall |
Brenda J. Claiborne, dean, College of Arts & Sciences, announces the appointments of Professors Linda Hall, history; Zachary Sharp, Earth & Planetary Sciences; and Margaret Werner-Washburne, biology; as the college’s Regents Professors for 2009-2012.
Regents professor is a title bestowed on selected senior faculty members who, in the judgment of the dean on the advice of a faculty selection committee, merit recognition of their accomplishments as teachers, scholars and leaders in university affairs and in their national/international scholarly communities.
“Each Regents Professor named this term exemplifies the very best that our faculty members offer from the profession,” Claiborne said.The appointment comes with an annual stipend of $8,300 to be used either as a salary supplement or for research support, or both.“The college was very fortunate to receive an excellent group of nominees for the three Regents’ Professorships it sought to fill,” Claiborne said. |
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