Professor Laura E. Gómez recently became president of the Law and Society Association Saturday, May 30. Gómez is the first minority scholar and one of the youngest ever elected to head this international association of scholars. The Law and Society Association is a global organization of university scholars who study law in its cultural context.
Photo: Laura E. Gómez
The association publishes the “Law & Society Review,” the leading journal in the field, sponsors annual conferences and educational workshops, and fosters development of academic programs in law and society. Past presidents of the organization include scholars from the University of Michigan, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Wisconsin and Stanford University.
Gómez was born in 1964 in Roswell, N.M., where her parents, Antonio Gómez, a UNM retiree, and Eloyda Gonzales Gómez, an oncology nurse at Presbyterian Hospital; were also born. Her brother is Miguel Gómez, a former Albuquerque city councilor and graduate of Notre Dame University. Gómez lives in Albuquerque’s North Valley with her 12-year-old son Alejandro. She is the descendant, via her paternal grandmother, of Cayetano Carrillo, one of the original settlers of Tularosa. Gómez was raised in Albuquerque, where her parents moved in 1966 when her father began attending UNM on the G.I. Bill.
In 1986, Gómez graduated with honors from Harvard College, where she was a Harry S Truman Scholar, president of the Mexican American student organization and a masthead editor of the Harvard Crimson. Following graduation from college, Gómez worked as a legislative aide to Senator Jeff Bingaman during his freshman term in the U.S. Senate.
She went on to study at Stanford, where she obtained her law degree in 1992 and her Ph.D. in sociology in 1994. She was a law clerk to Federal Judge Dorothy W. Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit before being hired by the University of California, Los Angeles as a law professor. She taught at UCLA for 12 years before coming to UNM.
Since 2006, she has taught at UNM, where she is holds a joint appointment in both the law school and the College of Arts & Sciences. Gómez has published numerous articles and two books,” Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race,” published in 2007, and “Misconceiving Mothers: Legislators, Prosecutors and the Politics of Prenatal Drug Exposure,” published in 1997.
Media Contact: Benson Hendrix, (505) 277-1816; e-mail: bhendrix@unm.edu
The ITS Department and the UNM Bookstore is offering Microsoft Office to all faculty and staff members for an extremely low price. UNM departments, branch campuses, UNM Hospital and Health Sciences can purchase MS Desktop Suite CDs from Software Distribution for $5 apiece, using an index code or purchase requisition. UNM Bookstore will also sell the MS Desktop Suite to individual faculty and staff for at-home and personal use for $10 per CD.
Staff and faculty who purchase the software CD at the Bookstore must show their UNM ID and must sign an agreement that they will use the software only as long as they are with UNM or as long as the contract agreement lasts between UNM and Microsoft. The MS Office is available for both Windows and MACs and includes either Vista or XP.
Contact Software Distribution Office at 277-8122 or the Technology Store in the UNM Bookstore at 277-3935.
Media Contact: Vanessa Baca, (505) 277-0987; e-mail: vjbaca1@unm.edu
The ITS Information Assurance office is warning all UNM e-mail users of a hoax e-mail that has been appearing in mailboxes across campus. The e-mail, which starts with "Dear UNM Webmail online Email Account Owner" and goes on to warn users of harmful virus activity in their UNM e-mail account and that their account will be deleted if the user does not take action, is not an authentic UNM e-mail and all users should delete it immediately.
The e-mail was sent originally from a domain at mchsi.com and is being actively blocked by the UNM system. ITS will never ask for your password in any official UNM-authorized e-mail, so beware of any message that does request this type of personal information.
If you have opened the e-mail, please do not click on any links or open attachments in the message. If you have opened the e-mail and attachments or links, contact your departmental IT administrator or the ITS Support Center at 277-4848 for immediate assistance.
Media Contact: Vanessa Baca, (505) 277-0987; e-mail: vjbaca1@unm.edu
This week’s episode of “New Mexico in Focus” continues to look at New Mexico’s outstanding teachers as co-host David Alire Garcia sits down with Golden Apple Award winners Laura Greer from Houston Junior High School in Hobbs, Cindy Lee from C.C. Snell Middle School in Bayard, Brita Townsend Judd from Albuquerque’s Wilson Middle School in addition to Martin J. Koldyke, the founder of the Golden Apple Foundation and Celia Merrill, the executive director of the Golden Apple Foundation of New Mexico.
“New Mexico in Focus,” KNME-TV channel 5’s weekly hour-long public affairs show, will air on Friday, May 29 at 7 p.m. on KNME-TV channel 5/5.1 and repeat on Sunday, May 31 at 6:30 a.m.
Also on this week’s episode:
· Gene Grant and The Line panelists discuss on the future of Albuquerque’s irrigations ditches.
· The impact of the California Supreme Court’s Prop 8 decision.
· Albuquerque ranking #2 on Kiplinger’s Personal Finance’s 10 Best Cities of 2009.
· A New Mexican icon is actually made in China.
· Next week: President Obama’s pick for Supreme Court Justice.
Co-host Gene Grant will be joined by regular panelists Whitney Waite Cheshire and Jim Scarantino and this week’s guest panelists Teresa Cordova with the University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning, and David Maass, a reporter for the Santa Fe Reporter.
Producers of ‘New Mexico In Focus’ are Kevin McDonald and Kathy Wimmer. Closed captioning has been made possible by a gift from Mrs. Elspeth G. Bobbs.
Media Contact: Evy Todd, (505) 277-1218; e-mail: etodd@knme.org
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.
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Maggie Werner-Washburne |
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Zach Sharp |
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Linda Hall |
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.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
Federal standards for maintaining, collecting and presenting data on race and ethnicity have changed. Data collection using new codes begins in August 2009 for students; and in November 2009 for faculty and staff, which means that everywhere UNM collects, stores and uses race and ethnicity data must be brought into compliance with the new federal standards.
In January, UNM President David Schmidly formed the Federal Race and Ethnicity Codes Compliance Project and charged it with ensuring that the update process takes place efficiently and consistently across the University.
Led by Josephine De Leon, vice president for Equality and Inclusion, and Valerie Romero-Leggott, vice president for Diversity for the UNM Health Sciences Center, the project is working with the UNM Hospital and more than 60 business units across all campuses to identify and update all data collection instruments, data storage systems and reports that contain race and ethnicity information.
If your office has forms, systems or reports that include race and ethnicity information and you have not been contacted by the Codes Compliance project, please contact: resurvey@unm.edu.
Santa Fe attorney J.E. “Gene” Gallegos and UNM undergraduate Emily “Cate” Wisdom have joined the UNM Board of Regents, following the recent resignation of John “Mel” Eaves and the graduation of former student regent Dahlia Dorman.
Last December, Governor Bill Richardson appointed Wisdom as student regent and reappointed Jamie Koch to the board. Gallegos was appointed this past January. However, the New Mexico Senate failed to act on their confirmations, so they will serve on interim appointments from the Governor until their names are submitted for confirmation at the next session of the New Mexico Legislature.
Gallegos, President of the Gallegos Law Firm, P.C. in Santa Fe, holds both a bachelor’s and a law degree from the University of New Mexico. He previously served as a UNM regent from 1991 – 1996, having been appointed by Governor Bruce King. Gallegos replaces Eaves on the board and his term will expire on December 31, 2014.
Wisdom is a junior at UNM, working on a dual major in Biology and Chemical Engineering. She replaces Dorman as student regent and her term will expire on December 31, 2010.
The Journal of the American Planning Association’s (JAPA) current issue celebrates 100 years of city planning. In addition to feature articles and reflections on the field, a book review section features 17 leading practitioners and academicians who each selected and then reviewed what they believe to be the most important book in the field.
Philip Burke, professor of City and Regional Planning and director of the Center for Sustainable Community Design at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, selected Rural Environmental Planning as the most influential book in rural and small town planning.
He lauds the original 1976 edition and its author, Frederic Sargent, then proceeds to say that the 1991 edition, co-authored with Paul Lusk, Jose Rivera and Maria Varela ... “was one of the first publications in the planning field to integrate land use and environmental planning with the broader concepts of sustainable communities... offering practitioners a step-by-step approach to the translation of ecology into a vision of sustainable communities.”
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
Sylvia Rodriguez Andrew has been named director of the University of New Mexico-Gallup campus, announced UNM Vice President Marc Nigliazzo. She assumes the role effective August 1.
Photo: Sylvia Rodriguez Andrew
Kate O’Neill, director, UNM-Taos, served as search committee chair. She said, “Dr. Andrew’s background and her particular skill set make her an especially good fit for the Gallup campus, as evident through her meetings with people there. She has a fine appreciation for diversity issues, an awareness of social and cultural issues as well as excellent interpersonal skills. I am happy we were able to find someone with her talents and abilities to take the Gallup campus to the next stage in its development.”
Andrew has served as provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at Antioch University Los Angeles since last year. In that capacity, she provides leadership and management of all educational programs and activities. She serves as the campus academic liaison officer, is administrative liaison to the Faculty Assembly and is responsible for institution-wide academic initiatives.
Prior, from 1994-2006, she served as dean and professor in the College of Social Work at San Jose State university.
The College of Social work included graduate and undergraduate social work programs, African American Studies, Mexican American Studies and Regional and Urban Planning. She was responsible for a $3 million budget and an additional $1.3 million in external funding. She established working relationships with surrounding human service organizations, developed innovative programs such as the off-campus Sonoma project to bring graduate social work education in response to regional needs.
In collaboration with San Jose State University undergraduate former foster youth social work students, she initiated a campus-wide discussion on the educational needs of youth aging out of the child welfare system. Plans included developing a program to offer junior and senior social work courses at the local community college.
Andrew has held interim leadership positions including serving as interim chancellor at San Jose/Evergreen Community College District; and acting president at Evergreen Community College.
Andrew’s social work experience includes serving as executive director of St. Peter St. Joseph’s Children’s home in the San Antonio area; serving as project director at Los Ninos, also in Texas; and as social services director at Crestview Retirement Center in College Station, Texas.
Andrew earned her law degree from Lincoln Law School in San Jose, Calif., in 2001; and her Ph.D. in the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin in 1990. She is a member of the Federal Bar Association, is a licensed Child Care Administrator, licensed Master Social Worker, Clinical Social Worker, among other certifications.
Andrew is extensively published, including numerous articles, books and reports on substance abuse issues among Mexican Americans.
Andrew said, “The more I learned about UNM Gallup and the range of possible opportunities, the more excited I became about being a part of that vision.
Everyone recognizes we face challenges, but I believe that when we work together we can create an environment where all students can achieve their educational dreams. I was impressed with the potential of the Zuni campus and look forward to working with tribal leaders in assuming we provide quality and relevant educational programs. Both the campus and community were gracious and welcoming – I know they have high expectations, but I also know that they are ready to work with me to make UNM Gallup the place where dreams begin.”
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
Authors Janet Chapman and Karen Barrie received the Evans Biography Award from Utah State University’s Mountain West Center for Regional Studies for their book Kenneth Milton Chapman: A Life Dedicated to Indian Arts and Artists (University of New Mexico Press). Established in 1983, the $10,000 Evans Biography Award recognizes outstanding research and writing of a biography of a person who lived in or had significant influence on the Mormon West or who was part of Mormonism’s pre-Utah history.
When Chapman arrived in New Mexico in 1899, the 23-year-old supported himself by selling watercolors to tourists discovering the Southwest on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway. The young artist settled easily into southwestern life and over the course of nearly 70 years became an advocate for Indian arts and an expert in its history and cultural influences, as well as a major authority in regional anthropology.
A leading force in the revitalization of Pueblo pottery in the 1920s, Chapman’s efforts led to the first Indian Fair (now Indian Market) in Santa Fe and the creation of the Indian Arts Fund. He was a founding staff member for Santa Fe’s Museum of New Mexico, the School of American Research and the Laboratory of Anthropology. He also served as the first professor of Indian arts at the University of New Mexico.
Drawing on his unpublished memoirs and correspondence, interviews with his family and colleagues, and previous histories of the Southwest at the turn of the century, Chapman and Barrie created the first-ever biography to document K. M. Chapman’s ancestry and his life from early childhood in Indiana to his adult life in New Mexico. Their book explores Chapman’s Midwestern upbringing, his artistic development, and his role in the burgeoning field of Southwestern anthropology and the preservation of ancient Puebloan pottery.
Eight distinguished reviewers selected the book from a field of 10 nominees, making the point that the book was a significant contribution to western history. Evans jurors stated that they were “impressed by the authors’ skill in explaining K.M. Chapman’s complex milieu” and praised Chapman and Barrie for “constructing a book with a clear narrative flow.”
Janet Chapman of Tijeras, N.M., and Karen Barrie of Wilmette, Ill., are freelance writers and members of the extended Chapman family. They began their collaboration a century after K.M. Chapman’s arrival in New Mexico in response to public interest spurred by their New Mexico Magazine article “Kenneth Chapman: Curator’s Passion Brings Pueblo Art to Santa Fe.”
An awards ceremony will be held on the Utah State University Campus in Logan, Utah, along with booksignings and classroom appearances by the authors. For more information call (435) 797-0299 or visit: Mountain West Center.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
The Student Veterans of the University of New Mexico hosts “Laughs for Veterans,” a comedy show and charity fundraiser, Monday, June 1 at 7 p.m. at the Sandia Resort and Casino. The event benefits the Student Veterans of UNM and the New Mexico Veterans Integration Centers and is made possible with donations by local businesses and the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
The event showcases many local comedians and entertainers. The audience will vote on the evening’s best comedian. The show also features a raffle and silent auction for several themed baskets.
Prizes include a “Tonight Show” t-shirt and picture signed by Jay Leno, and a book signed by Al Unser, Jr. The raffle and silent auction will begin at 6 p.m., so those interested are asked to arrive before the show begins.
Tickets are $13.25 including service charge and are available through Ticketmaster or at Ticketmaster locations throughout Albuquerque. For more information visit: Laughs for Veterans or e-mail the Student Veterans of UNM at svunm@unm.edu
The Student Veterans of UNM were founded in 2008 to create a supportive community for UNM’s student veterans, help them in their education and personal lives and aid in the transition from military to student life for new student veterans.
Media Contact: Benson Hendrix (505) 277-1816; e-mail: bhendrix@unm.edu
Initiatives to Maximize Student Diversity paying huge dividends for students
A four-year, $2.94 million grant from the National Institutes of Health of General Medical Sciences, aimed to enable minority students reach their goals, has been awarded to the Initiatives to Maximize Student Diversity (IMSD), a student research program at the University of New Mexico.
The grant is designed to encourage researchers at institutions to initiate and/or expand innovative programs to increase minority participation in research and to facilitate their progress toward careers in biomedical research in any phase of their career development, from undergraduate through the Ph.D. level.
Led by nationally recognized faculty and program co-PI’s Maggie Werner-Washburne, professor, Biology, and Steve Phillips, associate director, IMSD is a two-year Ph.D. - PREP program designed to increase the number of under-represented minorities in biomedical research. Students involved in the program are working toward degrees in Biology, Biochemistry, Chemistry, Computer Sciences, Computer Engineering, Chemical Engineering and or Psychology. IMSD has produced significant results in every area of biomedical research.
Since the founding of the Minority Bio-Medical Research Support (MBRS) program at the UNM in 1972, and it’s renaming as Initiatives to Maximize Student Diversity eight years ago, more than 850 graduate and undergraduate students at UNM have received support to work with faculty mentors, conduct scientific research and launch their careers.
“We have had great success with the IMSD program,” said Werner-Washburne. “IMSD is instrumental in a number of ways. In the last four years alone, approximately 120 students have been involved in the program. Additionally, we have awarded 14 minority Ph.D.s and both undergraduates and graduate students have published more than 40 papers in some of the best scientific journals. IMSD students have also won awards each year at national and local scientific meetings.”
The program boasts a ‘strength through diversity’ philosophy and focuses on training leaders by providing specialized mentoring as well as experience in a research lab, which could be the difference between getting into a good graduate program or a mediocre one, and a weekly conference class. It also provides full-time student and financial support, program direction as well as travel including the annual SACNAS conference. We help students listen to their hearts, so that the path they choose is what they really want to do. Once they know what they want to do, the rest is easy.
SACNAS, is a society of scientists dedicated to fostering the success of Hispanic/Chicano and Native American scientists—from college students to professionals—to attain advanced degrees, careers, and positions of leadership provides unparalleled conference activities for students, post-docs, educators, administrators, and researchers in all disciplines of science, mathematics and engineering.
“We work with the students on their research, scientific presentations, and publications and help them with their graduate school and grant applications,” said Werner-Washburne. “Getting published helps students to see the entire cycle of science so wherever they go to continue their education they have been exposed and see how the whole process works.
“Second, students often think if they have problem with their record they take the ‘no mention, no notice approach.’ If they don’t mention it, they think institutions won’t notice. We help them to face things and to deal with any problems and issues they have had in the past. We take the approach of face whatever problem there is, embrace it and love it for how it has helped you grow. What did you learn from this? When they face these things, they get accepted. We’ve had many students who have taken this approach who wouldn’t have gotten in otherwise.”
The high goals and expectations of the IMSD program have produced exceptional results and provided great opportunities for its students throughout its eight years of existence. Typically, this has enabled students to take their choice of graduate schools when they complete the program.
Former IMSD undergraduates currently attend graduate schools around the country including special opportunities with Model Organism Databases at Harvard, Stanford, Cal Tech and elsewhere. Researchers from Harvard and MIT came to UNM for seven weeks this spring to teach an IMSD-sponsored course, “Frontiers in Genomics.”
Many IMSD students have been awarded prestigious National Science Foundation and NIH pre-doctoral awards and full fellowships. IMSD also has a special exchange program with graduate training programs at the University of Washington in Seattle, one of the best graduate institutions in the country.
“We have done amazing things with students. Our goal is to develop individuals who are ready to contribute to science and make an impact in the world. We are very proud of that,” added Werner-Washburne.
Contact program administrator Lupe Atencio at 277-3609 or via e-mail, latencio@unm.edu for more information or visit: Initiatives to Maximize Student Diversity.
Media Contact: Steve Carr (505) 277-1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu
The University of New Mexico Foundation recently thanked Fidelity Investments Corporation for its in-kind gift of more than $2 million for UNM’s new One-Stop Student Support and Services Center, which opened May 14.
Fidelity established operations during the summer of 2007 in the University of New Mexico-owned Lockheed-Martin building at the corner of University and Avenida Cesar Chavez in Albuquerque.
The company leased that space until its permanent location at Mesa del Sol was ready. During that time, Fidelity completed more than $2 million in infrastructure renovations, which it gave as an in-kind gift to UNM. The gift included costs for demolition, architectural changes, electrical work and furniture.
“Fidelity’s in-kind gift to the University indicates a strong willingness to be a team player in the betterment of Albuquerque. The UNM community is extremely grateful,” says John Stropp, president, UNM Foundation. “Furthermore, this gift is an investment in UNM students. Its impact is that it will help students stay on track with their academic careers by improving their access to student services. Fidelity’s presence also represents job opportunities for students as they graduate.”
“We greatly appreciated the opportunity for further engagement with UNM while our Mesa del Sol building was constructed,” says Leean Kravitz, public affairs director, Fidelity Investments in Albuquerque. “We are more than happy to contribute to creating a better Student Support and Services Center for UNM students and staff with the building improvements we made. We are committed to being strong community stewards.”
The contemporary, well-designed Student Support and Services Center consolidates student services in the 60,000-square-foot space with offices for student enrollment, academic advising, financial assistance and recruitment. The center also has space for athletic advisement, compliance offices and a new UNM Veterans’ Center to ease the transition back into civilian and student life for service men and women.
The new UNM Student Support and Services Center will aid in retention and graduation rates for UNM students by providing those who commute with easy access to support services. Central New Mexico Community College students will also use the resource as they plan to transfer to UNM. A shuttle will run between main campus and the center. Students will be able to access services at either location.
Media Contact: Jill Zack (505) 277-9095; e-mail: jillzack@unm.edu
The UNM School of Architecture and Planning offers its 2009 Southwest Summer Institute for Preservation and Regionalism in a series of courses running from June 1-19. Each three-hour credit course meets for five days from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Photo by Miguel Gandert
“The stand-alone courses can also be taken as part of the school’s graduate certificate program in Historic Preservation and Regionalism,” said Chris Wilson, JB Jackson chair of Cultural Landscape Studies.
The graduate certificate program integrates proven historic preservation techniques with contemporary design and planning approaches grounded in history, culture and place, Wilson said.
The first course, Contemporary Design in Historic and Regional Contexts, runs June 1-5. It explores the regional tradition of the Southwestern United States where building forms and materials have been adapted to desert climate, indigenous cultures and landscapes. Class lectures and discussions lead to visits to ancient and historic sites such as Chaco Canyon, Acoma, Abiquiu and Santa Fe. Students will also be exposed to contemporary work by Antoine Predock, Lake Flato and Richard Gluckman.
“Students will design their own response to historic and regional issues through a modern design project or critical essay,” Wilson said. Award winning architect and preservationist Tony Atkin is the course instructor. Guest speakers include urbanist Chris Calott, landscape architect Baker Morrow and Wilson.
The second offering, June 8-12, is Adobe Preservation, a course that introduces procedures to assess condition and preservation planning for historic adobe buildings. The field study will focus on the early 20th century Santo Domingo Trading Post. The condition assessment report emphasizes structural stability, moisture content testing, preparing measured drawings and preservation treatment.
Francisco Uviña, adobe preservationist with Cornerstones Community Partnerships, is course instructor. Guest speakers include Pilar Canizzaro, NM Historic Preservation Division; and Jake Barrow, National Park Service.
The final course is Photographing the Built Environment, June 15-19. The course is an immersion into the 170 years of architectural and cultural landscape photography, especially work that merges a strong visual esthetic with the pragmatic requirements of documentation.
“Students will learn how to record historic buildings, structures and landscapes according to HABS [Historic American Building Survey] guidelines,” Wilson said. Guest speakers will introduce commercial architectural photography, social documentary photography and cultural resource field survey photography.
HABS documentation specialist Martin Stupich is the instructor. Guest speakers include landscape historian Bill Dodge, social documentary photographer Miguel Gandert, and UNM Art Museum curator Michele Penhall.
“Preservation, design, planning, cultural resource managers and other professionals in related fields, and the general public all make good candidates for this summer program,” Wilson said.
For more information e-mail, hprinst@unm.edu, or call 277-0071.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
On this week’s episode of “New Mexico in Focus,” KNME-TV channel 5’s weekly hour-long public affairs show, the staff of the show pays tribute to New Mexico’s top educators as co-host David Alire Garcia meets with three of this year’s Golden Apple Award winning teachers, Crystal Gallegos from Coronado Middle/High School in Gallina, Christina Monaco from Mountain View Middle School in Rio Rancho and Betsy Van Dyke from Albuquerque’s Madison Middle School. “New Mexico in Focus” will air on Friday, May 22 at 7 p.m. on KNME-TV Channel 5/5.1 and repeat on Sunday, May 24 at 6:30 a.m.
Also on this week’s episode:
· Gene Grant and “The Line” panelists weigh in with their thoughts on what makes a memorable classroom leader.
· In recognition of Memorial Day weekend, David Alire Garcia has a conversation with New Mexico Department of Veterans Services Secretary John M. Garcia.
· Scandal-fatigue hits New Mexico politics.
· The abortion debate heats back up.
· Robert Redford’s plans to bring a taste of Sundance to our state.
Co-host Gene Grant will be joined by regular panelists Whitney Waite Cheshire and Teresa Cordova, and this week’s guest panelists Sophie Martin, managing editor for Duke City Fix and Peter St. Cyr, reporter for 770 KKOB-AM.
Producers of ‘New Mexico In Focus’ are Kevin McDonald and Kathy Wimmer. Closed captioning has been made possible by a gift from Mrs. Elspeth G. Bobbs.
A new article from the University of New Mexico-Taos shows that rural adults are turning to college level classes in complementary medicine. The study found that the college corridor offers a safety net and a springboard for the underserved, as well as an opportunity to redress health disparities while promoting integrative approaches to health care.
“Higher Education as an Alternative Point of Access to Holistic Health” is being published in the May 2009 issue of theJournal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine(one of the main peer-reviewed journals in the field). The author, Jean Ellis-Sankari, MSSW, LISW, is Associate Professor and Head, Academy of Holistic Health and Human Services, Department of Instruction, UNM-Taos.
“In the context of socioeconomic challenges and a weak safety net, holistic health education may become a substitute for formal health and mental health services. When local services prove inaccessible or culturally inappropriate from students’ viewpoints, they tend to find support through classes that foster wellness,” said Ellis-Sankari.
During the past 10 years, the curriculum in Holistic Health and Healing Arts (HHHA) at UNM-Taos has pioneered innovative classes in alternative and complementary medicine and the healing arts for undergraduate students. UNM-Taos has emerged as one of four public universities throughout the United States that has been able to implement such a curriculum at the undergraduate level.
The curriculum includes courses in meditation, yoga, tai chi, reiki, meditative dance, homeopathy, oriental medicine, ayurveda, and massage. Courses emphasize health promotion, disease prevention, stress management, and spirituality.
The new publication is based partly on a UNM-Taos program review during 2006–2007 that used several methods. Quantitative assessment clarified changing course enrollments and completion rates. Qualitative assessment was based on interviews with current students and graduates, a review of their journals from courses, class evaluations, and a questionnaire to elicit students’ reasons for taking holistic health care classes, their experiences within the courses, and suggestions about improving the HHHA curriculum.
Many northern New Mexicans lack access to health services but turn to education as a partial solution to the health care crisis and the disparities in health associated with socioeconomic hierarchies.
Typically, students who attend classes at UNM-Taos are of Hispanic, Native American, or Anglo descent, most are female, and they have an average age of 34 years. Many students live near or below the poverty line, with little or no health insurance.
The evaluation suggested that many students were frustrated with the existing health care system because of its emphasis on allopathic medicine. Some students taking HHHA courses reported lack of access to affordable health care, stating they had no health insurance and could not afford health care even if it were available. Finally, students sought higher education to pursue vocational aspirations through meaningful work.
Facing barriers to access for health services, students from low-income and minority backgrounds took these courses in a nurturing, low-cost environment and learned new health care behaviors and preventive approaches that reduced their dependence on allopathic medicine.
Susan Longhenry, an administrator with more than 20 years of experience at major art museums in Georgia, Indiana, and Massachusetts, has been appointed Director of the University of New Mexico’s Harwood Museum of Art in Taos. She will begin her duties July 1.
“Susan was the unanimous choice of the search committee and the Board,” said Linda Warning, chair of the Harwood Museum Board of Directors. “Both by virtue of her credentials and the strength of her interview, she rose to the top of what was a very strong field of candidates.”
In her most recent position as the Alfond Director of Museum Learning and Public Programs at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Longhenry led a 27-member staff and managed a $2.8 million annual budget. Prior to that she served as the Director of Eduation and Manager of Educational Services at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the Curator of Education at the Georgia Art Musuem in Athens. She has extensive experience in major gift fundraising, museum education, and strategic planning, and has been professionally active in the American Association of Museums programs.
In Taos, Longhenry will succeed Deborah McLean, who has served as the Harwood Museum’s interim director since January 2008. “Deborah has done a terrific job of stabilizing the museum’s finances and operating systems in a time of transition,” said Warning. “We are enormously grateful for her service.”
Longhenry holds a bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature from Indiana University, and a master’s in Modern Art History, Theory and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
“I’m thrilled to be joining the board, the staff, and the Harwood’s many other stakeholders in maximizing the potential of this very special museum,” she said. “I can’t wait to make the Harwood and Taos my new professional and personal home.”
Media Contact: Linda Warning (575) 737-5744
Provost Suzanne Ortega has appointed Arup Maji, chair of the Department of Civil Engineering as interim dean of the School of Engineering at UNM. Maji’s appointment will begin in July 2009, when Dean Joe Cecchi returns to the faculty. Maji has served as chair of Civil Engineering since 2005. He has been a professor at UNM since 1988.
Photo: Arup Maji
“I am very pleased that Professor Maji has agreed to accept the interim position,” said Ortega. “He is more than qualified to lead the School of Engineering though this period of transition.”
Maji's research interests include advanced composites, space-based sensors, blast-resistant materials and structural design and nondestructive evaluation.
During his tenure at UNM Maji also held the position of “Senior Research Scientist” at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Albuquerque on a half-time basis from 1995-2005. In that capacity he served as the Air Force program manager in the area of lightweight optical structures and led a team of industry-university-NASA experts as program manager on the $20 million Advanced Mirror System Demonstrator (AMSD) program.
The ultra-lightweight mirrors developed in the program are currently being manufactured for use on the James Webb Telescope to replace the Hubble Space Telescope. He also assisted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on enhancing the safety of nuclear power plants through a joint project with the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Maji has a Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from Northwestern University, and is completing a MBA in Finance at UNM. He is also a registered professional engineer in New Mexico. During his tenure as department chair, the number of students enrolled in Civil Engineering courses have increased by 25 percent, and the average annual research expenditure has increased by approximately 50 percent. Throughout his tenure as a professor at UNM, his students have consistently rated his courses near the top of the scale.
Maji noted, “It is an honor to lead the School of Engineering through a period of transition and serve the institution that gave me an opportunity for a wonderful career and family 21 years ago.”
A national search for a permanent dean will be launched later this fall and is expected to take about a year.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu
David Craven, distinguished professor in art history, has been named chair of the University of New Mexico Department of Art and Art History. He has been a visiting professor at several universities internationally, including Leeds University, the National Autonomous University of Mexico and Humboldt University in Berlin.
Photo: David Craven
In addition, he has given guest lectures in more than 100 universities both here and abroad, including most recently Cambridge University, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
Craven has written 10 books and catalogues for major art museums and more than 150 articles and review essays, which have appeared in the leading publications of over two dozen different countries and been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Among his more well-known publications are "Mythmaking in the McCarthy Period," "Abstract Expressionism as Cultural Critique" and "Art and Revolution in Latin America, 1910-1990," which has been singled out for praise by Ernesto Cardenal, the Minister of Culture in Nicaragua during the 1980s. Craven co-edited and introduced "Dialectical Conversions: The Art Criticism of Donald Kuspit," which is forthcoming through Liverpool University Press in 2010.
Craven was awarded a Medal Excellence from the State of New York for his scholarship and has won more than fifteen major grants and fellowships from such agencies as the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Ministry of Culture in Spain and Instituto Nacional de Bellas Arte in Mexico City.
He has a doctorate from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
For more information visit: Department of Art and Art History.
Media Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-1593; e-mail: michal@unm.edu
The UNM Music Prep School provides summer session Saturday music classes for children from birth through 8th grade. The program runs May 30-July 25. Classes are 30 minutes for children from birth through 29 months or 45 minutes for children 30 months through 8th grade and are held in the UNM Center for the Arts between 8 a.m. and 12:45 p.m. Instruction includes pre-school, family and general music, drumming, group piano and group guitar.
The cost per child for each eight-week class is $90, or $80 for birth through 29 months. The Family General Music Class requires at least two children for enrollment and is $175 for both children.
The UNM Music Prep School Opera Camp for grades K-10 is scheduled Monday, June 15-Friday, June 19. The program includes singing, theater and movement games, and improvisation. For cost and more details, call (505) 277-8816.
All fees are nonrefundable. For more information contact Diane Bonnell at the UNM Music Prep School at (505) 277-8816 or musprep@unm.edu or visit: Music Prep School.
Media Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-1593; e-mail: michal@unm.edu
Jeffrey Piper, professor of trumpet, UNM Department of Music, received the International Trumpet Guild’s Award of Merit. In addition, UNM junior Justin Holub won a New Mexico Music Award.
Piper will be recognized in a ceremony on Friday, May 29 at the ITG Annual Meeting at Messiah College in Harrisburg, Pa. The ITG Award of Merit is bestowed on individuals who have made substantial contributions to the art of trumpet playing through performance, teaching, publishing, research, composition or support of ITG's goals.
Piper served as principal trumpet of the San Diego Symphony, Santa Fe Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque, New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and Opera Southwest. He also performed with the Santa Fe Opera. He co-founded and performs with the New Mexico Brass Quintet, which was in residence at UNM for 30 years. He has appeared throughout the United States, Mexico, Australia, China, Canada, Finland, Russia and Europe as soloist, adjudicator and clinician.
Piper has served on the ITG Board of Directors since 1998, including terms as president, vice president and secretary. He was recently elected to the board through 2013.
He has been on the UNM faculty for 32 years and previously served on the faculties of Quincy College and Truman State University.
Holub received a New Mexico Music award in Rock-Adult Contemporary for his song "Sleeping Dog." He is pursuing a Bachelor of University Studies with a concentration in audio engineering. His mentor in the Department of Music is Doug Geist, UNM adjunct professor and Santa Fe Center Recording Studios staff.
The New Mexico Music Awards helped to create the Eric Larson Music Endowment at UNM as a tribute to the awards program founder, Eric Larson. The endowment assists junior or senior UNM students who have declared music or a related field, such as the recorded arts, as their major and who maintain a 3.0 grade point average or better. A portion of the proceeds from the awards program is contributed annually to the endowment.
The New Mexico Music Awards recognize excellence in original music productions recorded and mixed primarily within the state of New Mexico.
For more information visit: Department of Music.
Media Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-1593; e-mail: michal@unm.edu
Friends of Music presents Las Cantantes, the University of New Mexico Women's Chorus, on Sunday, May 24, 3 p.m. at the St. Luke Lutheran Church, 9100 Menaul Blvd. NE. Directed by Maxine Thevenot, the concert will benefit music scholarships at UNM.
The "Farewell New Mexico - Hello New York City" concert features the repertoire for Las Cantantes' upcoming NYC tour, which includes performances at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grace Church, Cathedral of the Incarnation and Church of the Heavenly Rest.
The group was invited to New York due to the success of their recently released album, "My Dancing Day: Music for Christmas," available from from the Department of Music or online at: Raven CD.
Admission is by a $20 donation, cash or check, at the door.
Media Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-1593; e-mail: michal@unm.edu
Lee Marmon, America’s best known and most widely respected Native American photographer, recently sold his original photos as well as his personal papers to the Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections (CSWR). More than 65,000 images were included in the acquisition. CSWR director Mike Kelly worked many months to arrange the purchase for the library.
Photo: Lee Marmon (l.) working with Fellows at the Center for SW Research on his collection.
“The Marmon photos are a spectacular record of New Mexico Native peoples and the New Mexico landscape. We could not be more thrilled to keep this collection in New Mexico,” says Kelly.
Lee Marmon was born in 1925 in Laguna, New Mexico. He took his first photograph in 1936 of a motor vehicle accident on the old U.S. Route 66 in Laguna. Still, a few years passed before he returned to Laguna from WWII service to begin his photography career in earnest.
He bought his first professional camera in 1947 at age 22 and began by photographing the elders of Laguna Pueblo as he went about daily business. Between 1949 and 1966 he and his father ran the Laguna Trading Post and Lee also served as the Laguna Postmaster from 1950-1956.
After his father died he moved to Palm Springs, California where he worked as the official photographer for the Bob Hope Desert Classic and as a free-lance photographer whose work appeared in leading newspapers and magazines including: “The New York Times,” “The Los Angeles Times,” “Time Magazine,” and “The Saturday Evening Post.” In 1972 he was commissioned by President and Mrs. Richard M. Nixon for a White House photo collection of tribal pottery from New Mexico.
In 1982 he returned to live in Laguna. He contributed to the award-winning PBS series “Surviving Columbus.” He was honored with an exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian in 1999. His first book “The Pueblo Imagination” was produced in 2003 in cooperation with his daughter, well-known author Leslie Marmon Silko, and poets Joy Harjo and Simon Ortiz.
His photographic output is phenomenal and he still works at the age of 84. Many images are already digitized and available to researchers via the UL’s digital archive at E Content.
Over the next several years the CSWR intends to scan and post 1,000 more images. Making the collection discoverable involves individually scanning each image, creating a record for each photo with caption, date, size and other important information and placing it in the digital archive. A process that is easier to describe than to do at times. Once uploaded into the digital archive, these images are available world-wide giving researchers a chance to see what is available in our collections before planning an expensive research trip.
If you are interested in the learning more about the CSWR photographic collections or contributing to their preservation and expansion please contact Mike Kelly at mtk@unm.edu or by calling (505) 277-7107.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu
The UNM Staff Council elected its 2009-10 executive committee members recently. They are: President Elisha Allen, associate director, New Media and Extended Learning; President-elect Sterling Kennedy, transfer articulation manager, Admissions; Speaker Mary Clark, assistant to the associate director, Physical Plant Department; and Treasurer Karen Mann, accounting manager, KNME.
At-large Grade Representatives include: Robert Christner, computing services manager, Accessibility Resource Center, and Shelley Rael, senior clinical nutritionist, Employee Health Promotion Program; and At-large Precinct Representatives Linda McCormick, resource conservation manager, Risk Management, and Hollie Medina, administrative coordinator, School of Medicine Office of Diversity.
The Staff Council provides a forum to address issues of concern to UNM staff, advocate on behalf of staff and recognize staff excellence. For more information visit: Staff Council.
The UNM Summer Youth Sports Program will once again provide a free sports program for disadvantaged youngsters in the community. The program, which falls under the College of Education’s Department of Health, Exercise and Sports Sciences (HESS), begins Wednesday, June 3 and concludes Tuesday, June 30. Program hours are 7:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. daily. Physicals and pre-registration will be held June 1, 2 and 5 at Johnson Center from 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.
The UNM SYSP combines sports instruction with exciting educational programs for children ages 9-14. All participants must have a physical to participate. However, SYSP will accept a current physical from a participant’s own doctor if it’s within the past 10 months. All applications must be brought to Johnson Center on registration/physical days.
Sports activities include basketball, football (touch), volleyball, tennis, swimming, soccer and rugby. The education program includes alcohol and other drug - abuse prevention, nutrition and personal health, career and educational opportunities and job responsibilities, as well as higher education and community concerns.
Orginally, the NYSP was created nationally in 1969 with $3 million from Congress. It serves nearly 40 states nationally by utilizing sports instruction and competition as a means to enhance self-esteem, promote respect for oneself and others, reinforce the importance of education to one's future, and to promote active, healthy lifestyles.
UNM has continued its support of this program to improve the health and physical fitness of youth in the community. The local program now gets most of its funding from UNM and Albuquerque’s Gorham Foundation.
For more information, including a physical form and program application, visit: UNM SYSP. No applications will be accepted by mail. All applications must be brought to Johnson Center on registration- physical days. Interested participants may also call UNM’s Department of Physical Performance and Development at (505) 277-8209.
Media Contact: Steve Carr (505) 277-1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu
The Tamarind Institute at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque’s world-renowned lithography studio and gallery, has been awarded $100,000 by the National Endowment for the Arts to support its 50th anniversary exhibition and catalogue. “Impressive Impressions: Fifty Years of Tamarind Lithographs” (working title) will be organized by Tamarind in collaboration with the UNM Art Museum. The exhibit is scheduled to open Sept. 10, 2010 and will travel to other venues around the U.S.
“Impressive Impressions” will feature 80 lithographs representing the range of work done during Tamarind's five decades, as well as an honoree section with lithographs by artists who have made outstanding contributions to American lithography, Jim Dine and Ed Ruscha, and Tamarind's founding directors, June Wayne, Clinton Adams and Garo Antreasian.
The exhibition will reinforce the relevance of lithography in the history of American art. Artists including Josef Albers, Vija Celmins, Louise Nevelson, Nicola López, Polly Apfelbaum and Willie Cole have made significant works of art at Tamarind.
UNM Press will publish the exhibition catalogue with full color reproductions and three essays. Faye Hirsch, associate editor, Art in America, will write the lead essay on Tamarind’s importance in the development of American printmaking.
In conjunction with the exhibit, Tamarind will host a symposium drawing printmakers and print enthusiasts from around the world. Tamarind’s new building at 2500 Central Ave. SE, scheduled for completion next summer, will house much of the symposium as well as a didactic exhibition open to the public. The UNM Art Museum will present lectures on topics related to the exhibit as part of its regular programming.
Tamarind Institute, a division of UNM’s College of Fine Arts, is a nonprofit center for fine art lithography that trains master printers and houses a professional collaborative studio for artists. Founded in 1960 in Los Angeles, Tamarind helped revive the art of lithography in the United States and continues to provide professional training and publishing opportunities worldwide.
Tamarind Institute is located at 110 Cornell SE and is open to the public Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. For more information, contact (505) 277.3901 or tamarind@unm.edu or visit Tamarind Institute.
High resolution images available on request.
The Beyond Limits Junior Wheelchair Sports Camp (formerly the Muthu Barry Junior Wheelchair Sports Camp) is part of the Carrie Tingley Hospital Foundation and is open to youth, 7-18 years old, who have physical disabilities such as spina bifida, cerebral palsy, amputation and spinal cord injury.
The camp offers youth the opportunity to try out a variety of different sports that they may then decide to pursue at competitive or recreational levels.
The 2009 camp will be held at Valley High School from June 8-12, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. We are looking for volunteers, ages 14 through adult, to help with the camp.
For camper or volunteer registration, people can access our website at www.aablprograms.com or they may contact Mary Beth Schubauer, Camp Coordinator, at mbschu@unm.edu or Maggie Young, Volunteer Coordinator, at ldybug0426@comcast.net .
The University of New Mexico School of Medicine was recently evaluated as one of the top academic medical centers in the nation to implement conflict-of-interest policies.
In an evaluation of 151 U.S. medical schools conducted by the American Medical Student Association (AMSA), the UNM School of Medicine ranked 26, receiving a “B” grade.
The largest group, 52 schools, received an “F” grade, and only nine schools received an “A” grade. UNM was 1 of 20 schools to receive a “B” grade.
Using letter grades to assess schools’ performance in 11 potential areas of conflict, the AMSA Scorecard gives a comprehensive look at the landscape of conflict-of-interest policies across American medical education, as well as in-depth assessment of individual policies that govern industry interaction with medical school faculty and trainees.
Each institution was assessed on a variety of policies related to potential conflicts of interest created by industry marketing at the level of the individual physician and trainee.
For more information visit: AMSA Scorecard.
Media Contact: Lauren Cruse, (505) 272-3690; e-mail: lcruse@salud.unm.edu
The ITS Department announces a server router move and network services upgrade on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 from 5 a.m. - 7 a.m.
The upgrade will affect all wireless, e-mail access, Internet access, Banner and WebCT access in the following areas: Student Services, Oñate Hall, Mesa Vista Hall, Simpson Hall, SRC Commons Maintenance area, Kiva Hall, Hokona Hall, the College of Education, Pearl Hall, KUNM, the Student Health Center, Manzanita Hall, La Posada Hall, the Cashier's Office, and the Tamarind building.
ITS apologizes for any inconvenience this upgrade may cause. Contact the ITS Support Center at 277-4848 with any questions you may have.
The Division of Human Resources’ Employee Health Promotion Program (EHPP) invites faculty and staff to the class “The Corporate Gym: Fitting in Exercise at Work” on Wednesday, May 20, from 12 - 1 p.m. The class will be held at the UNM Business Center.
Finding time to exercise can be a challenge for anyone with a busy schedule. You might know to park at the far end of the parking lot and take the stairs instead of the elevator, but there is even more you can do to burn calories during your workday. Learn how to incorporate strength training into your workday and office space using your environment and elastic resistance.
This class will go over exercising safely as well as how to set up a program that works for everyone. Participants will not break a sweat, but they will have an opportunity to practice the exercises with resistance "tubes" while instructor, Mary Jo Quintana, CHES, ACE Personal Trainer, EHPP Sr. Program Manager, provides feedback on technique and form.
Please register via Learning Central at: Learning Central. Log in and click on Catalog - Health Education (EHPP). Click on “Register” and “Confirm” to enroll in the class. Participants are welcome to bring your lunch.
For more information, contact EHPP at 272-4460 or ehpp@unm.edu.
UNM Police Sergeant Jeremy Parrish and Information Security Administrator Jeff Gassaway were recognized this week for their contribution to a significant criminal investigation by Acting Chief Postal Inspector William Gilligan and FBI Director Robert Mueller.
Photo (l. to r.): Jeremy Parrish, R.C. Till, Inspector in Charge, Ft. Worth Division, Jeff Gassaway
Parrish coordinated interviews, secured potential evidence and worked with federal agents as he put together a case involving a man who sent more than 65 letters containing white powder to individuals and institutions who he believed were responsible for his losing money. Gassaway worked to secure evidence in the case.
As a result of the investigation, a Tijeras, New Mexico man Richard Goyette eventually pled guilty to one count of threats and false information and one count of threats and hoaxes.
He had apparently lost money when Washington Mutual Bank was placed in receivership by the federal government and sold to J.P. Morgan Chase and Co. for a fraction of its value.
Both Parrish and Gassaway are graduates of UNM.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu
The 3rd Annual APS/UNM School Supplies Drive, sponsored by the UNM Alumni Association in partnership with APS, concludes Friday, May 29.
The current school year is quickly coming to a close. However, with the current economic crisis, it is predicted there will be a much greater need next year for supplies. Last year, according to a needs assessment, as many as 10,000 students needed supplies. That number is expected to double next year.
“Ensuring that families have appropriate school supplies for their students will lift the burden of this expense in these tough economic times,” said APS Superintendent Winston Brooks.
At this time, the Alumni Association is asking for monetary donations because supplies can be purchased en masse through the APS warehouse at a significantly lower cost.
Donations can be made by visiting: UNM Alumni Association and clicking on the APS/UNM School Supply Drive box. Checks can also be mailed to the Alumni Association at 1 University of New Mexico, Hodgin Hall, MSC01 1160, Albuquerque, NM 87131.
The School Supplies Drive will culminate in a distribution event held at University Stadium on Saturday, July 25 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. UNM student athletes will be on hand to help distribute thousands of backpacks filled with school supplies, as well as meet and greet the students and their families.
Every child has a right to a quality public education. The UNM Alumni Association is calling on the University community to show its support of APS kids and our future Lobos. Join us and make your donation today.
For more information call Roberta Ricci in the Alumni Relations Office at, (505) 277-9085 or via e-mail, abqricci@unm.edu.
Media Contact: Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu
The UNM Parent Association is accepting applications for its first scholarship awards. Scholarships totaling $3,500 will be awarded for 2009-10 to support the success of currently enrolled UNM students. Applicants will be ranked based on financial need and academic achievement. Additional consideration will also be given to first-generation students. Deadline to apply is June 1.
The board of directors would like to thank UNM staff who supported the scholarship program through a purchase of UNM's official ornament.
For more information visit: Parent Association Scholarship.
Parents of high school students have an opportunity to immerse themselves in a college experience through a free program offered at the University of New Mexico.
Parents or guardians of students entering 9th through 11th grade are invited to live and dine on campus and attend casual, informative sessions during the second annual “Parent Experience Program” Friday and Saturday, July 24-25.
Participants are provided with information needed to support a students’ goal of attending a college or university. Information sessions cover college entrance requirements, applications, financial aid, scholarships, college course work and support services.
Parents will also have an opportunity to meet faculty, staff, current students and other parents to create a resource network.
The program is supported by the UNM Division of Student Affairs, ENLACE NM and New Mexico GEAR UP.
The deadline to apply is Friday, June 26.
For more information, contact the UNM Parent Relations Office, (505) 277-5915 or parent@unm.edu.
The Committee for Public Service and Community Engagement announced the recipients of the 4th annual Sarah Belle Brown Community Service Awards at a ceremony held Wednesday, May 13. Recipients included Alice Loy, Teresa Cordova and Jorge Garcia. President and Mrs. Schmidly, Provost Suzanne Ortega, and Sarah Belle Brown and Doug Brown attended to recognize the recipients.
Student Alice Loy received the award for establishing the Social Ventures Partners New Mexico, the state’s first social enterprise and investment organization.
Teresa Cordova, associate professor and director of the Community and Regional Planning Program, was recognized for her role as a founder of the Resource Center for Raza Planning.
Staff member Jorge Garcia’s work on bridging the digital divide through organizing conferences and developing projects in New Mexico and throughout Latin America led to his award.
Congratulations to all the nominees including: Karen Gaines, Marianne Presser, Veronica Mendez-Cruz, Erika Gerety and Joan Rebecchi.
Guests included past award recipients and VP of Human Resources Helen Gonzales, VP of Student Affairs Eliseo Torres, Dean Roger Schluntz of the School of Architecture and Planning, Staff Council President Loyola Chastain.
For more information contact, cpsce@unm.edu or 277.0278.
The School of Architecture and Planning recently honored its first group of Golden Graduates, individuals who matriculated from UNM 50 years ago. Dean Roger Schluntz hosted a luncheon for Lou Weller, Patrick Gates and Donald “Rusty” Shaffer at George Pearl Hall. Other special guests included emeritus professors Ed Norris, Paul Lusk, Edie Cherry, Dick Nordhaus and emeritus dean Don Schlegel.
Photo (l. to r.): Ed Norris, professor emeritus; Geraldine Forbes Isais, director, architecture program; Dick Nordhaus, professor emeritus; Edie Cherry; professor emerita; Lou Weller; Rusty Shaffer; Don Schlegel, dean emeritus; and Roger Schlutz, dean. Also honored Paul Lusk, professor emeritus, and Patrick Gates (not pictured).
Weller, of Weller Architects, was the school’s Distinguished Alumni in 2000 and served as a UNM Foundation Board member. He worked on the Museum for the American Indian in Washington, D.C. and has done a great deal of architectural work in Indian Country, particularly in schools and health care facilities.
Gates worked for Sandia Labs before he even graduated from UNM. Since, he’s been self-employed. During the course of his career he’s had a staff of six or seven and thinks of himself as a nuts and bolts guy. Not too unusual since he also holds a contractor’s license. In addition to architecture and contracting, he holds a real estate license. He worked with the builders of Winrock Center and has developed several Albuquerque subdivisions.
Shaffer was a named partner in Flatow, Moore, Shaffer, McCabe, Inc. - Architects, Engineers, Planners of Albuquerque, New Mexico, for 33 years where served as principal in charge of the Church and Education Studios. After leaving the firm in 1998, Shaffer directed his efforts toward architectural consulting, focusing primarily on church facilities programming, master planning and design and construction. Shaffer participated in planning and design workshops for church facilities across the country since 1975.
President Barack Obama’s visit to Rio Rancho to discuss the current state of the credit card industry and the new upcoming deadline for transition to Digital TV are on tap for this week’s episode of “New Mexico in Focus,” New Mexico’s weekly one-hour public affair show, will air on Friday, May 15 at 7 p.m. on KNME-TV Channel 5/5.1 and repeat on Sunday, May 17 at 6:30 a.m.
The deadline for the new transition to Digital TV is now less than a month away, however questions remain about how prepared New Mexicans are for the change. Time and again New Mexico has topped the list of states that are the least prepared for the move to Digital TV. This week, co-host Gene Grant will talk about what steps government officials have taken to make sure everyone is ready for the change with FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein.
Then co-host David Alire Garcia sits down with Jessica Collins, associate program director for the New Mexico Media Literacy Project and Paula Maes, president and CEO of the New Mexico Broadcasters Association to find out what resources are available for New Mexicans struggling to get ready to make the change to Digital TV.
Also in this week’s episode, “New Mexico in Focus” will have a recap of President Obama’s Town Hall meeting on credit card debt held in Rio Rancho earlier this week.
Producers of ‘New Mexico In Focus’ are Kevin McDonald and Kathy Wimmer. Closed captioning has been made possible by a gift from Mrs. Elspeth G. Bobbs.
The New Mexico Department of Health informed UNM late this afternoon (May 13) that H1N1 (swine influenza) has been confirmed in a student who is a dorm resident at Hokona Hall on the UNM main campus. The student has recovered and is now well.
H1N1 generally causes a mild illness which is similar to that caused by other influenza and respiratory viruses, with fever and sore throat and/or cough.
Increased testing in our community in the last several weeks has shown that many different types of respiratory viruses are circulating at this time.
Anyone who is ill should not attend any group activities or mass events, including graduation ceremonies.
Ongoing precautions are recommended for all students, faculty and staff at this time, including good hand hygiene practice. Students are also encouraged to leave the campus promptly after their last final or graduation.
Graduation ceremonies will continue as planned. Extra precautions are being taken during graduation, including the availability of hand hygiene stations. There will be no shaking of hands during the ceremony.
Students and staff with acute febrile respiratory illness (fever and sore throat and/or cough) should stay at home, or, if not able to return home, stay in their dorm rooms and not attend group activities. Students should follow standard procedures as outlined by their faculty if they are not able to take final exams.
Students who are ill with the symptoms described above should call Student Health at 277-3136 to inform them of their status.
More information is available at the hot line at 866-850-5893.
UNM Vice President for Research Julia Fulghum has appointed History Professor Jane Slaughter to work with faculty seeking interdisciplinary grants in arts and humanities research. Slaughter will work half-time for the OVPR beginning in the summer and continuing in the academic year.
Photo: Jane Slaughter
“I’m excited to have Jane join the office, and am looking forward to improving support and opportunities for faculty in the arts and humanities, said Fulghum. “This is a new initiative for my office, and it is well-timed given new funding opportunities at the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities.”
“Right now we are working on grants we will apply for in the fall. We are interested in one of the very large NEH challenge grants,” Slaughter says. “We want to encourage creating interdisciplinary studies in the humanities and we’re thinking about how to do that.”
Slaughter has worked at UNM since 1975 in a wide variety of positions. She says she would like to see a research network in the humanities developed at the university. Part of her job will be to connect faculty with similar interests working in different departments into a collaboration that would expand arts and humanities research.
In the past, UNM has been successful in getting summer grant programs with one or two faculty members working together, but Fulghum and Slaughter would like to expand that. Slaughter says she is excited by the new challenge and is already collaborating with faculty members on grant opportunities.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu
Virtual laboratories allow remote access to multiple single-user computer systems
A donation of nearly $185,000 in hardware, software and services has helped the University of New Mexico’s Anderson School of Management create a pilot for the next generation of virtual laboratory which enable students to complete course specific homework from anywhere, at anytime with a broadband connection.
Coined VLAB, virtual laboratories allow remote access to multiple single-user computer systems, remote access to one or more multi-user computer systems and remote access to multiple virtual machines hosted within one or more physical servers.
“A virtual lab lets you connect to a system anytime you want,” said Alex Seazzu, director, UNM Center for Information Assurance Research and Education (CIARE). “It allows students to connect to a remote system and complete their homework anytime. This is particularly useful when the software required for the assignments must be purchased and managed by the school.”
The existing Virtual Computing Lab (VLAB) is available to Anderson students 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and leverages Microsoft’s Remote Desktop technology to access services. It can support up to 42 students at any one time with sessions that last up to two hours.
Seazzu says the existing server infrastructure configuration was modified to implement two different workstation configurations, one for physical lab or PLAB workstations, and the other for VLAB workstations. To simplify access to the VLAB workstations, which involves clicking on an available PC icon, an in-house developer created a Web-based interface on a small-dedicated web server.
“A user physically interacts with their own laptop or desktop computer and accesses a website in order to connect to a VLAB system,” said Seazzu. “Users may be physically located in classrooms, libraries, common areas, home, and work—anywhere with sufficient network services and capacity.”
Interest in VLABs has grown for several reasons including general interest in supporting distance education, potential for resource sharing and cost savings, and potential for improved educational outcomes says Seazzu.
Another benefit is that less staff is needed to oversee a virtual lab compared to a physical lab reducing operational overhead.
The creation of the existing VLAB evolved from research Seazzu and his students had worked on. Dell has now partnered in the development of the next generation of VLABs by funding this pilot. There are several enhancements incorporated in how remote systems will be made available to students. While the project seeks to minimize the changes in the students’ experience accessing class applications, most of the improvements and innovations reside in the management of the backend services.
Media Contact: Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu
As financial difficulties dramatically impact institutions of higher education throughout the nation, it is inspiring to observe the commitment of faculty and staff to UNM’s core missions. It is through the collaborative effort of the UNM community that we have been able to endure economic hardship and mitigate the impact on our students, faculty and staff.
In February, as part of his personal commitment to the cost-saving initiative, President David Schmidly announced his intent to take a 15 day unpaid voluntary furlough from UNM, thus launching the Voluntary Furlough Program.
The program is one approach in the comprehensive effort at UNM to reduce costs while maintaining quality service to our students, health care to our patients, excellence in our research and assistance to our community.
The program allows faculty and staff to make a direct, personal contribution in the cost-saving efforts at UNM. At the individual’s discretion, and upon approval of the employee’s manager, the program offers the opportunity to take an unpaid leave of absence while retaining benefits as if in regular working status.
Additional options are being considered to suit different needs, including a voluntary annual leave contribution, monetary donations through UNM Foundation, and a temporary reduction in hours worked.
In the spirit of allowing employees to influence the direction of this initiative, a draft plan has been prepared to solicit input from campus. The draft plan, as well as an accumulation of frequently asked questions, can be accessed at unm.edu/budgetimpact.
Please take advantage of the opportunity to assist in the development of this important program. The plan will be finalized by May 29, and interested parties can start submitting requests to participate beginning June 1 for the July 1-June 30, 2010 fiscal year.
Story by Helen Gonzales, vice president, Human Resources
The UNM Jonson Gallery is now accepting nominations for the Paul Bartlett Ré Peace Prize. The prize will be awarded to a UNM student, faculty, staff person or retiree who has demonstrated notable achievements in promoting world peace and understanding.
Albuquerque artist and Da Vinci Laureate Paul Ré is recognized internationally for his peace promoting art. The prize is endowed as part of a bequest of Ré’s estate to the Jonson Gallery.
“When we thoroughly integrate peace into all of our thoughts and actions, our life becomes a work of art. This is a very practical, influential and equable art form that everyone can practice,” Ré said.
Stephen Littlejohn, communication and journalism faculty, won the last award in 2007. He teaches mediation during winter intersession. Arti Prasad, professor, internal medicine, was an alternate. Honorable mentions were given to William Gross, professor emeritus, engineering, and Hakim Bellamy, graduate student in communications and journalism. Ré said the diverse backgrounds of these awardees are significant and that the integration of many fields is a necessary part of peace work.
Anyone may nominate any eligible, UNM-affiliated person for the award. Self-nominations are also accepted.
Nominations should include a detailed description of the nominee’s work promoting peace and related future plans, such as conflict prevention or resolution, individual or social healing, integrative medicine, environmental concerns such as sustainable energy or green architectural design, or creation or preservation of peace-oriented works of art. Other nomination materials include the candidate’s résumé, letters of recommendation and other supporting material.
The award includes a stipend, an artwork certificate created by Ré and a signed, numbered and specially inscribed copy of Ré’s acclaimed monograph, “The Dance of the Pencil.”
Nominations are due Aug. 1. The awards will be presented in October. For information and the nomination form visit: Jonson Gallery or call 277-4967.
Taller Experimental, a printmaking studio and gallery in Havana, Cuba, was buzzing with activity when Tamarind Institute Director Marjorie Devon visited last month. The purpose of Devon’s trip was to arrange for a Cuban lithographer’s visit to Tamarind this summer.
“There is a vibrant community of visual and performing artists in Cuba and. many of them have established reputations abroad despite travel restrictions,” she said. The graphic arts have a strong tradition and continue to thrive with many contemporary artists working in print media at Taller Experimental as well as in smaller private studios around Havana.
Devon’s visit coincided with the Havana Biennale, an exhibition of work from around the world. The biennale spills from the main venue at El Morro, a Spanish fort built in 1589, into the streets and throughout Havana’s many galleries and museums.
On her third visit to Cuba, Devon was gratified to be able to hand-deliver a copy of Tamarind’s newly published authoritative resource on fine art lithography, “Tamarind Techniques for Fine Art Lithography.”
Tamarind hopes this will be the beginning of an ongoing exchange with Cuban artists, in cooperation with the Latin American and Iberian Institute.
Story by Shelly Smith
Antonio Flores, president and chief executive officer of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, will deliver the keynote address at the University of New Mexico spring commencement on Saturday, May 16, at 9 a.m. in Tingley Coliseum at Expo New Mexico (State Fairgrounds). Several precautions will be taken in response to the H1N1 flu, detailed below.
Construction industry leader, philanthropist and community volunteer Robert Stamm, geologist Tim McElvain, Jr., and poet, playwright and essayist Jay Wright will receive honorary degrees at the ceremony.
About 2,453 students are projected to receive degrees from UNM’s Albuquerque and Extended University campuses, as follows: 1,632 bachelor’s degrees, 477 master’s degrees, 75 doctorates, 95 juris doctorates, 75 medical doctorates, 85 pharmacy doctorates, five graduate certificates and nine education specialists. An official degree count is determined following commencement.
At UNM-Gallup, 56 associate degrees and 10 certificates are projected to be awarded; at Los Alamos, 17 associate degrees and two certificates; at Taos 27 associate degrees and nine certificates; and at Valencia, 44 associate degrees and five certificates are expected to be awarded.
UNM Regents’ President Raymond Sanchez will greet graduates on behalf of the UNM Board of Regents. Sanchez and fellow regents, UNM administrators, deans and faculty are among the platform group. President David Schmidly is master of ceremonies, and University Secretary Vivian Valencia is chief marshal. Schmidly will offer congratulatory remarks, confer degrees and recognize honors graduates.
Ashley Fate, president of the Associated Students of UNM, and Judith Zanotti, president of the Alumni Association, will greet students.
The University Band with Chad Simons, conductor, will play a selection of music for the ceremony’s prelude and processional. Graduate Tamra Salmón will sing “Dare to Dream.” Jessica Taylor, graduate student in music, will sing the national anthem and the alma mater.
Robert Abbott is the recipient of the Tom L. Popejoy Dissertation Prize for “Automated Tactics Modeling: Techniques and Application.”
Golden Graduates, the class of 1959, are honored at commencement for their lifelong connection to UNM. UNM Regent James Koch is among this year’s Golden Graduates.
Individual convocation ceremonies are scheduled at various departments and colleges May 13-16. For more information and the convocation schedule, visit UNM Commencement.
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Safety Precautions...
With lingering concerns over the spread of the H1N1 flu, UNM graduates and their families are being asked to take extra precautions so that commencement remains a joyful experience. Most importantly, if you are sick, please stay home for your own sake and the sake of everyone else. Medical professionals also advise people with chronic illness or who may have a heightened risk of infection to check with their physicians before joining in a large public gathering like commencement.
For the safety and convenience of our graduates, hand washing stations will be available in the Expo New Mexico Creative Arts Center where they will be lining up. Hand sanitizer will also be provided for graduates during the processional line-up. During the ceremony, graduates will be handed their diploma covers, but there will be no accompanying hand shake.
Commencement is the best time of the academic year and one of the most important events of graduates’ life. We want you to join us in insuring it is a happy and safe event.
Antonio R. Flores, Keynote
Antonio R. Flores is the third president and chief executive officer of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU). Established in 1986, HACU represents 450 colleges and universities that collectively serve two-thirds of the more than 2 million Hispanic students in U.S. higher education across 37 states and Puerto Rico, as well as more than 40 international member institutions.
During his tenure as president of HACU, the association has nearly tripled its membership, budget and programs, improved legislation for Hispanic Serving Institutions, increased annual federal funding for HSIs from $12 million in 1995 to more than $100 million for 2008, and secured millions of dollars in new private funding for HSIs and associate members.
Previously, Flores served as director of programs and services for the Michigan Higher Education Assistance Authority and the Michigan Higher Education Student Loan Authority. He has taught at private and public institutions, community colleges and comprehensive research universities.
Flores holds a Ph.D. in higher education administration from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, a Master of Arts degree in counseling and personnel from Western Michigan University and undergraduate degrees in business administration and elementary education from Universidad de Guadalajara and Centro Normal Regional, Mexico, respectively.
Robert J. Stamm, Honorary Doctor of Engineering
Robert J. Stamm, a lifelong resident of Albuquerque, received a bachelor’s degree from UNM’s School of Engineering in 1942.
After serving as an engineering officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he was hired by the construction contracting firm O.G. Bradbury. In 1958, the firm became the Bradbury Stamm Construction Company, with Stamm as vice president and later president. When he retired in 1999, he had worked his way from the most junior position to senior leadership. He combined his engineering and construction backgrounds with innovative business skills to transform an already successful company into a major regional leader in commercial building.
For more than six decades, Stamm has given his time and energy to improve the quality of life at UNM, in Albuquerque and New Mexico. He has received a Regents’ Medal and played an instrumental role in the success of Senate Bill 14, which netted several million dollars for UNM. He served on the UNM Foundation board and chaired UNM’s first capital campaign, and more recently was instrumental in raising funds for the new Centennial Engineering Center and George Pearl Hall. He served on the boards of numerous charitable organizations and chaired New Mexico’s Commission on Higher Education.
Tim McElvain, Jr., Honorary Doctor of Science
Tim McElvain Jr. received a bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of Arizona in 1961. From 1962-2003, he was the CEO and chairman of the board of the McElvain Oil and Gas Properties, recently recognized as one of the world’s 5,000 fastest growing companies.
McElvain is credited with discovering the Santa Fe impact structure in 2004 through his recognition of shatter cones – conical fractures in rock – in exposures of Precambrian rocks along N.M. 475, northeast of Santa Fe. He has contributed to the research effort on this impact crater through collaborations with the UNM Institute of Meteoritics and others.
His other contributions to New Mexico and the Southwest include serving on the board of the School of Advanced Research in Santa Fe and creating the Catherine McElvain Library. He has provided academic and financial support to undergraduate and graduate students at several Southwest universities, including UNM.
Jay Wright, Honorary Doctor of Letters
Poet, playwright and essayist Jay Wright studied comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley and Rutgers University after playing professional baseball and serving in the U.S. Army.
Wright is the author of 13 volumes of poetry and more than 30 plays. Much of his work addresses confluences and connections unique to the American Southwest. His literary work is enriched by his African American and Native American heritage, fluency in Spanish and love of Mexico and Central America. It insistently explores an interest in individuality which is at the same time an interest in common humanity.
Prominent literary critic Harold Bloom calls Wright “one of the five or six living American poets whose work will survive.” Among the many honors Wright has received is the MacArthur Genius Fellowship and the 2005 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry.
Robert Abbott, Tom L. Popejoy Dissertation Prize
Robert Abbott’s “Automated Tactics Modeling: Techniques and Application” is an ambitious effort to marry computational machine learning techniques with human expertise. Using the example of simulated soccer players, the dissertation develops a set of computer behavior models that allow real-world tactics – the human expertise – to be automatically transferred to software agents which use machine learning to improve their performance. The research is intended to make interactive computer simulation more efficient and effective for training students.
Media Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-1593; e-mail: michal@unm.edu
UNM School of Architecture and Planning Professors José Rivera and Bill Fleming are co-principal investigators in, “Climate Change Impacts on New Mexico’s Mountain Sources of Water.” Funding for the program came from the National Science Foundation and the New Mexico EPSCoR office.
The grant is for $144,825 over a five-year period.
The project documents ancient customs and traditions of acequia systems in the Río Hondo and Río Chama watersheds during times of climate variability and the effects on human adaptation. An additional focus is on characterizing acequia socio-cultural institutions and robustness of acequia systems in the face of climatic variation.
Photos: José Rivera (l.) and Bill Fleming (r.).
The project includes organizing acequia focus groups and facilitating discussion of possible climate change impacts on traditional irrigation practices, cropping patterns and land use, water sharing agreements, storage facilities and administration of priority dates. Monitoring riparian health and developing student and stakeholder-driven partnerships in a long-term environmental monitoring program is an additional concentration.
Fleming and Rivera are seeking the assistance of graduate students in the program’s master’s planning program and undergraduates in the Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Planning Design program. The first cohort of students is set to begin in fall 2009. Eight students will participate in the study, which is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2013, and will include project theses, journal articles, conference papers and other publications.
The Community and Regional Planning and Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Planning Design students will be supported as research and project assistantships along with some travel funds for field work in Taos and Rio Arriba Counties in the two watersheds selected for the study.
For more information contact Rivera jrivera@unm.edu or Fleming fleming@unm.edu.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
The Jonathan Abrams, MD Art Gallery at UNM Hospital will present an exhibition titled, 'El Paisaje de Nuevo Mexico.' The exhibition curated by Albuquerque artist Frank McCulloch, features landscape works by 19 New Mexico artists. The exhibit starts Friday, May 15, from 4-6 p.m. with an artist's reception. The exhibit will be on display through June 26, 2009.
El Paisaje de Nuevo Mexico or Landscapes of New Mexico have popularized New Mexico to the outside world—from William Henry Jackson’s photographs of El Morro between Acoma and Zuni, to Andrew Dasburg’s cubist painting New Mexico Village, to Georgia O’Keeffe’s oil painting, Grey Hills with Pedernal.
In the fall of 1941, Ansel Adams was driving his station wagon past Hernandez when he saw a full moon rising over the distant mountains. Slamming on the brakes, Adams only had time to jump out of the car, set up his view camera, guess at the exposure, and capture the essence of the Southwest. The resulting image, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, is certainly the most famous landscape of New Mexico. The works in this exhibition follow in the tradition of Ansel Adams, Georgia O’Keeffe, Wilson Hurley, and their many followers.
The Jonathan Abrams MD Art Gallery is located on the Fifth Floor, UNM Hospital Ambulatory Care Center. It is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information on the artists and prices for the works contact Chris Fenton, 272-9700.
The UNM Department of Dermatology and the Art Program at the Health Sciences Center along with the education staff of the Georgia O'Keefe Museum present a Brown Bag Seminar on 'Using Observation Skills to Enhance Diagnosis.' The seminar will be held Tuesday, May 19, from 12 to 1 p.m. in the first floor conference room at the Bill and Barbara Richardson Pavilion at UNM Hospital.
For house staff, medical students, and any physician interested in exploring methodologies to enhance diagnostic skills, this seminar introduces Visual Thinking Strategies, a technique used by museums to analyze artworks.
Part 1 - INTRODUCTION TO VISUAL THINKING METHODS: The system involves observation, followed by open-ended, simple and probing questions, listening and paraphrasing comments, analysis to construct meaning and the formulation of a mutually shared understanding.
Part 2 - PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS FOR DIAGNOSIS: When the methodology is learned and applied as a diagnostic tool, it has the potential of aiding the medical practitioner in their assessment of patient’s symptoms, status of conditions, and emotional responses to their disease. Practical applications will be presented by Dr. Steven Padilla, chairman, Department of Dermatology.
VTS training is easily learned as it is based on practice and reflection.
Partial funding for this program provided by the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.
For more information contact Christina Fenton, director, UNM Health Sciences Center Art Program (505) 272-9700 or cell (505) 239-0003.
Indigenous Oaxacans focus of talk
Lois Meyer, associate professor, Language, Literacy and Sociocultural Studies in the UNM College of Education, presents, "Teaching for Resistance and Hope: Communal struggles to defend indigenous languages and cultures in Oaxaca, Mexico," Friday, May 15, at 6 p.m. at the ABQ Peace Center, 202 Harvard Dr. SE.
“I appreciate that the Peace Center has invited me to share the important efforts of my Oaxacan colleagues to resist linguistic and cultural repression in order to build a future on their own terms for their children and communities,” Meyer said.
The presentation includes visual images of her work. A time for questions,
comments and reflections is included.
The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Meyer at lsmeyer@unm.edu, or the ABQ Peace Center at 268-9557.
KUNM’s Youth Radio broadcasts live every Sunday from 7 – 8 p.m. at 89.9 FM. Earlier broadcasts are available in the KUNM audio archive – KUNM.ORG. KUNM’s Youth Radio podcasts are free at iTunes by searching for “KUNM.” Participants of KUNM’s Youth Radio Project were on hand to be recognized by leaders and community volunteers from across the state at the annual New Mexico Commission on Community Volunteerism.
The current and former members of the Youth Radio program work hard to bring a diverse spectrum of young voices to the airwaves every Sunday night at 7 p.m. They explore themes important to youth, build a broadcast voice for young poets, tackle hard topics and celebrate community engagement. They also spin some great music and describe youthful events from across the state.
KUNM’s Youth Radio team members are Miles Anderson, Jonathan Guzman, Jonquilyn Hill, Joshua Horton, Maya Key-Towne, Carson Lafferty, Lucia Martinez, Macie Joy Soria, Omar Torres, Carmen Gallegos, Nicole Batey and Phil Riley.
KUNM’s Youth Radio Project Director is Roberta Rael. She mentors the project with help from two KUNM staff members – Kamaria Umi and Ivan Syed, both of whom are UNM students bringing a student perspective on community radio to help the many high school and middle schools students who have worked on the Youth Radio project. The young radio personalities refer to Rael, Umi and Syed as their “adult co-conspirators”. Many KUNM staff help with the project regularly. Rob Raucci, KUNM community relations coordinator, has been a consistent volunteer on the team over the past half-year or so
After receiving the award, Rael wrote to the KUNM staff, “We have such a jewel in Youth Radio at KUNM. Beyond the community recognition is the value that we have offered to so many young people. We may never be able to measure the depth and extent of how their lives have been changed by being a part of this project.”
The current team at Youth Radio continues to build on the work provided by earlier participants in the project.
“The many, young people who have been on the air with us over the years have built the foundation to help earn this award. Same thing for the great young people from all over the state who have stood up to be guests on our shows and let their voices be heard on community radio,” said Richard Towne, KUNM general manager.
KUNM’s Youth Radio Project is made possible with funding from the Surdna Foundation, and the New Mexico Community Foundation. UNM students and the Student Fee Review Board at UNM provide an annual grant to support student employment and engagement at KUNM. Additional funding comes from KUNM’s contributing listeners.
“I want to also thank and sincerely recognize the family members of our Youth Radio participants who go out of their way to make space in their lives for Youth Radio. Youth Radio won’t work without the dedication and commitment of the participants’ families,” Towne said.
New Mexico’s Commission on Community Volunteerism, a statewide organization headed up by Executive Director Gregory A. Webb, who said, “The mission of the Commission is to engage citizens of New Mexico of all ages and backgrounds in community based service to address the state's human, educational, environmental, public safety, health, housing and other needs.”
KUNM is proud to share the ideals of that mission. If interested about getting engaged as a service-oriented volunteer, call or click to Webb and the Commission’s staff at www.newmexserve.org and 1 (888) 549-6913 (toll free).
KUNM Radio can be heard throughout central and northern New Mexico:
Albuquerque/ Santa Fe 89.9 FM
Espanola, Las Vegas, Angel Fire, and Nageezi at 91.9 FM
Socorro at 88.7 FM
Cuba at 91.1 FM
Taos at 90.9 FM
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
Chief of Police Kathy Guimond has served as a marshal at commencement for more than 13 years, almost as long as she’s been with the UNM Police Department. The 15 marshals work with University Secretary and Chief Marshal Vivian Valencia to organize university-wide formal ceremonies, including coordinating the student processional at commencement. Guimond is responsible for the largest undergraduate college – Arts and Sciences.
Photo: Chief of Police Kathy Guimond
It can be difficult to get graduates properly lined up in a short time. Guimond has a few tricks to get things moving. She’ll say, “About those parking tickets you owe…” or “You know that final you were worried about?” and that always gets their attention, she said. “Having a sense of humor, especially in my line of work, is a good thing.”
Guimond said commencement celebrates not only students’ achievements, but the faculty, staff, families and others who helped them get there.
“When you’re a police officer, a lot of the time you see people at their worst,” she said. “The nice thing about being a marshal is it’s a chance to celebrate the university at its absolute best.”
If every silver lining has its cloud, as far as commencement is concerned, Guimond’s isn’t too stormy. “There’s one thing I don’t like,” she said. “I don’t like having to wear a hat and gloves to the ceremony, but it comes with the territory.”
The readers have spoken, and change is coming. University Communication and Marketing staff are reviewing responses to a recent survey of UNM Today readers and planning ways to better serve their needs.
“UNM Today is a national and regional award-winning newsletter, but the opinions that really count are our constituents’ – the members of the UNM community,” said Sari Krosinsky, UNM Today editor.
The survey brought in 299 responses, about 76 percent from staff and 17 percent from faculty.
Overall, respondents rated UNM Today above average in choice of subjects, writing, photography and design. Several asked for greater variety of coverage, featuring more departments and programs as well as faculty and staff from a wider range of positions.
“It’s a challenge to serve an audience with such diverse interests, but that’s one of the things that makes the university such a great place to write about,” Krosinsky said. “Readers can help by sending story ideas. If you know a person or program that’s doing great work, tell us.”
Distribution – paper versus electronic – proved to be one of the most contentious issues. Approximately one third of respondents expressed a preference for the print edition. “Clearly, most people on campus prefer to get news online or through email, and many are concerned about reducing the university’s carbon footprint,” Krosinsky said. “On the other hand, there is still a large minority attached to news in print, and we want to serve their needs as well.”
UNM Today’s print run has been reduced from 9,500 to 7,000 copies. The campus mailing portion was reduced from about 7,700 to 4,500 – a 40 percent cut.
“We found that reducing the print run further would require switching to a more expensive printing process, so it is actually more cost-effective to reach out to new audiences to prevent waste,” Krosinsky said.
Two respondents suggested another way to reduce waste – stacking copies of UNM Today in department common areas or mailrooms rather than distributing them to individual mailboxes. “That way, they’re readily available to those who want print copies, and those who don’t want them don’t have to throw them away,” Krosinsky said.
Additional changes may be implemented in the fall. Contact Krosinsky at (505) 277-1593 or michal@unm.edu.
The University of New Mexico's new Student Support and Services Center, located on south campus on the northwest corner of University Boulevard and Avenida Cesar Chavez, will have an open house on Thursday, May 14, 11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. The program begins at noon. Free parking is available.
This is one of two full-service One-Stop centers UNM opened recently to make student support services faster and more convenient. The new centers allow students to go through admissions, financial aid and registration in one place, in a new format to keep lines to a minimum.
The first One-Stop opened recently in Mesa Vista Hall and has received glowing reviews from students.
The UNM School of Engineering announced that the owners of BRYCON Construction have created an endowed fund to the school in honor of company founder Bryant W. Lemon Senior. The purpose of this fund is to permanently support the Bryant W. Lemon Senior Distinguished Lecture in Construction Engineering and Management within the Civil Engineering Department. The lecture brings speakers who have made outstanding contributions in construction engineering to UNM.
The endowed fund and lecture was a surprise for Bryant W. Lemon Senior from BRYCON Construction owners Peggy Lemon, Bryant W. Lemon, Jr. (Bill), Christine Lemon Schmidt, Catherine Lemon and Karen Lemon Gebhardt. The Lemon family created the fund to foster Bryant’s core belief that higher education is the key to individual personal growth and to the long-term betterment of the construction industry. It was designed to encourage bright young minds to explore the exciting world of construction. It is also a way to give back to the community that has supported the success and growth of the company that Bryant founded.
According to Bryant's son Bill Lemon, "It is a fitting tribute to a man who has steadfastly stood by his principles and in doing so has built a company from the ground up that few can rival."
The endowment announcement was made at the conclusion of a presentation given by Professor Charles Eastman on the Impacts of Building Information Modeling on Design and Construction. Eastman is a professor in the Colleges of Architecture and Computer Science at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, and one of the pioneers of BIM. He is co-author of the book, "BIM Handbook: A Guide to Building Information Modeling for Owners, Managers, Designers, Engineers and Contractors." Professor Eastman was the first lecturer supported by the endowment.
The gift was made to UNM through the United Way of Central New Mexico fund designation program, a major collaborative funding process made available throughout the greater Albuquerque community.
For additional information about establishing endowed funds to support scholarships or programs at the UNM School of Engineering, please contact: Pam Hurd-Knief, frognm@unm.edu or (502) 277-0230 or Sharen Hart, sharhart@unm.edu or (505) 277-5541.
Iowa native Aaron Coffeen has a thing for the mountains. As a landscape architecture graduate student, he gets to pursue his Rocky Mountain high thanks to the Allen Stamm Travel Fellowship.
Photo: Aaron Coffeen
Coffeen earned his undergraduate degree in management and economics at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, before heading to Colorado to ponder future plans. He worked in project management for a construction company, got familiar with reading blueprints, specs and understanding technical aspects. He also saw the artistic side of project design and thought landscape architecture provided a balance of art, inspiration and outdoors.
He applied to several graduate programs and was accepted into UNM’s. “I’m glad I got in here. It’s the best of the three that I applied,” he said.
UNM’s landscape architecture graduate program offers a three-year degree for those who don’t have architecture or design experience. “It lends itself to people from different backgrounds,” Coffeen said.
The $2,000 Coffeen receives from the Allen Stamm Travel Fellowship will allow him to study mountain landscapes on grand and site specific scales. This summer he will travel through southwestern Colorado visiting 10-15 sites such as Telluride, Ouray, Silverton, Crested Butte, Gunnison, Vail and Winter Park to see how landscape lends to design in mountain communities.
Coffeen said that historically mining influenced the mountain environment and during that era much was built with old brick, stone and timber. “Now the new resort style of design is prevalent and it tries to replicate the old ‘stick and timber’ designs of the past,” he said. He wants to assess the juxtaposition of these old and new elements on design. “It’s a recent change in mountain-style architecture and I want to assess how these new and old sites compare and fit into the larger context of the mountains,” he said.
The mountains are Coffeen’s inspiration. “I want to understand the mountains’ grandeur, pull it out, feel the energy,” he said.
He said his professional pursuit deals with mountain design and the unique challenges it creates, such as the altitude and weather. His study is an independent project which he thinks will help him when he graduates next year. “I would like to work for the National Parks or for a Colorado design firm, like Design Workshop in Aspen that specializes in mountain-style design,” he said.
He is also always looking for individual projects so if you or someone you know wants a mountain-style design you can contact him at arcoffeen@gmail.com or 319-610-6034.
Coffeen said he has received a solid foundation in fundamentals in the UNM landscape architecture graduate program. “Although we are more aware of regional design, the education we receive is applicable to the west or east coasts, just as well,” he said.
Roger Schluntz, dean, School of Architecture and Planning, said, “The faculty selection of the proposal submitted by Aaron directly represents the interests that Allen Stamm expressed to me some years ago for creating this important travel prize and endowment. Aaron's accomplishments as a result of this award are probably transformational in his future studies and research, and we are most grateful to Mr. Stamm's generosity."
“I couldn’t do it without Mr. Stamm and the fellowship,” Coffeen said.
He will make a presentation of his project in the fall.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
UNM’s LTER to share in grant
A digital data repository that researchers agree has the potential to transform how scientific research is pursued will be expanded with a $2.18 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
The repository, called Dryad, is designed to archive data that underlie published findings in evolutionary biology, ecology and related fields and allow scientists to access and build on each other’s findings. It is online at Dryad.
The grant recipients are:
· University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Metadata Research Center in the School of Information and Library Science;
· North Carolina State University’s Digital Library Program;
· Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network Office at the University of New Mexico;
· Yale University’s TreeBASE database; and
· National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, a collaborative effort involving UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke and North Carolina State universities.
The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center and the Metadata Research Center have been developing Dryad in coordination with a large group of Journals and Societies in evolutionary biology and ecology. With the new grant, the additional team members are contributing to the development of the repository.
The work on the repository also coincides with naturalist Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday this year and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his “The Origin of Species.” Some of the data on Darwin’s finches are included in Dryad. For example, a scientist working on characteristics of American goldfinch populations can search the repository to find the raw data on the beak measurements of Galapagos finches.
Currently, a tremendous amount of information underlying published research findings is lost, researchers say. The lack of data sharing and preservation makes it impossible for the data to be examined or re-used by future investigators.
Dryad addresses these shortcomings and allows scientists to validate published findings, explore new analysis methodologies, repurpose data for research questions unanticipated by the original authors, integrate data across studies and look for trends through statistical meta-analysis.
“The Dryad project seeks to enable scientists to generate new knowledge using existing data,” said Kathleen Smith, principal investigator for the grant, a biology professor at Duke and director of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center. “The key to Dryad in our view is making data deposition a routine and easy part of the publication process.”
Dryad is being designed with a consortium of stakeholders who include representatives of more than a dozen journals in evolutionary biology and ecology. The consortium sets policy and is responsible for long-term financial sustainability. Dryad is intended to serve as a model for the many other scientific disciplines facing similar challenges in data preservation and sharing.
“The technical goals of Dryad include automatically generating metadata representing data sets, and the exchange of metadata with specialized archives such as GenBank and TreeBASE, and with metadata registries such as MetaCat,” said Jane Greenberg, co-principal investigator, director of the Metadata Research Center at UNC and a professor in the School of Information and Library Science. “We are also researching how to use information from the scientific papers to enhance retrieval of the associated datasets.”
Metadata, as defined by Tech Terms "describes other data." It provides information about a certain item’s content. For example, an image may include metadata that describes how large the picture is, the color depth, the image resolution, when the image was created and other data.
A text document’s metadata may contain information about how long the document is, who the author is, when the document was written and a short summary of the document. Metadata is frequently used on Web pages to help describe the content, allowing search engines to locate information when requested.
Besides Smith and Greenberg, collaborators on the grant include co-principal investigator Todd Vision of UNC; Kristin Antelman of NCSU; William Piel of Yale University; and William Michener of the University of New Mexico.
For more information visit: Dryad Digital Data Repository. For more information on UNM's LTER visit: Long-Term Ecological Research Network.
Chris Wilson, professor, University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning, was among those honored recently by the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division. Wilson received a Heritage Preservation Award for his role in developing the “Santa Fe Plaza Cultural Landscape Report,” which was adopted by the Santa Fe City Council in 2006.
Photo: Chris Wilson
Wilson, the JB Jackson Chair of Cultural Landscape Studies and director of the school’s Historic Preservation and Regionalism graduate certificate program, worked with the City of Santa Fe, the National Park Service, Kurt Anschuetz, and landscape architect Judy Kowalski of Morrow Reardon Wilkinson Miller Ltd. Landscape Architects.
The report provides a thorough history of the plaza from Pre-Columbian times through the arrival of the Spanish, the Territorial Period, early statehood and the present. An essential preservation planning document by the City of Santa Fe, the report was recently used to negotiate solutions to recent changes on the plaza, including finding alternatives to the 7’x7’ electrical box and concerns over its visual impact to the National Landmark’s landscape.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
The University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning hosts an Open House Saturday, May 16, from noon to 3 p.m. The event, which is free and open to the public, is an opportunity for people to see student design work.
“Each student has been invited to turn his or her work space into a personal gallery,” said Geraldine Forbes-Isais, director, architecture program.
Visitors will also see a showcase of work by recent graduates in the gallery space on the main floor of George Pearl Hall.
“The students have been encouraged to bring their friends and family to come in and see what they’ve been doing in studio. It’s amazing to see the growth and evolution of the students and the work they produce,” Forbes-Isais said.
The Faculty Senate Teaching Enhancement Committee and the Office of Support for Effective Teaching annually honor faculty with campus-wide teaching awards. This year's recipients have been announced.
The 2009 recipients are:
2009-11 Presidential Teaching Fellow
Associate Professor Ursula Shepherd joined the University Honors Program 10 years ago as its first tenure-track faculty member in the sciences. She has designed 11 honors courses including “Biodiversity of Australia,” an international educational experience that Shepherd describes as “a research boot camp.” She has been a research mentor to many undergraduate students, including eight Goldwater Fellowship recipients.
As presidential teaching fellow, Shepherd plans to lead workshops for teachers on “What Students Need for the 21st Century,” with a focus on enabling students to put their knowledge to effective use.
Outstanding Teachers of the Year
Professor Sudhakar Prasad chose early a path that combined scientific research with teaching students to think deeply, ask probing questions and develop the discipline to follow their own calling in science. In the Department of Physics and Astronomy, he took the lead on creating a new Master of Science degree and new specialization in the Bachelor of Science degree.
Christine Sauer, professor of economics and director of the International Studies Institute, has mentored many graduate and undergraduate students, including guiding minority students in the Research Opportunity Program. As ISI director, she is involved in several projects to internationalize the UNM campus, including a new major in international studies and new UNM study abroad summer program in Germany.
Assistant Professor Elizabeth Yeater trains clinical psychology graduate and undergraduate students through her research on sexual victimization of women, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. This research takes them into challenging environments, including community homeless shelters. Former students have found the experience invaluable in their pursuit of higher degrees.
Outstanding Adjunct Teacher or Lecturer of the Year
Instructor Janet Gaines has taught in the UNM English Department since 1982. A student wrote: “Teaching is a challenging profession, and the University of New Mexico employs many excellent instructors. However, as an educator who breeds academic enthusiasm, keeps students engaged and demonstrates genuine regard for students, Dr. Gaines has surpassed mere excellence.”
After advocating for the establishment of the Outstanding Adjunct Teacher and Lecturer of the Year Award in 2001, Cinematic Arts Lecturer Bryan Konefsky is now a recipient. Nurturing students’ “creative cinematic voice” is central to his teaching. He served on the advisory boards for the new Interdisciplinary Film and Digital Media degree and ARTS Lab.
Chemistry Lecturer Lisa Whalen gains praise from students not only for her effective classroom style but also her availability outside of class. She keeps frequent office hours and conducts a two-hour review session every week. Many students point to her mentorship as essential for their decisions to move on to graduate and professional programs.
Susan Deese-Roberts Outstanding Teaching Assistants
Flor Espinoza Hidalgo came to UNM from Peru with limited English skills and quickly adapted to teaching mathematics in her second language. One of her strengths is getting to know her students and using examples to illustrate mathematical approaches to problems based on their interests.
Glenn Hushman teaches in the Department of Health, Exercise and Sports Sciences. He said the reward of teaching is seeing future teachers come to understand and practice “accessible physical education for all” in K-12 classrooms. Hushman begins as an assistant professor at UNM in the fall.
Michelle Jewett teaches in the Department of Language, Literacy and Sociocultural Studies. She began the doctoral program with teaching experience in middle school and high school. She is co-founder of the High Desert Writing Project at UNM.
Daniel Sanford taught English for five semesters and linguistics for four years. He designed courses on the “Linguistic History of New Mexico” and “Formulaic Linguistics.” He serves as assistant coordinator of the Writing & Languages Center, Center for Academic Program Support.
Kelley Sawyer is a doctoral student in anthropology with a scholarly focus on queer and feminist theories, particularly their intersections with critical race theory and political economy. She developed a “Lesbian Culture and Politics” course in the Women Studies Program.
The University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning hosts the Beaux-Arts Ball, co-sponsored by the American Institute of Architecture Students, on Friday, May 8 from 6-10 p.m. at George Pearl Hall. The event features an exhibition, music and refreshments and is free and open to the public.
Emerging Mutations Studio | em2 + Beaux Arts is the final installation and celebration of work in the undergraduate program of the School of Architecture and Planning. Themed in the Beaux-Arts* tradition, the installation presents what the students learned in digital fabrication processes. Their designs were first created virtually, then in small models and finally in full scale design, exhibited in the courtyard of George Pearl Hall. The students used recycled materials to create poetic spatial environments.
Emerging new technologies in architecture changes how designers develop space. New systems and digital computation fabrication technologies redefine the way architects practice and develop the built environment.
“The challenge of this studio is to embrace innovation and redefine spatial inhabitation as expressed through material research. This studio utilizes dynamic software, through a series of investigations that challenge traditional architectural processes and search for a more fluid process in constructing space,” said Tim Castillo, associate professor and studio instructor.
*Beaux Arts refers to the academic neoclassical architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
This week, “New Mexico in Focus” and the panel on “The Line” take a look at the recent furor over the H1N1 virus, also known as the “Swine Flu” and the role the media has taken in adding to the potential overreaction. “New Mexico in Focus,” New Mexico’s weekly one-hour public affair show, will air on Friday, May 8 at 7 p.m. on KNME-TV Channel 5/5.1 and repeat on Sunday, May 10 at 6:30 a.m.
Co-host David Alire Garcia talks with New Mexico Secretary of Health Alfredo Vigil, for the real facts behind the H1N1 virus fears, while Gene Grant and the panelists on “The Line” debate the role the media has played in stoking fears about the “Swine Flu” epidemic.
Also on this week’s episode – speculation on President Barack Obama’s potential selection to replace David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court, a New Mexico owned and trained horse that won at the recent Kentucky Derby, and President Obama’s upcoming visit to Albuquerque.
Joining Grant on “The Line” this week are regular panelists Whitney Waite Cheshire and Jim Scarantino and guest panelists Teresa Cordova, professor with the University of New Mexico School of Architecture and former Bernalillo County Commissioner, and Laura Sanchez, former executive director for the N.M. Democratic Party.
The field video guest on this week’s episode is Virgil Ortiz, a Cochiti Pueblo potter, artist and fashion designer.
Producers of ‘New Mexico In Focus’ are Kevin McDonald and Kathy Wimmer. Closed captioning has been made possible by a gift from Mrs. Elspeth G. Bobbs.
University a best place to work for ‘alternative commuters’
In a recent announcement, the University of New Mexico has been identified by ABQRide -- the City of Albuquerque’s Transit Department – as one of the best places to work for “alternative commuters,” or those who travel to work using alternative means of transportation.
UNM will headline during Albuquerque’s upcoming “Strive Not to Drive” campaign, set for the week of May 11-15, during which people are encouraged to use and recommend alternative transportation to get around Albuquerque. A pledge card drive is a feature of “Strive Not To Drive” week, held concurrently with National Bike To Work Day on Friday, May 15.
“Mayor Martin Chavez and the City of Albuquerque are excited to work with UNM Parking and Transportation to get the word out about ‘Strive Not to Drive’ and the importance of students, faculty, and staff using alternative modes of transportation,” said Del Chavez, ABQRide marketing specialist.
UNM staff and faculty can pledge online at “Strive Not to Drive”. When filling out the form, individuals should list UNM as their employer as well as designating their specific department.
UNM Parking and Transportation Services (PATS) and ABQRide will track the number of pledges for each department and PATS will award a department level Zipcar membership to the department with the most pledges. UNM departments can have memberships and specify authorized users for their account. The service can be paid for using a University purchasing card. There are currently four vehicles placed around main campus. Hourly rates start at $8 an hour and include gas, insurance and mileage.
“Strive Not to Drive week is a great campaign because it encourages individuals to try taking the bus, the RailRunner, biking to work or carpooling," said Cynthia Martin, program planning manager for PATS. "For some, it may be the first time they have tried one of these modes of transportation - and that is an important experience. It is what the campaign is all about. For others, it might be a week to get out and show continued support for alternative transportation. The Zipcar drawing integrates very well with this campaign because the service provides an affordable, flexible option for alternative commuters."
For more information about Zipcar or the Strive Not to Drive campaign, contact
Danielle Gilliam, Parking and Transportation Services, 277-0461 or dgilliam@parking.unm.edu.
Media Contact: Benson Hendrix (505) 277-1816. E-Mail: bhendrix@unm.edu
The University of New Mexico Parking and Transportation Services department breaks ground on two new parking structures on Wednesday, May 20. The structures will increase parking on UNM’s core campus by 1,000 spaces and are expected to open in August 2010.
Clovis Acosta, PATS director, said, “There is high demand for proximity parking at UNM.”
The two new structures are planned for “C” and “J” lots. As a result, “C” and “J” permit holders need to relocate to the “T” lot, located at the corner of University and Lomas Boulevard during the construction – which is expected to be completed in August 2010. Permit holders will also have the option of exchanging their permits for “G” or “Q” lot permits. Also starting May 20, a new lot will be designated for holders of “O” lot permits. It will be located on the north side of Las Lomas across from the visitor center.
“We know this is an inconvenience for these permit holders, but we are committed to providing the best service we can in the interim,” Acosta said, adding that he looks for patience on the part of the UNM community during the construction.
Currently more than 900 staff and faculty are waiting to purchase proximity parking permits for spaces on UNM’s core campus. Since UNM is also a popular destination for visitors taking in the many cultural and entertainment events on campus, demand for on-campus visitor parking also highlights the need for additional parking.
“UNM is the single largest destination in New Mexico – serving over 30,000 students, staff, faculty and visitors daily. Proximity parking provides quick, convenient, and flexible parking to match the pace of busy schedules,” Acosta said. “PATS mission is to provide access to the University. Our customers demonstrated a need for more core campus parking and we are responding.”
The two new parking structures will be mixed-use, featuring permitted and hourly parking spaces, while also accommodating bicycle and motorcycle parking. Additionally the structures will feature a Lobo Care Clinic for UNM employees and the ability to harness solar energy to power the structure’s lighting.
“While there is still demand for more parking spaces on campus, we want to continue to promote and support alternative transportation,” Acosta said.
For more information contact: Brian Kilburn, PATS Public Information Representative, 277-5692; bkilburn@parking.unm.edu
Media Contact: Benson Hendrix (505) 277-1816. E-Mail: bhendrix@unm.edu
Judith Hendry, lecturer, Communication & Journalism, announced the winners of the 2009 Joe and Steve Mercer Memorial Tournament, held recently. The tournament, began in 2005 from an endowment established by JoAnn Mercer in 2003, was established to provide support for students interested and excelling in public speaking and debate. The top six speakers receive scholarships.
This year’s winners, department, prize money and topic are:
1st Place: Alyssa Rivera, Economics, $1,000, Domestic Abuse
2nd Place: Bryan Wilcox, Communication/Political Science, $750, Smaller Class Size is Better Schools
3rd Place: Andrew Melodia, Chemical Engineering, $500, Wal-Mart – environmental and social issues with this giant retailer
Finalists...
* Hannah Covert, Psychology, Problems with “No Child Left Behind”
* Suzanne Fortner, Broadcast Journalism/Pre-Law, Eat Right and Exercise – Stay Healthy
* Sapphira Vidaurri, Spanish, Pedestrian Safety
Each finalist received $100.
Speakers prepare and present an 8 to 10 minute persuasive speech on any topic of current relevance to local or New Mexico audiences. The speech should be an original work of the student designed to shape, reinforce, or change attitudes, beliefs, values, and/or behavior on the part of the audience. The speech should present a significant problem with a realistic solution. Multiple sources should be used.
The UNM Anderson School of Management has received national recognition for student diversity in its MBA program. U.S. News and World Report named the Anderson School as one of the top 25 MBA graduate programs for percentage of full-time minority students and full-time female students.
With 36.6 percent of its students from under-represented groups, Anderson is the 19th most diverse full-time MBA program in the nation. The number one ranked school was Clark Atlanta University, where 85.5 percent of the MBA students are from under-represented ethnic minority groups.
Female students represent 50.7 percent of all full-time Anderson MBA students, leading to a ranking of 25th in the nation for the percentage of female students. Monmouth University in New Jersey ranked first in the nation with 62.5 percent.
Doug Thomas, Anderson associate dean for Accreditation, says the findings give national recognition to the fact that Anderson is a welcoming MBA destination for everyone.
"The U.S. News' ranking of our MBA program reflects Anderson's continued commitment to a diverse student body and classroom experience," says Thomas.
Interim Dean Amy Wohlert notes that, "Our diverse student body means that Anderson students are challenged by a wide variety of viewpoints and are well-prepared to deal with the realities of today's business environments. It's a fundamental component of Anderson's excellence."
The rankings are part of U.S. News and World Report's annual survey of the Best U.S. Business Schools. The magazine analyzed 1,200 schools before releasing its current rankings.
The complete list can be found at:
Best Grad Schools
The Anderson rankings can be found at:
US News Rankings and Reviews - Minority Students
US News Rankings and Reviews - Female Students
The Anderson School of Management is offering UNM employees the opportunity to turn their tuition remission into a personal investment. This summer the Anderson Management Development Center is offering two courses aimed at making current managers more successful and giving aspiring managers information they need to succeed.
Essentials for Managers will give employees the expertise needed to cultivate their growth as a manager, as well as the ability to recognize the opportunities for improvement in their organization. Participants will learn from experts and be a part of a group that understands workplace frustrations and challenges as well as shares a determination for success. This class will take place on Tuesdays, May 26 – July 28, 6 – 9 p.m., at the State Bar of New Mexico.
Building Managerial Excellence will give employees the self-assurance and skills needed to ethically face and overcome difficult obstacles. Those who sign-up for this course will learn how to create structure and while others are struggling, will realize the importance of self-awareness and enhanced communication to deliver the right message and inspire action. This class meets on Thursdays, May 28 – July 30, 6 – 9 p.m., also at the State Bar of New Mexico.
The cost of each course is $795 and UNM employees can apply tuition remission benefits. For more information visit: Management Development Center or call 277-2525. The deadline to register is May 19.
Top 10 new species to be announced May 23
“What has six legs and is way cooler than a spider?” asks a riddle on the cover of a birthday card sent to Stephen Colbert by entomologists Quentin Wheeler at Arizona State University and Kelly Miller at the University of New Mexico. The answer – Agaporomorphus colberti – is a diving beetle from Venezuela named by Wheeler and Miller to honor Colbert, the satirical host and executive producer of Comedy Central’s "The Colbert Report."
Knowing Colbert’s fondness for recognition (there’s his popular segment on the show: “Who’s Not Honoring Me Now”) and for presents, the scientists sent the political satirist a framed print of the beetle as a birthday gift to mark his 45th birthday on May 13.
“Last year, Stephen shamelessly asked the science community to name something cooler than a spider to honor him. His top choices were a giant ant or a laser lion. While those would be cool species to discover, our research involves beetles, and they are ‘way cooler’ than a spider any day,” Wheeler says.
Wheeler and Miller are no strangers to shameless promotion, especially when it comes to shining attention on biodiversity and the field of taxonomy. The pair have named beetles to honor the late rock ‘n’ roll legend Roy Orbison and his widow Barbara (Orectochilus orbisonorum); for fictional “Star Wars” character Darth Vader (Agathidium vaderi); and for former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (Agathidium bushi, A. cheneyi and A. rumsfeldi).
Wheeler is director of the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University, in addition to being a university vice president, dean of ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and a professor in the School of Life Sciences.
Miller, a former student of Wheeler, is an assistant professor of biology at the University of New Mexico and curator of arthropods at UNM’s Museum of Southwestern Biology.
What makes beetles cooler than spiders? Their strength in numbers – they dominate other groups of species. Taxonomists believe there are roughly 500,000 named species in the scientific order Coleoptera (beetles) and probably three times that many waiting to be discovered – an amount that far exceeds the number of species in any other group of plant or animal.
The beetle named for Colbert – Agaporomorphus colberti – belongs to a species group (A. knischi Zimmerman) based on the common presence of a pair of rows of fine setae on the dorsal surface of the male’s reproductive organs.
There are about 1.8 million species that have been described since Carolus Linnaeus initiated the modern systems for naming plants and animals in the 18th century. Scientists estimate there are between 2 million and 100 million species on Earth, though most put that number closer to 10 million. Even with some 20,000 new species discovered each year, there are many that will go out of existence before being studied.
“Charting the species of the world and their unique attributes are essential parts of understanding the history of life,” Wheeler says. “It is our own self-interest as we face the challenges of living on a rapidly changing planet.”
That urgency is shared by Miller and others, including Harvard biologist and conservationist E.O. Wilson, in their quest to draw attention to biodiversity.
“In a time when new planets are being found around other stars and people are wondering whether life exists elsewhere in the universe, many people aren’t aware of how much is not known about life on our own planet,” says Miller. “Opportunities like this help boost awareness of the vast diversity that remains undiscovered on Earth, and of taxonomy, the science that seeks to discover it.”
Wheeler adds: “Naming a beetle for Stephen Colbert is in sync with the institute’s goal to popularize science.”
As another part of its public awareness campaign, the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University annually unveils the top 10 new species described in the previous year. The list of top 10 new species from 2008 will be announced May 23, a date that coincides with the birth of Linnaeus.
The top 10 new species are selected by an international committee of taxonomists – scientists responsible for species exploration and classification. Last year’s list is at: http://species.asu.edu.
On May 23, the institute also will release the State of Observed Species (SOS) Report on human knowledge of Earth’s species, summarizing the number of species newly described in the most recent year for which complete data are available.
For more information visit: Agaporomorphus colberti.
Media Contacts: ASU, Carol Hughes (480) 965-6375; e-mail: carol.hughes@asu.edu or UNM, Steve Carr (505) 277-1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu
Simon J. Ortiz, a literary giant of the 20th and 21st centuries; Evelina Lucero and others, will take part in a discussion of native writing and Ortiz’s role in the development of cultural studies and Native American literature, on Friday, May 29 at 2 p.m. in the UNM Bookstore.
Photo: Simon Ortiz
Ortiz has authored more than two dozen volumes of poetry, prose fiction, children’s literature, and nonfiction work, in addition to being anthologized globally. Lucero and Susan Berry Brill de Ramírez edited Simon J. Ortiz: A Poetic Legacy of Indigenous Continuance (University of New Mexico Press).
The volume is devoted to the depth and range of Ortiz’s contribution to contemporary Native American literature and literary scholarship while shedding light on the larger historical, cultural, and political factors that have shaped Native writing over the last four decades.
At the event Lucero, Ortiz and select contributors to Simon J. Ortiz, will discuss tribal, regional, national, hemispheric and global levels of appreciation of Native American literature.
UNM Bookstore is located at 2301 Central Ave. NE in Albuquerque. For more information on this event, contact Lisa Walden, UNM Bookstore, at 505-277-7494.
To interview Lucero or Ortiz or to receive a review copy of Simon J. Ortiz, contact Katherine MacGilvray, UNM Press publicity, at 505-272-7177 or katm@unm.edu.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 272-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
Gas completely “disappears” into the atmosphere at all other volcanoes on Earth
Science has unearthed the secret to what might have been alchemy at Oldoinyo Lengai volcano in Tanzania. There in the ancient East African Rift Valley at a place known to the local Massai people as the Mountain of God Oldoinyo Lengai spews forth carbon dioxide-laden lavas called carbonatites. The carbonatites line the volcano’s flanks like snowballs.
Photo: Oldoinyo Lengai volcano with recent carbonatite lava flows (white) on the east side of the cone.
Carbonatites are highly unusual volcanic rocks that contain no silica and have around 30 percent carbon dioxide. However, unlike most lavas that are liquid at temperatures above 900°C, liquid carbonatites are much cooler and erupt at only 540°C. However, due to their low silica contents, they are extremely fluid with a viscosity comparable to that of motor oil.
Although carbonatite lavas are found throughout the geological record, Oldoinyo Lengai is the only place on Earth where these lavas currently erupt and where carbon dioxide gas does not vanish into thin air like at all other volcanoes.
In a paper published this week in the journal Nature titled, “Upper-mantle volatile chemistry at Oldoinyo Lengai volcano and the origin of carbonatites,” scientists report the results of a study of Oldoinyo Lengai’s volcanic gas emissions, which were sampled by the international team during a carbonatite lava eruption.
Video of Oldoinyo Lengai volcano eruption
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Active crater of Oldoinyo Lengai in 2005. In the foreground is a recent carbonatite lava flow (about 1 week old). |
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Active lava flow discharging from hornito on July 4, 2005. The lava flows inside of channels that were eroded into underlying older flows. |
“Because the volcano was under tremendous magma pressure during the eruption, we were able to collect pristine samples of the volcanic gases. There was minimal air contamination,” said Tobias Fischer, volcanologist at the University of New Mexico.
Fischer's research was partially funded by a small grant from the University of New Mexico Research Allocations Committee (RAC) for this expedition.
“The chemistry and isotopic composition of the gases reveal that the carbon dioxide is directly sourced from the upper mantle below the East African Rift,” explained David Hilton, geochemist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
“And these important samples of mantle gases allow us to infer the carbon content of the upper mantle that is producing the carbonatites to be around 300 parts per million. Interestingly, this concentration is virtually identical to that measured below mid-ocean ridges.”
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University of New Mexico Professor Tobias Fischer samples gases from Oldoinyo Lengai volcano. |
"This finding is significant because it shows that these extremely bizarre lavas and their parent magmas (nephelinites) were produced by melting of a typical upper mantle mineral assemblage without an unusually high carbon content- in the magma source,” said geochemist Bernard Marty at the CNRS-CRPG, Nancy, France. “Rather, in order to make the unusual carbonatite lavas, all you need is a very low melt fraction - 0.3 percent or less.”
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Schematic slice through the East African Rift Valley. The upper mantle (at about 40 km depth) is upwelling due the extension and is the ultimate source of erupting carbonatite lavas. |
Previous work – mainly based on laboratory experiments, has suggested that higher carbon dioxide contents of up to several weight percent are required to produce nephelinites and carbonatites.
“Oldoinyo Lengai magmas have unusually high sodium contents, up to about 35 percent,” continued Pete Burnard, geochemist at CNRS-CRPG. “And it is this high sodium content that makes the Lengai carbonatites stable at the surface. At all other volcanoes on Earth, carbon dioxide degasses into the atmosphere without forming these sodium-rich carbonatite magmas that erupt at Lengai.”
“Of course, like all volcanoes, Oldoinyo Lengai also emits carbon into the atmosphere as a gas,” said Fischer. “Based on measurements of the rate of carbon dioxide emitted from Lengai, it turns out that only about one percent of the mantle-derived carbon goes into the carbonatite melt, virtually all of it is emitted as carbon dioxide gas.”
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Location of Oldoinyo Lengai Volcano. Note how the Rift spans from the Red Sea to Lake Malawi and 'splits' into two arms east and west of Lake Victoria. |
The paper concludes that the upper mantle below the oceans and continents is a uniform and well-mixed reservoir in which the compositions and abundances of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, argon and helium are essentially the same.
Fischer’s research in the East African Rift continues. Funded through the National Science Foundation’s Petrology and Geochemistry Program, Fischer and a student will return to Oldoinyo Lengai later this month to investigate the current explosive activity of the volcano.
The Nature paper was co-authored by Fischer, Burnard, Marty, Hilton, Furi, Palhol, Sharp and Mangasini. The University of New Mexico Research Allocations Committee (RAC), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifque (INSU-CNRS), Programme Intérieur de la Terre and the USA National Science Foundation (Petrology and Geochemistry Program) also funded the research.
For more information on Tobias Fischer and his lab visit: Fischer's Lab.
Media Contacts: NSF, Cheryl Dybas, e-mail: cdybas@nsf.gov; Scripps, Annie Reisewitz (858) 534.9616; e-mail: areisewitz@ucsd.edu or UNM, Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu
A new UNM Student Recreation Center will bring the campus community together; engage students and student life on campus. “The goal of the new rec center is to create and develop an inviting, interactive and vital campus community environment for students,” Eliseo Torres, vice president for Student Affairs, said. “The creation of a new rec center will better meet the needs of ‘today’s student’.”
Plans are to build a new student recreational center which will include a climbing wall, indoor running track, cardio and weight rooms, outdoor leisure pool, multipurpose rooms for indoor fitness such as martial arts, fitness classes, yoga, spin classes, indoor soccer, new locker rooms and many more upgrades and amenities.
Student Affairs, with plenty of input from students, has been in the planning stages for the recreational center for some time as the current recreational center at UNM, Johnson Center, has become outdated, is hard to navigate and has fallen behind the standards and trends of peer universities.
Representatives from the Associated Students of the University of New Mexico (ASUNM), the Graduate Professional Student Association (GPSA) have joined Student Affairs on visits to peer university recreational centers as part of their research, and through those visits have become aware of just how outdated UNM’s Johnson Center really is.
Additional research was conducted through a student survey querying them about what today’s students want in a recreational center. Of the 3,200+ respondents, they overwhelmingly indicated they want a place where they can “see and be seen,” enjoy a space with more natural light and have healthier food choices available. In addition, student focus groups have been meeting to talk about the cost of the new center and what they are willing to pay for it. The groups also allow them to express their desires and preferences for the new recreational center.
“The students surveyed predominantly felt that a new rec center would increase student employment opportunities, reduce overcrowding and attract and retain more students at UNM,” Torres said. “These benefits align favorably with the mission of UNM and Student Affairs and the overall campus master plan.”
And, according to the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association, “Participation in recreational sports programs and activities is highly correlated with overall college satisfaction and success.”
Student Affairs is listening to those requests and has chosen Van H. Gilbert Architect PC, Opsis Architecture and Brailsford and Dunlavey to help with the planning and design of the new recreational center. The group has come up with a three-story building that will attach to the Johnson Center with a bridge. It is planned in collaboration new student housing and residence life projects under development.
Construction could begin in a year at an approximate cost of $48 million.
“I believe that students surveyed and those who have participated in the focus groups are just as excited about the new rec center as we are,” Torres said. “Many have said that a new rec center would improve the quality of campus and community life at UNM, and that’s what we’re aiming to do.”
For more information, contact Dorene DiNaro at 277-5299. For specific details visit: New Recreational Center.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 272-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
UNM senior Michaela Brown is studying psychology and political science. She’s also teaching real world application of her education in an honors seminar this semester. Her students read, “The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace,” by Aaron David Miller. Then, they took on the roles of interested parties – Jews and Palestinians, the League of Arab Nations, and different individuals within the respective governments– to negotiate a peace agreement.
Photo: Michaela Brown, left, is an instructor in an honors seminar in which her sister Maia Brown, right, is a student.
Their dialog will be presented in a public forum on Thursday, May 7 at 12:30 p.m. in Acoma rooms A&B in the Student Union Building. The event is free and open to the public.
In his book, Miller puts forward diplomatic and political history, as well as a personal memoir, and advises on the future U.S. role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Miller blends personal anecdotes and experiences from the peace process while demonstrating a clear understanding of the complex issues both parties face.
Ed DeSantis, lecturer in University Honors, said that he’s been impressed with the ideas students presented in class. “Historically, there has not been a strong desire for a peaceful settlement. Most of the negotiation is a demonstration and not done in sincerity,” DeSantis said.
“I am Jewish and studied in Jerusalem in 2007. I recognize that many people here don’t have a genuine understanding of the conflict. I wanted to raise awareness,” Brown said.
DeSantis said that it’s been interesting to hear some of the students’ suggestions. “One recommended that a Palestinian and a Jewish security guard be stationed at each checkpoint. That would reduce the threat the Palestinians feel as well as reduce aggression on the part of the Jews,” he said.
“The key to negotiation is to listen more. We’ve heard Barack Obama say so with regard to Cuba and Iran,” DeSantis said.
“We want the UNM community to come and listen,” Brown said. A Q&A period will follow the dialog.
For more information, contact Michaela Brown at mbrown4@unm.edu.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
The Recreational Activities Day Camp (RAD Camp) is currently conducting its annual registration for its summers camps. Five sessions, beginning May 27, will be offered this summer. The camps are typically held Monday- Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Campers will enjoy a wide variety of activities such as soccer, volleyball, arts & crafts, field trips, initiative games, scavenger hunts, badminton, tennis, softball and much more.
For more detailed information on dates and prices visit: RAD Camp 2009.
The National Latinos Writers Conference and the History & Literary program of the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC) have recognized Patricia Santana as the winner of the 2008 Premio Aztlán Literary Prize for her novel, Ghosts of El Grullo. A national literary award established to encourage and reward emerging Chicana and Chicano authors, the Premio Aztlán was founded by renowned author Rudolfo Anaya and his wife Patricia in 1993.
As winner of the Premio Aztlán, Santana receives $1,000 and will give a public lecture during the National Latinos Writers Conference, held at the NHCC in Albuquerque, New Mexico, May 21-23, 2009.
In Ghosts of El Grullo, Yolanda Sahagún is a clever young woman who finds the symbolism in life’s smallest acts and events. She escapes into the world of literature—The Canterbury Tales or stories from Mexican countryman Juan Rulfo—when family dramas heat up, and they often do in a household of nine children overseen by an erratic father and a mother almost too sweet to be true.
Yolanda strives to shape her own identity: as a scholarship honoree at a Daughters of the American Revolution tea party in La Jolla, Yolanda feels out of place until her mother Dolores captivates even the stuffiest ladies with her family stories from the Mexican Revolution. The drive back to their little house in a Palm City immigrant neighborhood where eleven people share one bathroom reminds Yolanda of just how different her life is from the high society ladies of La Jolla and later, from her college peers at UC-San Diego.
When Dolores dies of gallbladder cancer during her freshman year of college, Yolanda’s struggles reach greater magnitudes as her father decides to sell their family home and she and her sisters must care for the younger Sahagúns. She travels to El Grullo, Jalisco, the Mexican village where her parents grew up, and there her subconscious mingles with the ghosts of her family’s past as Yolanda searches for answers and a path from which to navigate family, love, and her higher education.
Santana is chair of the foreign languages department and professor of Spanish at Cuyamaca College in El Cajon, California. Her book Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquility (UNM Press) won the Chicano/Latino Literary Prize and was an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. Ghosts of El Grullo is a sequel to Patricia Santana’s critically acclaimed first novel Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquility.
The book is available at bookstores or from UNM Press: (800) 249-7737 or UNM Press.
Media Contact: Katherine MacGilvray, (505) 272-7177; e-mail: katm@unm.edu
The University of New Mexico has issued a statement recommending students return from Mexico and that groups planning an imminent trip to Mexico suspend plans until further notice due to the outbreak of H1N1 influenza, or swine flu.
Student Health Center Director Beverly Kloeppel, MD, said that there is limited epidemiological data about affected populations in Mexico. “We don’t know if there is a lot of illness, we don’t know how many have been infected; we only know those reported by HINI surveillance in Mexico. The reported cases are usually only those who present to the healthcare system” she said.
Because this year’s flu vaccine has very little effectiveness against the H1N1 virus, Kloeppel said that there is the possibility of “rapid transmission” of this flu through the population. An average of approximately 36,000 deaths have been associated with infection with the influenza virus each year in the U.S . So far, 1 death out of 226 H1N1 cases in the US has been reported during this outbreak.
Generally, flu is most dangerous in vulnerable populations, including those over 65 years of age, those with depressed immune systems or chronic medical conditions, and children <5 years of age. It is likely that this flu virus will target this population as well,” she said.
Kloeppel said that nothing she has heard indicates that the deaths in Mexico have been outside the traditional high risk populations. Early reports that 20-40 year olds are vulnerable with this particular strain have not been verified, she said.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report a human-to-human transfer rate at 5 on a scale of 1-6, indicating a widespread infection threat.
“Mutation is a concern and we don’t know how this virus will behave. It could become milder, or more virulent,” Kloeppel said. She said that it is currently not flu season, which could mean a leveling off of cases in Mexico and the U.S. If, however, the disease spreads to areas south where they are entering flu season, the potential for H1N1 to return in the fall is a possibility.
“There is no medication to completely cure the flu,” Kloeppel said. She added that anti viral drugs are most effective when used 24-48 hours from symptom development. Antiviral drugs can make the illness milder and shorten the course of the infection. They may also prevent serious influenza complications.
Influenza antiviral drugs also can be used to prevent influenza when they are given to a person who is not ill, but who has been or may be near a person with H1N1 influenza. When used to prevent the flu, antiviral drugs are about 70 to 90 percent effective.
About 25 percent of the United States’ strategic stockpile of the medication has been dispersed to hospitals, and 400,000 doses have been sent to Mexico.
Kloeppel said that testing for H1N1 flu is done when people present with flu symptoms, have been in close contact with a person who is a confirmed case or has traveled to, or resides in a community where there are one or more confirmed H1N1 cases. “An initial test can determine the presence of Influenza A , but CDC testing is currently required to confirm the H1N1 type. “
Institutions of higher education should promote everyday preventive actions for students and staff: 1) Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. 2) Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it. 3) Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective. 4) Avoid close contact with sick people. 5) Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread this way. 6) If you get influenza-like illness symptoms, stay home from work or school except to seek medical care and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.
UNM Students in Mexico
Eight UNM students studying in Mexico have been advised to return to the U.S. They are being advised not to make return travel arrangements through Mexico City, the epicenter of the outbreak, or from Cancun to Houston, the likely path the disease traveled into the U.S. Mexican universities have closed because of the outbreak, which has reduced support systems for UNM students there. Additionally, should quarantine be instituted if the outbreak were to reach pandemic proportions, the students would be unable to leave.
For students who come back early, they have been assured that they will be allowed to finish coursework online from the U.S.
Impact on UNM Programs
Several UNM summer programs in Mexico have been cancelled, including a University College program scheduled for May, but Finnie Coleman, interim dean, is withholding a decision about another program set for July.
Doug Thomas’s Anderson School program for 25 students in Guadalajara set to start May 23 has been cancelled. Additional Anderson faculty will not teach at a Research and Development facility in Queretaro, as was planned.
The School of Law's program in Guanajuato set to start June 1 has been cancelled.
Fifteen students who arranged to take intensive Spanish language programs have cancelled.
Enrique Lamadrid’s Chicano Studies course on acequia culture will not travel to Mexico, but rather examine Northern New Mexico acequia history and culture.
Richard Schaefer, director of the Cross Border Issues Group program to Central Mexico and Oaxaca, set to commence July 6, is waiting to see how the situation progresses.
Deputy Provost Richard Holder said that students who received Regents grants to study abroad may be able to change their plans to use the funds to study elsewhere.
On Campus Planning
Emergency Manager Byron Piatt said that he and other emergency planners are looking at “trigger points” for mass gatherings to assess what kind of lead time they would need to cancel events – such as commencement – should the threat of the disease rise.
Coordination between the Health Sciences Center and the Student Health Center regarding outpatient guidelines is in place. They are working closely with the Department of Health and other area hospitals.
Grades
If any classes were unable to hold finals because of the flu, the Registrar’s Office has a system in place that was instituted during the Cerro Grande fire that affected UNM-Los Alamos in May of 2000. “If faculty cannot give a final, they can assign the grade the student had going into the final. They can schedule a make-up final and report ‘N/R,’ or no report grade. The grade can be submitted later,” Holder said.
Common Sense
The CDC reminds people to avoid large gatherings and to wash their hands frequently.
For more information
H1N1 (Swine) Influenza Travel Recommendations
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
New Mexico Evaluators will present a conference titled, Multiple Perspectives on Cultural Competency for Evaluation Practice on Monday, May 18 from 12 to 5 p.m. at the State Bar of New Mexico. The conference will feature a variety of presenters including UNM’s Anthony Cahill, director, Division of Disability and Health Policy, Center for Development and Disability, UNM School of Medicine.
Cahill’s talk is titled, 'Cultural Competence vs. Cultural Safety: Approaches to Evaluation of Disability Policies, Programs and Services.' A number of other presenters will also share their multiple perspectives on culture from their diverse areas of work.
Evaluation inarguably takes place within social, cultural, historical, economic, and political contexts. These contexts include many dimensions, such as race, ethnicity, language, gender, age, religion, and sexual orientation.
Not so commonly discussed in conversations about culture are the contextual dimensions of disability, economy, and class. Culture is present in evaluation not only in the contexts in which programs are implemented but also in the approach and methods evaluators choose to use in their work.
Given these realities, evaluators are presented with unique opportunities to develop skills and approaches that allow their work to be accessible and responsive to the unique needs of culturally diverse group.
The conference begins at 11:30 with registration registration. Lunch and opening remarks begin at 12 p.m. and presentations get underway at 1 p.m. Registration rates are $35 for members $25 for student member and $55 for non-members.
For more information visit: New Mexico Evluators 2009
The Animal Symbolism in the Mesoamerican Codex Tradition symposium, scheduled for April 30- May 2, HAS BEEN CANCELLED due to concerns surrounding the swine flu epidemic. More information will be posted as details are confirmed.
To view the original release on the event visit: Animal Symbolism in the Mesoamerican Codex Tradition.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
Five senior students in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department designed and built a small space research platform that will be on board a sub-orbital launch this weekend.
The Sub-Orbital Mission Automation, Recording and Tracking Canister (SmartCan) will record information on temperatures, atmospheric pressures, vibration, canister stress and strain, ambient light levels, and battery and power supply voltages on its short flight 70 miles above the launch site in southern New Mexico.
Their platform is a base future students will be able to build on for more traditional space-based research. The students involved, Amir Shirkhorshidian, Jeffrey Dean Rohrbacker, Ali Ghassemi, Ghadeh Hadi and James Aarestad will be presenting their experiment on Tuesday, May 5 from 1-3 p.m. in an open forum in the atrium of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Building.
UNM Press series represents outstanding achievement in New Mexico Heritage Scholarship
On Saturday, May 2, the Cultural Properties Review Committee hosts its annual Heritage Preservation Award Ceremony recognizing the outstanding achievements made by organizations and individuals statewide for their work in heritage preservation. The 2009 State Historian's Award will be given to the Pasó Por Aquí Series of UNM Press.
The State Historian’s Award for Excellence in Heritage Scholarship recognizes outstanding achievement in New Mexico heritage scholarship that resulted from original research that provided new and important insights into the state’s heritage in archaeology, history, architectural history, or cultural history.
The Pasó Por Aquí Series on Nuevomexicano Literary Heritage has been a part of the University of New Mexico Press for the past two decades and represents outstanding achievement in New Mexico heritage scholarship: research, writing and editing. The Pasó Por Aquí Series at UNM Press has provided new and important insights into New Mexico’s cultural history.
At its founding, Pasó Por Aquí editors were called to share their knowledge of colonial New Mexico letters with The Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Project, a renowned group of scholars from across the United States engaged in recovering works of literature and history published by Hispanics before 1960. The urgent need for scholars and academic presses to pay specific attention to Hispanic New Mexico literary recovery work was obvious because of the neglect that had faced this enterprise over the years.
While the original goal of the series remains the recovery of the Hispanic literary heritage of greater New Mexico generally, it is important also to recognize that publishing new fiction and poetry is part of the project to preserve a literary tradition that is often thematically, linguistically, and certainly culturally interconnected. The Office of the State Historian believes that scholarship in all fields of discourse will give greater intellectual coherence to the series and the list of the books already published masterfully reflects the various aims of this recovery work.
The Pasó Por Aquí Series includes an impressive array of titles, spearheaded by, what many regard as the foundational text of greater New Mexico, Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá's Historia de la Nueva Mexico (1610). Currently, the Pasó Por Aquí Series Editors are A. Gabriel Meléndez, professor of American Studies, University of New Mexico; and Genaro Padilla, associate professor of English, University of California, Berkeley, who will be at the ceremony to receive the award.
Due to increased risks associated with the H1N1 influenza World Health Organization (WHO) level 5 advisory and the current Center for Disease Control (CDC) travel advisory, the University of New Mexico is immediately suspending all travel to Mexico that is related to University business or programs. This is a precautionary measure against potential exposure to the virus for staff, faculty and students and will remain in effect May 1-May 31, or until further notice. This developing situation will be evaluated continuously and further advisories will be issued as needed.
Further, the University now advises all UNM faculty, staff and students who are in Mexico for University business or programs to return to the U.S. from Mexico immediately.
For more information visit: Center for Disease Control and the UNM home page.
H1N1 (Swine) Influenza Travel Recommendations
People who must travel to Mexico should consider the following recommendations:
1) Stay informed. Check for updates from the Center for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, the Secretaria de Salud, Mexico's Ministry of Health, and local governments.
2) Follow local public health guidelines, including any movement restrictions and prevention recommendations.
3) Be aware that Mexico is checking exiting airline passengers for signs of swine flu. Exit screening may cause significant delays at airports. It is also possible that entering travelers who are deemed to be symptomatic may be confined.
4) Travelers who are at high risk of severe illness from influenza (for example persons with chronic conditions such as diabetes, lung disease, heart disease, and the elderly - see CDC Professionals are recommended to take antiviral medications for prevention of swine influenza during travel.
Talk to your doctor about correct indications for using influenza antiviral medications, and the correct medications.
All travelers both international and domestic should also keep these recommendations in mind. In particular, consider that several countries are monitoring entering and exiting travelers, and may restrict their entry or exit. Governments at any time may initiate travel restrictions.
This could mean that, for the duration of the restrictions, US residents traveling outside of the US would not be able to return, and foreign students or visitors in the US would not be able to leave.
Also Visit
UNM Issues Statement on H1N1 Influenza
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu