The University of New Mexico is closing at 1 p.m. today for the Holiday. It will reopen on January 4, 2010 at 8 a.m.
For a complete list of holiday hours visit: UNM Holiday Hours Set.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu
Dr. Eliseo “Cheo” Torres and the staff of the UNM Division of Student Affairs thank all departments that took part in the Roadrunner Food Bank drive to help feed New Mexico's hungry and the ASUNM giving tree initiative to benefit Albuquerque charities.
The Division had nine departments place food collection bins in their areas including: Accessibility Resource Center, College Enrichment and Outreach Programs, Navy ROTC, Student Activities Center, Student Housing and Residence Life, Title V, The Women's Resource Center and the Vice President for Student Affairs office. Student Affairs employees and members of the UNM community pitched in to fill five of those bins with donated food.
Associated Students of the University of New Mexico (ASUNM) Community Experience also coordinated the “giving tree” to help bring holiday cheer to Albuquerque charities. ASUNM decorated a large holiday tree decorated with requests for presents from children and placed it in the SUB atrium. Andrea Hart, student activities specialist estimates that 150 of the 160 gifts requests were fulfilled with donated gifts.
For more information or ways to help throughout the year visit: Roadrunner Food Bank. Also for more information visit: ASUNM Community Experience.
For more information about Student Affairs activities, contact Dorene DiNaro, 277-5299.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
A look at the top-10 research stories from UNM in 2009
Between the economy, the political battles over jobs, health care and the environment, 2009 was a somber year. But behind all the depressing headlines there were solid accomplishments and progress in research at UNM. Here’s a chance to look at some of the top stories in research.
1. UNM Cancer Center Researchers Identify New Mutant Genes
In 2009 researchers at the UNM Cancer Center identified a genetic mutation underlying one of the most common childhood cancers, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). About 37 children are diagnosed with the disease in New Mexico every year. The discovery could lead to more effective treatments for patients who experience little benefit from drugs targeted toward adults. More…
2. One Can Act Without Group Support; Even in the Bacterial World
When you isolate a bacterium, it immediately begins to try to change its reality. Researchers found it can begin to genetically reprogram itself to adapt and thrive. The researchers were looking at how bacteria behave. It’s long been thought that bacteria needed to act as a group, sending out signals among themselves to behave in a certain way. But it doesn’t seem to be that way at all. More…
3. UNM Cancer Center Designated as NIH Center for Systems Biology
UNM researchers are also beginning to look at how cells ‘talk’ to each other. The UNM Cancer Center received money from the National Institutes of Health this year to set up a Center for Systems Biology. They are looking at what events trigger cancer and other diseases at the cellular level. More…
4. Sexual Encounters of the Third Kind: Darwin’s Beetles Still Producing Surprises
The reproductive lives of animals is complicated, and even more so for the various species of beetles. UNM researchers have found that males come in three physical forms, alpha, beta and gamma. More…
5. UNM’s CETI Program Awarded $10.7 Million Grant from National Institutes of Health
UNM researchers are thinking about how viruses attack, both in mammals and in computers. A new Center for Evolutionary and Theoretical Immunology (CETI) grant to the Biology Department for $10.7 million will allow researches in different departments to collaborate on research into the spread of disease. More…
6. LTER Network Office at UNM Receives $15.6 Million in Funding
The National Science Foundation studies the way ecological systems change over decades. At the Long Term Ecological Research Network Office based in the Biology Department at UNM a new $15.6 million grant will allow researchers to study how plants and animals react to changing climate conditions at a station north of Socorro. The money will be spent to support research activity at the site over the next six years. More…
7. DataONE (Observation Network for Earth) Project at UNM Receives $20 Million Award
Scientists have been researching and publishing data since 1950 for the National Science Foundation. Grants are given to specific researchers who report their findings using a variety of programs and organizational systems. No one has ever tried to put the individual results from thousands of studies together into a searchable data base that could be used by anyone. Until now. UNM Professor and director of e-science at University Libraries William Michener has been given $20 million over the next five years to begin building a cyber infrastructure for sharing science. More…
8. Scientists at UNM, USC and Utah State Study Colorado Magmatism and Uplift
The Colorado Plateau centered in the Four Corners area of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah is about 2.2 kilometers above sea level. However, the rocks that drape the plateau show that it was sea level 65 million years ago. Geologists have long argued over what pushed the plateau above the surrounding landscape. Now researchers from UNM, the University of Southern California and Utah State University think they have figured it out. More...
9. Center for High Tech Materials Celebrates 25th Anniversary
Your laptop is getting smaller and faster because places like the Center for High Technology Materials at UNM are doing some of the hard work of figuring out how to make the next generations of computer chips more efficient. Their original research is already in your laptop. But that’s only part of what they do.
More...
10. UNM Research Team Finds Evidence Cacao Ritually Used in Chaco Canyon
If just reading all this has been exhausting, kick back and have a cup of hot chocolate. That’s what people in New Mexico have been doing for more than a thousand years. Anthropologist Patricia Crown has found that the inhabitants of Chaco Canyon were drinking and treasuring chocolate at a time when Western European culture was just emerging from the Dark Ages. More...
For more stories about some of the amazing research conducted at UNM, visit and read Quantum, UNM’s online publication of research, scholarship and creative works at: 2010 Quantum.
Media contact: Karen Wentworth (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu
Magnetic Defender, a game created by UNM graduate student Justin Kellogg is now available for download on Xbox. Kellogg worked with Electrical and Computing Engineering professor Pradeep Sen to copyright the game through STC.UNM the wholly owned non-profit created to commercialize UNM technology.
Magnetic Defender
The game was posted on the Xbox website last week and there have been more than a thousand downloads from countries throughout the world. Because of the success of the game, Microsoft has added the UNM Advanced Graphics Lab to the list of universities with game development programs featuring XNA.
This is the first product released by the Advanced Graphic Lab and Sen says it lays the foundation for future game development at UNM.
There are two more games that should be available for download in the next few weeks, and another game that is scheduled for release next year.
Students interested in gaming take Sen’s ‘Introduction to Graphics’ class and develop a game as during the fall semester. At the end of the semester, students set up their games and invite the UNM community to play them and make comments. Some students choose to continue to work on their games with Sen to develop them more fully.
If you would like to know more about the program visit: Advanced Graphic Lab.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu
UNM contributes, both locally and statewide, to our communities in so many ways that it’s difficult to limit a list of the ways UNM contributes to just 10. But here are some of the interesting things UNM faculty, staff and students did in 2009 to make the world a little better.
Image: Helping hands build stronger communities.
1. Students at Anderson Teach Computer Safety at Area Schools
Students in Alex Seazzu’s Management 636 class spread out to local schools this year to teach computer security to students ranging from elementary to high school. The topics depend on the age of the students. Seazzu is the director of UNM’s Center for Information Assurance Research and Education.
2. UNM Meal Exchange Chapter Raises Meals for 1,400 Hungry New Mexicans
Dorm residents donated money from their Lobo cards – used to pay for meals – to the Meal Exchange fundraiser. Three dollars from each skipped meal was sent by the UNM Meal Exchange Chapter to The Storehouse in Albuquerque and the Bethel Community Storehouse that assists residents in the greater Estancia Valley.
3. UNM Alumnus Leaves $6.2 Million in Art to University Museum
UNM Alumnus E. Gerald Meyer graduated from UNM in 1951. He remembered the university in his will, giving the University Art Museum more than 100 Taos school paintings, European and Modern American school paintings as well as drawings and prints. The contemporary Western genre includes canvases by Thomas Moran, Nicholai Fechin, George Inness and Charles M. Russell. The University Art Museum is free and open to the public.
4. UNM Sponsors Training to Prevent Diabetes Among Native Americans
Native American educators have developed a free health curriculum for students from K-12. The DETS Health is Life in Balance curriculum addresses the problems of Type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is known as Adult Onset Diabetes, but younger people, especially in the Native American population are being diagnosed with the disease. This type of diabetes is almost three times as common in Native American populations. The health curriculum can be found here
5. UNM Professors Help Write the Book on New Mexico History
“Telling New Mexico – A New History” was written to coincide with the opening of the New Mexico History Museum and features essays that tell New Mexico History from many points of view. UNM Regents Professor of Anthropology Marta Weigle, New Mexico History Museum Director Frances Levine and Senior Curator and UNM alumni Louise Stiver compiled the text. Want to know about the first revolution ever to take place in North America? Read the essay by former Anthropology Professor Alfonso Ortiz as he explores the aggravation and frustration that led Native Americans in the pueblos to violently overthrow the Spanish colonists in 1680, chasing them all the way to El Paso nearly 100 years before the American Revolution.
6. UNM College Assistance Migrant Program Ranked Among Top 10 Nationally
CAMP works to identify, recruit, admit and enroll migrant and seasonal farm worker students and provides them with the academic, social and financial support to help them through their first year of college. The federal Office of Migrant posts the ranking.
7. UNM – Gallup New Navajo Language Instructors Works to Spread Navajo Literacy
Joe Kee at UNM-Gallup, teaches Navajo to Navajos. Two things, he said, have historically made teaching Navajo difficult and different from other languages. The efforts of the U.S. government to force all Navajo children to learn English at government boarding schools so they could be more easily assimilated into American culture is one. The other was during World War II, when the language itself became classified because Navajo Code Talkers were using it in encrypted military messages. During that time the government tried to control who was learned it and how it was taught. Now anyone can learn Navajo as a language at UNM-Gallup.
8. Landscape Architect Student Wins Award for Pat Hurley Neighborhood Project
A UNM Landscape Architecture student, Katya Yushmanova won a $2,000 prize for her design for Pat Hurley park on Albuquerque’s west side. The park was chosen for its interesting geography and history. The students researched the area and found traces of old agricultural acequias that were retaining water and attracting wildlife. So Yushmanova’s design incorporated public use space, a recreational facility and habitat design. The designs were made available to the city.
9. Opening of U.S. Marshal Collection at UNM Libraries Allows Glimpses into New Mexico’s Turbulent History
This collection of letters, manuscripts and papers dates from 1890 to 1950, a time when the job of the U.S. Marshal was broad and dangerous. The collection documents the problems of men who were responsible for imposing federal law on a rural and widely dispersed population. In the 1898 letters of C.M. Foraker you can read about the beginning of federal law in New Mexico. A detailed letter written to his deputy in Silver City explains how to subpoena witnesses and force them to put up a property bond guaranteeing their appearance in court. A written receipt for the body of an accused train robber William Raper, alias Bronco Bill, who died during a shootout with deputies, is a reminder of the many duties marshals had in a land where federal representatives were few and far between. Anyone can visit the Center for Southwest Research at Zimmerman Library and look through the original documents.
10. UNM’s Comadre a Comadre Program Expands Educational Pláticas
The UNM College of Education's Comadre a Comadre Program has expanded its community outreach efforts to help raise awareness of the early detection of breast cancer. To do so, Comadre will bring more than 90 classes to community centers, churches, public institutions, businesses, medical facilities and the UNM ENLACE Program through August 2010. The primary focus of these efforts is to increase early screening practices among Hispanic/Latina women.
UNM contributes to the cultural life and health of New Mexico in many ways, reminding us who we are, documenting our past, drawing plans for our future, and finding ways to work with groups who need information, support, knowledge or a helping hand.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu
Two commissionees served in Iraq before attending UNM
A joint commissioning ceremony of the UNM ROTC units was held Friday during which nine the Army, Naval and Air Force each welcomed new officers into their ranks. Major General Kenny C. Montoya was the event’s guest speaker. Montoya is Adjutant General of the New Mexico National Guard. As such, he commands the Army and Air National Guard and serves as the commander of the State Defense Force. Montoya earned his juris doctorate from UNM in 1995.
Photo: 2LT Tyler Cormier is congratulated after receiving the commissioning oath by Maj. James Cormier.
At the ceremony, each cadet took the oath of office, was pinned with his new rank, received his first salute and participated in the Silver Dollar Salute, a time-honored tradition where a new Second Lieutenant or Ensign proudly hands a silver dollar to the first enlisted member who renders him a salute.
The UNM Army ROTC program is under the command of Erik Sevigny, LTC, USA.
New Army officers:
2LT Michael P. Collins graduates with a bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in military science. Collins is commissioned as an Engineer Officer and will report to Ford Leonard Wood, Mo., for leadership training. He will be stationed at Fort Carson Collins, Colo., with the 4th Infantry Division. Collins entered the Army in 2003 and served as an Infantryman in Friedberg, Germany. He served in Iraq from January 2006 – March 2007 and earned the Army Commendation Medal and a Combat Infantry Badge.
2LT Tyler Cormier graduates with a bachelor’s degree in business administration finance. Following leadership training at Fort Leonard Wood, Cormier will be stationed at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, with the 25th Infantry Division.
2LT Michael Kots graduates with a bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in military science. He is commissioned as an Ordnance Officer. Following leadership training at Fort Lee, Va., he will be stationed at Fort Huachuca, Ariz.
2LT Gabriel X. Montoya graduates with a degree in history with a minor in military science. He is commissioned as an Infantry Officer. Montoya will receive basic officer training at Fort Benning, Ga., and will be stationed at UNM Army ROTC.
The Naval ROTC program is under the command of Ronald Kennedy, CAPT, USN.
New Naval officer:
ENS Matthew L. Lovato graduates with a bachelor’s degree in criminology with a minor in naval science. He receives his commission as a Surface Warfare Officer. EBS Lovato will report to San Diego, Calif., to his first ship, the USS Comstock, where he will become a Division Officer.
The Air Force ROTC program is under the command of Raul V. Garcia, Lt. Col., USAF
New Air Force officers:
2d Lt Joe C. Castillo is graduating with a bachelor’s degree in occupational education with a minor in information systems technology. He is the AFROTC Detachment 510 Distinguished Graduate for 2010. His commission is as a Contracting Officer. His first duty station is at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico. 2d Lt Castillo enlisted in the Air Force in 1998. He was stationed in Louisiana, Florida, Korea and Germany as a Communications Computer Systems Control Craftsman. He enrolled in the UNM AFROTC program after separating from the Air Force.
2d Lt Kevin M. Harris graduates with a dual bachelor’s degree in psychology and criminology. He receives his commission as a Behavioral Science Entry Level Officer. 2d Lt Harris reports to Brooks AFB, San Antonio, Texas.
2d Lt Daniel S. Hutchinson graduates with a bachelor’s degree in history with a minor in aerospace studies. He is commissioned as a Student Pilot. He will report to Laughlin, AFB, Texas, for training.
2d Lt Kevin M. Hutchinson graduates with a bachelor’s degree in history with a minor in aerospace studies. He is commissioned as an Air Force Logistics Readiness Officer. He reports to Travis AFB, Calif. 2d Lt Hutchinson enlisted in the Air Force in 2001. He served in the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines in Twenty-nine Palms, Calif. He was deployed twice to Iraq, in 2003 and 2004, as a Field Radio Operator before enrolling in the UNM AFROTC program.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
Anderson School of Management Professor Richard G. Brody will be visiting King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM) in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia from Jan. 1-7, 2010. As an invited international scholar specializing in fraud and forensic accounting, Brody will be making a series of lectures to the faculty and students at KFUPM.
Photo: Richard Brody
It is also expected that his visit will lead to research collaboration between he and KFUPM faculty. In addition, Brody has been invited to make a presentation to top management at Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest producer and exporter of crude oil.
Brody was selected by KFUPM for this visit based on his extensive research record and real world experience in the fraud area. His teaching courses include Forensic Accounting and Fraud Examination which are a part of the Information Assurance program (IA).
Through the IA program and Center for Information Assurance Research and Education (CIARE), UNM received its designation as a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance from the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security in 2007.
The IA program is unique in the country in that students are prepared for the technical, management, financial and behavioral aspects of the discipline. Brody’s involvement is integral to the content and accomplishments of the program as he analyses current trends in fraud, white collar crime and other financial areas of IA in his research and teaching.
Media Contact: Alex Seazzu, (505) 277-8451; e-mail: alex@mgt.unm.edu
Winter break is Thursday, Dec. 24-Friday, Jan. 1, giving most university employees 11 consecutive days off. Regular university hours resume Monday, Jan. 4. Certain critical facilities and departments, such as police and those involved in patient care, will remain open. Other major campus departments and facilities have special intersession hours.
Image: UNM on Winter Break.
The Zimmerman, Centennial Science and Engineering, Parish Memorial, and Fine Arts & Design Libraries
Closed Dec. 20, Dec. 24-Jan. 3 and Jan. 18. They will be open 9 a.m.-6 p.m., Dec. 21-23. Parish will also be open only to those with UNM ID Dec. 28-31, noon-5 p.m.
Zimmerman during the rest of intersession
Open 8 a.m.-6 p.m., Monday-Friday; the Centennial and Fine Arts & Design Libraries 9 a.m.-6 p.m., Monday-Friday; and Parish 9 a.m.-7 p.m., Monday-Friday and 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Saturday.
The Law Library
Closed Dec. 24-Jan. 1 and Jan. 18. The library will be open 9 a.m.-6 p.m., Dec. 20 and noon-6 p.m., Jan. 2-3. Otherwise, intersession hours are 8 a.m.-6 p.m., Monday-Friday; 9 a.m.-6 p.m., Saturday; and noon-6 p.m., Sunday.
The Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center
Closed Dec. 24-27, Dec. 31-Jan. 2 and Jan. 18. The library will be open noon-6 p.m., Dec. 20 and Jan. 3, 7 a.m.-6 p.m., Dec. 21-23, and 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m., Dec. 28-30. Regular hours resume Jan. 4.
The Information Technologies Support Center
For a list of visit: IT Holiday Hours. Regular hours resume Jan. 4.
IT Web-delivered Services
Available and UNM systems will be monitored. For unplanned outages or other IT-related issues, contact the IT Support Center at (505) 277-4848 or IT Customer Care at (505) 277-1111.
All IT Computer Pods
Closed Dec. 24-Jan. 3. Intersession schedules for all computer pods are available at IT Pods Holiday Hours.
The UNM Bookstore
Closed Dec. 24-27 and Dec. 31-Jan. 3. The bookstore will be open 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Dec. 28-30. Regular hours resume Jan. 4.
Media Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-1593; e-mail: michal@unm.edu
Show airs Friday, Dec. 18 at 7 p.m., repeats Sunday, Dec. 20 at 6:30 a.m.
On this week, 37 years ago, New Mexico astronaut Harrison Schmitt walked on the moon as part of the Apollo 17 mission. Schmitt was the final astronaut to have set foot on the surface of the moon, since Apollo 17 was the final mission of the historic Apollo program. “New Mexico In Focus” correspondent Peter St. Cyr talks with Schmitt about his memories of the lunar landing, his hopes for mankind to return to the moon, and his opinions about the human contribution to global climate change.
“New Mexico In Focus” is KNME-TV’s weekly hour-long public affairs show airing on Friday, Dec. 18 at 7 p.m. on KNME-TV channel 5.1 and repeating on Sunday, Dec. 20 at 6:30 a.m. Hosted by Gene Grant, columnist for the Weekly Alibi, “New Mexico in Focus” takes a multi-layered look at social, political, economic, health, education, and arts issues and explores them in-depth, with a critical eye to give them context beyond the “news of the moment.”
This week’s panel on “The Line” will discuss Governor Richardson’s proposal for a statewide ban on using a cell phone while driving, the potential legal showdown between the governor and the N.M. Legislature, and a new study on Albuquerque’s controversial red light camera program. This week’s panel will include University of New Mexico law professor Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, Trip Jennings, a senior writer for the New Mexico Independent, Sophie Martin with Duke City Fix and Jim Scarantino, an investigative analyst for the Rio Grande Foundation.
New Mexico in Focus can also be seen on KNME’s Digital Channel 9.1 on Saturdays at 5 p.m. Additionanlly, viewers can also watch it online at: KNME.
“New Mexico in Focus” is produced by Kevin McDonald and Kathy Wimmer and closed captioning has been made possible by a gift from Mrs. Elspeth G. Bobbs.
Media Contact: Evy Todd, (505) 277-1812; e-mail: etodd@knme.org
University of New Mexico Athletics celebrated the December graduation of 33 student-athletes from 12 sports with degrees from 12 different academic areas of study.
Photo: Lobo football players Donovan Porterie (center) and Daryl Jones (right) happily receive graduation congratulations from Head Coach Mike Locksley (left). Porterie and Jones were among more than 1,600 students to receive their degrees Friday night at Tingley Coliseum.
Baseball
Kevin Atkinson, University Studies
Mike Brownstein, Psychology
Brian Cavazos-Galvez, Sociology
Daniel Grubbs, Business Administration
Dane Hamilton, Communication & Journalism
John Hesketh, Economics
Max Willett, Business Administration
Football
Jonathan Brooks, Exercise Science
Roland Bruno, University Studies
Benjamin Contreras, University Studies
Erik Cook, University Studies
Daryl Jones, University Studies
Chris Mark, Construction Management
Daniel Martin, Business Administration
Clint McPeek, Business Administration
Adam Miller, University Studies
Donovan Porterie, Communication & Journalism
Frankie Solomon, Business Administration
Men's Golf
Guillermo Chavez, Business Administration
Jacob Lestishen, Business Administration
Parker Pemberton, Communication & Journalism
Steve Saunders, Business Administration
Women's Golf
Morgan Grantham, Art History
Men's Skiing
Rick Grahn, Civil Engineering
Women's Skiing
Karin Ohlin, Business Administration
Men's Soccer
John Smithson, University Studies
Christopher Wright, Portuguese
Women's Soccer
Kaci Paetz, Communication & Journalism
Softball
Samantha Hughes, Business Administration
Men's Track
Anthony Fairbanks, Business Administration
Joseph Garcia, Nursing
Women's Track
Brittany Smith, Business Administration
Volleyball
Jeanne Fairchild, Communication & Journalism
Anyone who donates to the UNM 'Live United' campaign in December will be eligible for the big United Way drawing to be held the first week of January. Up for grabs are Popejoy tickets to the Jan. 10 performance of "Peking Acrobats," gift certificates to the UNM Bookstore and the Gold Rush Cupcake Shop, the Lobo men's basketball game and more.
Congratulations to Joe Cook, James Ellison, Vicki Hanson, Lorena Lynn Nalin, Teddy Warren, John Schatzberg, Sara Otto-Diniz, Stanley Handmaker, Melissa Vargas and Antoinette Sedillo-Lopez, all winners of the United Way
November drawing.
While online giving is no longer available, people can continue giving to the campaign through December. Simply download the Pledge Form, fill it out, and send to the University Controller's office MSC01 1300. Be sure to make a copy for your records; United Way contributions are tax deductible. It's a win-win.
For more information on the UNM 'Live United' campaign individuals may contact Campaign Coordinator Connie Beimer at (505) 277-0204, via e-mail, unmuw@unm.edu or visit: 'Live United.'.
Media Contact: Mara Kerkez, (505) 277-1989; e-mail: marakez6@unm.edu
When the freshman from Houston, Texas came to UNM, he thought he had found a home. Raymond Plotkin started class in August 2009 as a freshman interested in Chemical and Nuclear Engineering. He enjoyed his roommates and living in a dorm as part of the Engineering Living Learning Community. On Nov. 11, Raymond died suddenly from the H1N1 flu. Now his family is creating an endowment to sponsor scholarships for engineering students through the UNM Foundation.
Photo: Raymond Plotkin
His mother Elaine said, “Raymond fell in love with UNM. He really connected with his School of Engineering advisors and did very well in school. He made good friends and was having fun. Everything was falling into place for him and the future looked bright.”
Plotkin’s family would like to share his enthusiasm for the university by building an endowment to sponsor scholarships for engineering students. The family made a generous donation to initiate the fund with the goal of awarding the first scholarship in Fall 2010.
Elaine Plotkin said, “For those who would like to give a special gift to the University this holiday season, please consider contributing to this fund. It’s a way to keep Raymond’s memory alive and to help other students who have the same drive and optimism about the future that he did.”
The family is also encouraging people to protect themselves against the H1N1 virus by getting vaccinated. Elaine Plotkin said, “People are getting complacent about H1N1. Please remember what happened to Raymond and get both the seasonal flu and H1N1 vaccines as soon as you can.”
More information about the fund, please contact Susan Georgia, UNM School of Engineering Development Office at 505-277-0664; sgeorgia@unm.edu.
Contributions can be sent to:
UNM Foundation/Raymond Plotkin Fund
ATTN: Susan Georgia, Development Office
UNM School of Engineering
Centennial Engineering Center
MSCO1 1140
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131-0001
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu
It may be common knowledge that getting a good night's sleep before a big test or important meeting is critical to peak performance. But, exactly how sleep enhances learning and memory is far from simple. Yet, investigators are making strides in understanding the sleep-memory connection. To learn more come to KNME's Science Café featuring Lee Brown, executive director, Program in Sleep Medicine, UNM Health Sciences Center, on Saturday, Dec. 19, 10 a.m. – 12 p.m., at Madeleine's Place Event Center, 3824 Corrales Road, in Corrales.
View a clip of “Sleep” from the national PBS series NOVA scienceNOW, and then join in a discussion with Lee Brown, executive director, Program in Sleep Medicine, UNM Health Sciences Center.
KNME Science Cafes are presented with support from New Mexico Tech, Lockheed Martin/Sandia National Labs, Applied Research Technologies and The Online NewsHour Science Reports. This Science Café is designed to be for the entire family. Parents and grandparents are strongly encouraged to bring their budding engineers and scientists along!
Admission is free, but a reservation is required. Reserve tickets by contacting Rose Poston at 277-2396 or rposton@knme.org. Seats are limited, and first come, first served.
Media Contact: Evy Todd, (505) 277-1218; e-mail: etodd@knme.org
Regents’ Lecturer Kuppaswamy “Kuppu” Iyengar, UNM School of Architecture and Planning, is at the forefront of energy efficiency and sustainability efforts in civil and structural engineering. Iyengar, on the architecture faculty since 2000, teaches advanced courses on alternate construction, structural engineering and sustainable architectural design.
Photo: Kuppaswamy “Kuppu” Iyengar
He has lectured and conducted numerous workshops on energy efficiency and sustainability program design throughout the U.S. and abroad and has published numerous articles addressing these global issues.
He borrows the United Nations’ World Commission on Environment and Development’s straightforward definition of sustainability: “Meeting the needs of today’s generation without compromising the needs of future generations.”
Teaching the next generation of architects means educating them on sustainable techniques. “We look at four elements: site, building, materials and transportation,” he said.
“The idea is to rest gently on a site – don’t flatten mountains or fill in valleys. As Aldo Leopold told us, we need to possess a land ethic – we don’t own the land, the land owns us. We must respect the animals, land mass, sun, wind and not try to fight the elements,” he said.
One method is using regional materials. “Build with materials immediately on hand – don’t bring granite from India, don’t haul materials 600 or 700 miles, because that uses fossil fuels,” he said. He added that the School of Architecture teaches how to build using less water.
“We start the building with the concept of using less of everything. Utilize free resources – sun and wind – then put active systems in, such as natural gas.” He said it’s possible to use less energy without compromising comfort.
Buildings should be oriented to take advantage of wind, night coolness and sunlight. “Those buildings can then ventilate naturally,” he said. “With proper insulation and optimizing volume, we can reduce wasted heated and cooled space.”
Iyengar also suggests using natural paints, not those that include volatile organic compounds emitted as gases from certain solids or liquids.
Concentrations of many VOCs are consistently higher indoors – up to ten times higher – than outdoors. VOCs are emitted by many products including paints and lacquers, paint strippers, cleaning supplies, pesticides, building materials and furnishings, office equipment such as copiers and printers, graphics and craft materials including glues, adhesives and permanent markers.
Iyengar and his colleagues also teach students about adaptive reuse. He points to an Uptown building in Albuquerque that was converted to a better looking, sustainable structure featuring organic farming in the basement.
Iyengar, who has conducted energy audits in 68 hospitals, teaches his students about the Energy Utilization Index. “Doing energy audits tells us the building’s average energy use from a baseline calculating monthly and annual energy consumption,” he said. The method uses basic building parameters such as dimensions, occupancy, type of HVAC equipment, average monthly weather conditions and U-factors – the rate of heat loss of a window assembly.
Iyengarsaid the knowledge students learn will serve them whether they work as architects in Albuquerque or Timbuktu. “We give them the pedagogy to apply to wherever they go,” he said.
Story by Carolyn Gonzales
UNM dedicated its focused ion beam system Tuesday afternoon in a ceremony keynoted by New Mexico Representative Danice Picraux. Housed in the basement of Northrop Hall in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department, the machine available for use by other departments across campus, and with collaborating institutions.
Photo: Earth and Planetary Sciences Professor Adrian Brearley works with new focused ion beam system.
The focused ion beam system is similar to a scanning electron microscope except that a beam of ions rather than electrons helps form the image. The beam can be used to remove material by etching.
Rep. Picraux received a small-etched chip commemorating her assistance in sponsoring a special project in the New Mexico legislature for part of the money to buy the system. Earth and Planetary Sciences Professor Adrian Brearley received money from NASA, and worked with Regents’ Professor of Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Abhaya Datye and Mechanical Engineering Professor Zayd Leseman to complete funding for the project with money from the National Science Foundation.
Brearley is already beginning to work with the machine to slice very thin slivers from meteorites. He is after tiny grains contained in the slivers. He shares those with colleagues who examine the structure and condition of the grains. They are looking at whether the grains might have been part of the stars formed at the very beginning of the known universe.
The system has a number of other uses as well. It can be used to study heterogeneous catalysts, heteroepitaxial semiconductors, quantum dots, lasers, microfluidic devices, ion channels, free-standing thin films and biosensors.
UNM Music Associate Professor David Schepps and Robertson and Sons Violin Shop present a cello/piano recital and master class with visiting cellist Wendy Warner and pianist Irina Nuzova on Tuesday, Dec. 22, at Robertson and Sons Violin Shop Recital Hall, 3201 Carlisle Blvd. NE. The master class is 2-5 p.m. and the recital begins at 7:30 p.m.
Photo: Wendy Warner and Irina Nuzova.
Warner has been on the international stage for years, after winning the Rostropovich Cello competition in Paris at the age of 17. She is the concerto soloist for the Santa Fe Concert Association Christmas eve program and has added this recital and class for an exclusive appearance in Albuquerque. Warner teamed up with another international star, eminent classical pianist Nuzova, to form the Warner-Nuzova violoncello-piano duo.
The master class includes UNM, pre-college and visiting college cello students.
Schepps has collaborated several times over the past 15 years with Warner, accompanying her concerto appearances and hosting her in master classes and cello festivals. “She’s right up there with YoYo as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “She is one of the most brilliant cellists performing today, and her work with students is inspiring. Her virtuosity and engaging personality make her appearances a delight not to be missed.”
Admission is by voluntary donation. Contact Schepps at daveschepps@gmail.com or (505) 263-2170 or Robertson and Sons Violin Shop at (505) 889-2999.
The top 10 stories from Lobo Athletics in 2009 include student-athletes making the grade both in the classroom and on the playing field. Here's the list.
1. For the first time in UNM history, four fall sports programs made it to the postseason: men’s soccer, volleyball and men’s and women’s cross country each made their respective NCAA Championships.
2. Women’s cross country took its second consecutive Mountain West Conference championship and placed 13th in NCAA Championships, while men’s cross country was the MWC champions and placed 8th in the NCAA, the highest ever at UNM.
3. Lobos were the MWC champions in men’s basketball, women’s golf and men’s tennis.
4. UNM had 42 All-Americans in 2008-2009 and nine student athletes were named conference athlete of the year: Ola Abu-Zekry, MWC Women’s Tennis; Mike Brownstein, MWC Baseball; Lee Emanuel, MWC Men’s Indoor Track & Field; Jodi Ewart, MWC Women’s Golf; Jeanne Fairchild, MWC Volleyball; Lacey Oeding, MWC Women’s Cross Country Freshman of the Year; Johnny Parkes, MWC Men’s Tennis; Steve Saunders, MWC Men’s Golf; and Thomas Schwab, Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Skiing Association (RMISA) Alpine Skier of the Year.
5. Four Lobo coaches were honored as Coach of the Year: Steve Alford, MWC Men’s Basketball; Alan Dils, MWC Men’s Tennis; Joe Franklin, MWC Women’s Cross Country; and Martin Kroisleitner, RMISA Alpine.
6. Two UNM athletes were national champions in 2008-2009: Lee Emanuel won the mile at the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships; and Malin Hemmingsson won the women’s slalom at the NCAA Skiing Championships.
7. Lobos are good students as well as good athletes. They posted a school record GPA of 3.14 in the fall of 2008, followed by a 3.12 in the spring of 2009, the second highest all time.
8. Simon Edejmyr was 2009’s top men’s soccer ESPN The Magazine academic All-American.
9. 13 of the 17 sports had a GPA of 3.0 or higher in the spring of 2009; while the combined GPA of UNM student athletes has been 3.0 or higher for 13 of the past 14 semesters.
10. Freshman graduation rate for athletes is 55 percent, which is 12 percent higher than the average UNM student body. Graduation success rate, which factors in transfers, is 72 percent for the class entering 2002-2003.
Information Technologies (IT) will have abbreviated holiday hours for the IT Support Center, which handles computing, NetIDs, and password services; and IT Customer Care, which handles voice, telephone and wireless services.
Wednesday, Dec. 23
Closing early at 5 p.m
Thursday-Friday, Dec. 24 - 25
Closed (Staff will check voice mail)
Saturday-Sunday, Dec. 26 - 27
1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Monday-Wednesday, Dec. 28 – 30
8 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Thursday-Friday, Dec. 31 – Jan. 1
Closed (Staff will check voice mail)
Saturday-Sunday, Jan. 2 – 3
Resume regular operational hours (weekend hours are 10 a.m. – 7 p.m).
For IT-related emergencies or issues, contact either the IT Support Center at 277-4848 or IT Customer Care at 277-1111. To contact Health Sciences Center IT Support, call 272-3282.
Computer Pods
The IT computer pods will all be closed Dec. 24, 2009 through Jan. 3, 2010. For additional pod-related information visit: IT Pods - Holiday Hours.
Media Contact: Vanessa Baca, (505) 277-0987; e-mail: vjbaca1@unm.edu
Rex Jung, research assistant professor in the School of Medicine’s neurosurgery department, connects the musicality recently demonstrated by Fred Hashimoto and Bill Miller with the neuroscience of creativity. He notes that structural changes that occur in the aging brain may reveal insights into creativity as people get older.
Photo: Rex Jung
“The aging brain loses myelin, the insulation for neurons that helps conduct brain impulses. It is my hypothesis that this demyelination creates an opportunity for creative capacity. As we age, thoughts and impulses have to find alternative pathways,” Jung said.
Jung said that while people lament the loss of cognitive function, they may find new activities through emerging strengths. “Fred Hashimoto’s saxophone playing and Bill Miller’s cantata composition demonstrate this hypothesis,” he said.
Jung said his mother took up 3-D quilt making in her retirement after years of working as a technical writer for IBM.
Older people develop a strong interest in travel, art and culture, he said. “They go to the symphony and galleries. They immerse themselves in art and culture as they age.” Some of this interest could be that the busyness in earlier adulthood prevents these pursuits, but he definitely sees a brain difference that helps creativity emerge. “It’s not an either or, but rather both. It’s common sense,” he said.
“As we age, we’re out from under the responsibility of creating for remuneration. It’s about enjoying the cognitive process,” he said.
Story by Carolyn Gonzales
Psychologist composes Christmas cantata
William Miller’s 1999 publication, “Integrating Spirituality into Treatment: Resources for Practitioners,” gives insight into a spiritual side of the man who teaches mental health professionals to use aspects of spirituality, including acceptance, forgiveness, hope and values, as a guide for assessing, understanding and responding to spiritual aspects of clients’ lives. Miller is an emeritus distinguished professor of psychology and psychiatry affiliated with the Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse, and Addictions at UNM.
Photo: William Miller
As if connecting mental health and spirituality weren’t enough discipline-blending, Miller composed a cantata, “The Touch of God,” to be performed by St. Andrew Presbyterian Church’s choir, Sunday, Dec. 20 at 9:30 a.m. at 5301 Ponderosa NE. St. Andrew is Miller’s home church where he plays guitar, writes short musical compositions, sings bass in the choir and helped pen the church history.
Miller’s musical musings go back to graduate school, he said. “When I was planning for graduate school I chose psychology over music. I was writing for guitar and flute back in the early ’70s.”
He started work on the cantata about two years ago. “I had written anthems, responses and other pieces for services at Rev. Frank Yates’ request,” he said. Yates suggested he write a Christmas cantata. “I didn’t know if I could do something of that scope. I went back to those old flute/guitar pieces,” he said. Then he reflected on interesting “wrinkles” in the Christmas story.
He stayed true to the main themes of the story but added some things from his imagination.
In one gospel, Luke places the holy family in the stable, but in Matthew’s account, they’re in a house. “Matthew says that when the Maji arrive, the holy family is in a house in Bethlehem. How can that be when there was no room in the inn when they arrived?” Miller said.
He said he reflected on the Jewish tradition of hospitality. In one piece in the cantata, “Innkeepers’ Welcome,” the innkeeper welcomes the family into the house for Shabbat, or Sabbath. “The piece incorporates the language of the traditional Jewish candle lighting on Sabbath evening, as well as language of blessing of a child for the Sabbath,” he said, adding that it comes straight out of Jewish history. “The family would’ve been Jewish. They would’ve invited the family into the inn and to their celebration now that there’s room.”
Miller also takes literary license and imagines the innkeeper’s son Joseph is a character who comes back at the end of Jesus’s life. “I see him as Joseph of Arimathea, the man who donated his tomb for Jesus’s burial after crucifixion,” he said.
Miller incorporates his favorite traditional Christmas carol, “In the Bleak Midwinter,” into the cantata. “I set it in different ways, with different time signatures. I love the sound of it and it also includes the element of the unexpected – you don’t expect God to come in the bleak midwinter,” he said.
Musically, it was difficult to get the melodies to come together, particularly working with melody and counter melodies in different keys and meters.
Miller got great satisfaction from the work. “I was writing for this choir. I was hearing these particular members and soloists,” he said. In the number “Simeon’s Prophecy,” Miller said he heard choir member David McArthur singing it. “I put it into a key and a line that would work with his voice,” he said. He similarly composed “Mary’s Lullabye,” with Heather Alvarez’s soprano voice in his head.
The bookends of the cantata, the opening and closing pieces “Sweet Surprise” and “Wind of God,” have mystery to them, Miller said. In “Sweet Surprise,” Miller writes, “The touch of God comes as a sweet surprise; when you least expect it, a tap on the shoulder. Just when you think that the Maker of the universe has wandered away or lost interest or maybe never was, out of the winter comes a light.”
The entire project was a bit like some writers say about a novel – you have ideas of characters, but what they do happens on its own. “It surprised me how it came together. I didn’t know if I could do it. It will be pleasing to hear the sounds in my head come to the air through the voices of the choir,” Miller said.
By Carolyn Gonzales, Reprint courtesy of UNM Today
The UNM Women’s Resource Center issues a call for applications for the Spring 2010 Sabrina Single Mother’s Scholarship. Deadline to apply is Jan. 22, 2010. The scholarship is available to UNM women students who are single parents.
For an application form and more information on the scholarship, please call the WRC at 277-3716 or visit:
Sabrina Single Mother’s Scholarship.
WRC Director Sandrea Gonzales established the UNM Women’s Resource Center Sabrina Single Mother’s Scholarship Fund in 2004 to assist single parent women when she saw a dramatic increase in their numbers. To date, the WRC has raised approximately $33,000 for the scholarship.
Lobo fans are encouraged to make plans to attend this week's basketball games featuring the 19th-ranked UNM men's team against Northern Arizona (Dec. 16) and Creighton (Dec. 19), and the Lobo women's game against New Mexico State (Dec. 20).
- Wednesday, December 16th vs. Northern Arizona @ 7 p.m. "Youth Night." All Youth (ages 2-18) tickets only $5.
- Saturday, December 19th vs. Creighton @ 7 p.m. "Missouri Valley/Mountain West Challenge". $40 NM bowl ticket package available. $40 gets you a ticket to the NM Bowl earlier in the day at 2:30 p.m. and a ticket to the men's basketball game that night in benches rows 1-10 while supplies last.
- Sunday, December 20th vs. NMSU @ 2 p.m. "Rio Grande Rivalry". Lobo women's basketball hosts NMSU. Current score of the Rio Grande Rivalry is 13.5-4.5.
Tickets to Lobo athletic events can be purchased the following ways:
1. By calling (505) 925-5858 or (800) 955-HOWL
2. In person at the Lobo Ticket Office Mon.-Fri. from 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.
3. In person at UNM Bookstore Ticket Office Tues.-Friday from 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
4. At all Albertson's Ticket Outlets
5. Online at www.GoLobos.com
Andrew K. Sandoval-Strausz, UNM associate professor of history, received a Faculty Research Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The NEH grant supports research for his latest book project, Latino Landscapes: a Transnational History of Urban America. Sandoval-Strausz’s project explores the ways Latin American immigrants have transformed urban America by analyzing their use of architectural and social space.
Photo: Andrew K. Sandoval-Strausz
“The historical literature on American cities since 1950, which details the decline of urban areas and the rise of suburbia, is superb, but it does not explain the cities we see around us, which after decades of relative population loss have made something of a comeback,” Sandoval-Strausz said.
Latino Landscapes focuses on a pivotal group of people who moved into urban areas in the period: at least 25 million new city-dwellers arriving from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, El Salvador and other nations in this hemisphere. Sandoval-Strausz notes that the largest populations of Latinos initially came to the United States to perform agricultural labor in rural areas. Yet most relocated to cities, establishing new colonias and urban economies at a time when other people and job opportunities were leaving for the suburbs.
“If we want to understand the fate of urban America, we have to understand how and why these newcomers bucked the suburban trend,” he said.
The first part of Sandoval-Strausz’s NEH-supported research will take place in Dallas, Texas, which, for more than 150 years, was a predominantly Anglo and African American city. “Recently, Latinos have become the largest population group. I will focus on Oak Cliff, a neighborhood that suffered ‘white flight’ in the wake of local battles over racial desegregation in the 1960s and 1970s,” he said, adding that today, central Oak Cliff is about 80 percent Hispanic, mostly Mexican, and has the lowest rates of unemployment and poverty in South Dallas.
The second phase of research will address the Mission District in San Francisco. The Mission is an older immigrant community, one that became strongly Hispanic beginning in the 1950s. While the local white population spent four decades leaving the area, beginning around 1990 many returned as surrounding parts of the city gentrified.
Sandoval-Strausz hopes that Latino Landscapes will challenge standard assumptions about how cities work by broadening historians’ perspective to include pan-American influences that have dramatically reshaped the urban landscape.
His research will advance the field of Latino history by setting it at the center of scholarly analysis of postwar urbanization and suburbanization, one of the most important debates in the field of United States history.
Distinguished Professor Fred Hashimoto, a saxophone playing 35-year veteran of the School of Medicine, still gets the call when someone is sick, even though he’s “semi-retired.” He also responds to the calls when it’s a social ill that needs addressing. Hashimoto is a general internist.
Photo: Fred Hashimoto
“Back in the olden days, the general internist was a specialist to aspire to because you have to know a lot about everything. I like it,” he said. Coming to UNM, he said, “I started out as a workhorse, taking care of specialists’ patients who needed general care.”
Hashimoto worked to develop and direct urgent care and primary care programs. About four years ago he became chief of staff, giving him the opportunity to lead and get involved in university-wide issues. Even before that he was actively engaged in Faculty Senate and served on the Corrales City Council.
Athletic activism
Hashimoto fought first to save the 25-yard pool in Johnson Center. “They thought about taking out the pool and using the space for a floor facility. I told them we needed to keep it in case anything happened to the Olympic pool,” he said. “I stood outside Johnson Center in my swimsuit and towel gathering more than 1,100 signatures. Roger Wrolstad [director, Recreational Services], and the others changed their minds.”
He dove into another issue: fighting elimination of men’s swimming, gymnastics and wrestling, all in the name of Title IX, the federal mandate to provide equal opportunity to women in athletics in higher education. He argued that the intent of Title IX is to provide equal opportunity, not equality of numbers. The programs were still cut, but Hashimoto’s efforts didn’t go unnoticed. Stories appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education and NCAA News.
Hashimoto also took on the New Mexico State Legislature when they considered “dumbing down entrance requirements for athletes,” he said. “I went to their meeting – I even put on a suit and tie, and I never do that. I took faculty with me to sit at the hearings. The bill got tabled and died.”
Healthy habitats
Hashimoto took on drinking and driving, working to lower the blood alcohol levels determining inebriation. On campus, he took up the no smoking cause.
“It just didn’t seem right to walk out of the hospital and have to pass through a cloud of cigarette smoke to walk to the cancer center,” he said.
He said quality of care is his big push.
“I want to improve patient satisfaction while also making this a better work place for faculty and staff,” he said. He noted that UNM patient satisfaction wasn’t ranked highly, so he pushed for it. “By recognizing individuals, we can offer incentives to improve,” he said, noting it was something he could do as chief of staff.
Back on sax
But what about that saxophone? Is that really Hashimoto playing with other musicians at Hanging of the Greens? It is.
Hashimoto’s mother was a music major who expected all her children to play an instrument. His first notes were blown on a clarinet, but he quickly moved to sax. “I didn’t really like the bleeding pig, bullfrog sound of the sax – I wasn’t a fan of jazz, blues or swing at the time,” he said. He also had to practice in the basement in Chicago in winter. So he left his musical aspirations in the basement.
About seven years ago, PBS ran a Ken Burns series on jazz. Hashimoto decided to give it another chance. He had to go back to Chicago to move his mother into an assisted living facility. Down in that basement was his clarinet, warped, and his sax. Once equipped with a new reed, it sounded like the same old bullfrog, he said.
Story by Carolyn Gonzales
UNM’s fall commencement ceremony will be held Friday, Dec. 18 at 6 p.m. in Tingley Coliseum at Expo New Mexico (State Fairgrounds). About 1,639 students are projected to receive degrees, as follows: 1,150 bachelor’s degrees, 395 master’s degrees, four post-master’s, 67 doctorates, 14 juris doctorates, two medical doctorates, six pharmacy doctorates and one education specialist. An official degree count is determined following commencement.
Photo: Congressman Martin Heinrich to be keynote speaker.
Congressman Martin Heinrich will be the keynote speaker. Representing New Mexico’s first congressional district, Heinrich has focused on strengthening the country’s economic future, ensuring energy independence and reforming health care. He previously served as Albuquerque City Council president and as natural resources trustee for the State of New Mexico.
Graduates will be greeted by UNM Regents President Raymond Sanchez, Associated Students of UNM President Monika Roberts and Alumni Association President Ruth Schifani.
UNM President David Schmidly will be the master of ceremonies. He will offer congratulatory remarks, confer degrees and recognize honors graduates.
The University Double Brass Quintet with Adam Kehl, conductor, will play a selection of music for the ceremony’s prelude and processional. Elena Maietta, graduating with a Bachelor of Music, will sing the national anthem and alma mater.
Plan to arrive at least an hour early to allow for traffic and parking congestion and time to walk from the parking lot to Tingley Coliseum. Please carpool when possible.
Several schools, colleges and departments have scheduled convocations for Friday, Dec. 18 and Saturday, Dec. 19. For more information visit: 2009 Fall Graduation.
Media Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-1593; e-mail: michal@unm.edu
The University of New Mexico’s 2009 United Way campaign is in the home stretch. The last day to donate online at UNM ‘Live United’ is Thursday, Dec. 17. Physical Pledge Forms will be accepted through Friday, Dec. 18.
The UNM United Way Prize Patrol will be out every day next week at HSC buildings, the SUB, main campus academic buildings, Science and Tech Park, Student Services Center and other buildings located on and off main campus. So wear your United Way pin all next week and be eligible for prizes.
Whether you choose to donate to a UNM department or program, or a specific agency, non-profit or church, the United Way will help get your entire donation (100 percent) where you want it to go. Nothing is deducted because corporate Cornerstone Companies pay the 12 percent administrative cost.
And did you know that your United Way contribution is tax deductible? Give yourself a tax deduction and help our community at the same time. It’s a win win.
For more information on the UNM ‘Live United’ campaign individuals may contact Campaign Coordinator Connie Beimer at (505) 277-0204, via e-mail, unmuw@unm.edu or visit: 'Live United'.
Media Contact: Mara Kerkez, (505) 277-1989; e-mail: marakez6@unm.edu
UNM will formally dedicate a new focused ion beam system for nanofabrication and imaging on Tuesday, Dec. 15, at 2 p.m. in the basement of Northrop Hall. New Mexico State Representative Danice Picraux will be the guest of honor. The community is invited to attend the inauguration of the instrument and to view the other nanofabrication facilities located in the basement of Northrop Hall.
Picraux helped the university obtain partial funding for the equipment through the New Mexico Legislature as part of a special project request through the Office of the Vice President for Research.
The three co-principal investigators are Adrian Brearley, professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences; Abhaya Datye, Regents’ professor of Chemical and Nuclear Engineering, and Zayd Leseman, assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering. They pooled grant money from the National Science Foundation, NASA and the Legislature to purchase the FEI Quanta 3D.
The instrument that UNM has acquired is a dual beam focused ion beam. It can be used to etch materials with a beam of ions or to study heterogeneous catalysts, quantum dots, lasers, microfluidic devices, heteroepitaxial semiconductors, free-standing thin films, biosensors and interplanetary materials and meteorites.
It will be housed in the Earth and Planetary Sciences building and will be available to UNM students and faculty and to faculty at other New Mexico institutions. The FIB can be used to demonstrate nanoscale machine, with real time imaging and will be used for K-12 student outreach programs.
The collaborators can answer questions about the FIB system and can be reached at: Abhaya Datye, Zayd Leseman or Adrian Brearley
Media contact: Karen Wentworth (505) 277-5627; kwent2@unm.edu
The Student Union Building will host this year’s Late Night Breakfast on Sunday, Dec. 13 at 9 p.m. in SUB ballrooms B and C. The event is free and open to UNM students. Students are encouraged to attend. Students must bring their Lobo ID to enter. The first 250 students will receive T-shirts, and every student will get a door prize for attendance, a free appetizer card from Texas Roadhouse.
Each year this event is held for students to provide a nutritious and stress-free environment before finals week. Breakfast burritos, chocolate fondue and fresh fruit will be served.
Willy J and the Storytellers, a local band, headline the entertainment. Chartwells will host, “Hole in One,” a miniature golfing competition where students can get a prize if they get a hole in one.
Students will have also have the chance to win several prizes from local businesses including Olive Garden, Bravo Cucina Italiana, Outpost Ice Arena, Elephant Bar, Saggio’s and Angel Fire Resort.
For more information, call (505) 277-5626.
Story by Jazmen Bradford.
The UNM Foundation has established an endowed scholarship by alumnus Patrick Conroy in memory of his cousin, Pvt. James W. Whalen, who was killed in action in World War II. Conroy will complete the endowment agreement with a signing ceremony with President David J. Schmidly and Foundation President John R. Stropp on Thursday, Dec. 17, at 11 a.m. in the Roberts Room of Scholes Hall on UNM's main campus.
Photo: Pvt. James W. Whalen
The endowed scholarship will benefit cadets/midshipmen in the three ROTC detachments at UNM including the Army, Navy and Air Force. The commanders of each detachment will select the recipients of the Pvt. James W. Whalen Memorial Endowed ROTC Scholarship. In addition to cash gifts over the next three years, Conroy also has arranged a significant estate gift to augment the scholarship endowment upon his death.
Whalen, a member of a battalion pushing to the Elbe River on April 12, 1945, was assigned to a security detail protecting a vital radio delay station. He and his team noticed a large group of German soldiers bordering the highway, intent on stopping the Allied Forces’ push into Germany’s heartland. The Allies opened fire; the Germans retreated to a nearby barn and later surrendered.
Whalen was killed in the firefight. He was awarded the Purple Heart. His regimental commander wrote, “Your son was held in the highest esteem by all members of his company and his loss has been deeply felt by his friends.”
Conroy, of Arcadia, Calif., retired in 1997 from teaching modern language in the San Marino Unified School District. He earned a master’s degree in Spanish from UNM in 1971. He is currently the president of the Los Angeles UNM Alumni Chapter. He devotes significant volunteer hours working in concert with UNM’s professional recruiting staff to bring California students to UNM. In 2005, Conroy established an endowed scholarship in the UNM Department of Spanish and Portuguese for students who study abroad.
Media Contact: Jill Zack, (505) 277-9095; e-mail: jzack@unmfund.org
Esther Camac Ramírez, Quechua native from Peru, will present “Indigenous Peoples, Biodiversity and the International Regime on Access and Benefit Sharing,” on Monday, Dec. 14 at 1 p.m. at the Latin American and Iberian Institute, 801 Yale NE, UNM campus.
The presentation will cover the history of the Regimen Internacional to the present state and future steps in the negotiation process.
Camac Ramírez is the executive director of IXACAVAA, Association for Indigenous Development and Information. She was also coordinator for Central America of the International Alliance of Indigenous Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forest. She has been following the Convention of Biodiversity process since its initial stage in 1996 and has participated in international meetings representing Central America and the Caribbean regions. Last November she was named as one of the representatives in the process of negotiations of the International Regimen.
The talk will be in Spanish with English interpretation. Refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
NIH-supported research will analyze recruitment, retention and promotion
UNM recently was awarded one of 14 grants to direct the investigation of the culture change needed to improve recruitment and retention of women in science. Ultimately, this research should lead to policy recommendations for professional development to improve women faculty representation at the highest leadership levels in academic medical institutions.
Funded by a National Institutes of Health million-dollar grant, the study will be conducted over four years by researchers from the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, PA. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) also is collaborating on the grant.
Specifically, the study will assess the impact of participation in intensive career-development training programs on individual women faculty at early and mid-career stages. The study will evaluate three, long-standing, nationally renowned programs and compare the career success of women who participated in the programs to women and men, at the same career stages, who did not participate.
“The statistics show that, historically, retention and promotion of women in academic medicine have not kept pace with that of men in the same institutions,” says study Principal Investigator Deborah L. Helitzer, Sc.D., UNM professor of Family and Community Medicine and assistant dean for research education. “As a result, there have been national efforts to improve these indicators. This project will help us determine whether participating in any one or more of these programs influences the retention and promotion rates of women faculty.”
The programs are the AAMC Early Career Women Faculty Professional Development Seminar, the AAMC Mid-Career Women Faculty Professional Development Seminar, and the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine® (ELAM) Program for Women at Drexel University College of Medicine.
For more information on the NIIH study visit: Women in Science. For more information on the HSC’s Department of Family and Community Medicine visit: Family and Community Medicine.
Media Contact: Luke Frank, (505) 272-3679; e-mail: lfrank@salud.unm.edu
When Julia Church Hoffman rediscovered “Shoes for the Santo Niño” – lost since her grandmother Peggy Pond Church wrote it in the 1930s – and shared it with colleague Regina Carlow, they thought it would make a great opera for children.
Photo: Regina Carlow displays “Shoes for the Santo Niño” at a fundraiser where the UNM Children’s Chorus performed the first piece of an opera based on the book. Photo by Carolyn Gonzales.
Peggy Pond Church was a writer and poet inspired by her love of northern New Mexico. In Hispanic and Native American traditions, people pray to the Santo Niño for healing and pilgrims leave children’s shoes at his shrines. “Shoes for the Santo Niño” tells the story of Julianita, a daughter of a large family who brings shoes to the shrine and finds the Santo Niño awake.
The opera based on the book will premiere in Santa Fe in December 2010. Most parts will be performed by singers in the UNM Children’s Chorus, with adult roles played by UNM voice students. “This will be the first time the Children’s Chorus gets to perform a real opera,” Carlow said.
Carlow is assistant professor of music and director of the Children’s Chorus. Church Hoffman is co-conductor of the chorus and an elementary music teacher in Albuquerque Public Schools.
The Children’s Chorus, a project of UNM’s Music Prep School and music education program, is a non-auditioned chorus for children grades K-8. “Anyone who wants to sing is welcome,” Carlow said.
The children will perform the opera with professional backing.
Internationally-renowned composer Stephen Paulus was selected “for the beautiful way he writes for children’s voices” and for his love of New Mexico, Carlow said. The libretto will be written by Andrea Walters, director of education and community programs for the Santa Fe Opera.
Carlow said this is the first major collaboration between the Children’s Chorus and the Santa Fe Opera, which is also providing production support. They previously worked together on summer opera camps and a 30-minute improvised opera.
To donate to the opera “Shoes for the Santo Niño,” call the UNM Foundation at (505) 277-5833 or visit: UNM Foundation.
Story by Sari Krosinsky
What do students graduating from UNM need to know? What kinds of learning are necessary for life, work and citizenship? Such fundamental questions frame the work of the UNM core curriculum task force, undertaking the first thorough re-evaluation of the core since the 1990s.
The task force will open discussion to the university community through a series of meetings on Feb. 12, March 5 and April 9, 2-4:30 p.m. in the Student Union Building Acoma rooms.
The 42-member task force, including faculty, staff and students, was established at the request of Peter White, then-secretary of the New Mexico Higher Education Department. English Associate Professor Michelle Hall Kells chairs the task force, with graduate student Dan Cryer as secretary. Kells said she couldn’t pass the opportunity up, despite being on sabbatical.
She identified three key components of core curriculum reform: flexibility, “critical application of core competencies” and faculty and student ownership of the core. To bring that sense of ownership about, she said, students must understand the purpose of the core and full-time faculty must be more directly involved in teaching core classes.
Challenges and opportunities
In a letter to the task force, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Wynn Goering said this re-evaluation “creates a great opportunity for UNM’s academic community to share governance in a meaningful way.”
He said there are challenges such as the potential impact on scarce resources, but also opportunities “to make the case for general education” while improving it.
“I believe we require students to study something of art, social science, science and history because people who are conversant with their culture and aware of the springs of personal and collective human behavior, who understand rather than fear the scientific method, and appreciate rather than ignore the lessons of history are better equipped to be good citizens of New Mexico and the world,” Goering said.
Subjects and skills
English Associate Professor Wanda Martin, who directs core writing, said the core should be defined by learning outcomes rather than by course, with many options for demonstrating competencies. For example, she said writing proficiency, currently defined by completion of English 102, should be part of multiple disciplines.
“You can take any established discipline and teach writing for that,” Cryer said. For a linked composition class with the Anderson School of Management, he teaches students the types of writing entrepreneurs need to master.
Many literacies
Kells was selected to lead the task force because her experience directing WAC – Writing Across the Curriculum or Writing Across Communities. “WAC promotes literacy education across the disciplines as well as professional, civic and cultural literacies,” she said.
Literacy doesn’t just mean reading and writing. Kells defined it as “a bi-directional intellectual rhetorical process” – the ability to read and comprehend a “symbol system” such as letters or numbers and “to express what you know through the symbol system.”
Cryer said the task force’s academic diversity has broadened the conception of literacy in college education. School of Engineering Associate Dean Chuck Fledderman suggested the importance of technological literacy, and School of Architecture Associate Director Mark Childs the need for spatial literacy.
Flexibility and relevancy
Some hope to improve student success by increasing motivation. University Honors Program Director Rosalie Otero said, “Students will study harder and do better in classes that interest them than in those they are forced to take.”
English Associate Professor Chuck Paine said limiting core courses to the lower division sends “the signal that they’re remedial work.” With a competency-based core, he said, a teacher could incorporate core learning outcomes into any course at any level.
For Katelyn Turnbow, English-philosophy major and honors student, core courses were often too basic. “It feels like you’ve stepped down a lot from advanced high school courses,” she said. Given a more flexible core, she said she would have taken more upper division courses in multiple disciplines.
“Students sometimes complain that requirements make the path so over-determined that they miss educational opportunities,” Martin said.
Otero said greater flexibility could also help students graduate faster and at a lower cost.
Kells said core curriculum reform should be an ongoing process, not a once-for-all decision. She hopes to see a permanent curricular advisory board established.
In these challenging economic times, it is important to focus on the positive benefits available at the university. In 2009, we achieved a number of significant accomplishments that directly benefit and support our staff and faculty.
· Despite national insurance cost increases of 10 percent, UNM did not increase premiums for any insurance plans for active employees. There were no cost increases for medical, prescription, life, dental, disability or vision coverage.
· The Education Benefits Policy 3700 was enhanced significantly.
· The dependent education program is now available to regular part-time employees after one year of employment in a regular position.
· The spouse/domestic partner benefit is now in addition to the employee benefit, and it covers up to four credit hours per semester.
· The personal enrichment allowance is now in addition to the employee’s per semester allowance for credit and professional development courses.
· UNM wellness programming was strengthened.
· Roughly 400 free flu shots were administered by Lovelace and Presbyterian.
· More than 1,000 mammograms, lipid panels, dermascans and spriometry tests were provided free of charge during UNM’s 2009 Preventative Health Week.
· Nearly 375 pounds were lost by participants in the Biggest Loser Challenge.
· The catastrophic leave program is now solvent and no longer in a deficit.
· We are one of fewer than three percent of public employers to offer long-term care insurance at no cost to employees.
· In collaboration with Staff Council, Family Medical Leave Policy 3440 was improved and brought into compliance with federal law.
· UNMTemps helped meet the business needs of campus by placing more than 360 temporary employees.
· The passport to leadership certification was designed to develop, retain and inspire leaders at all levels at UNM.
The Division of Human Resources will continue to work hard to support the UNM workforce in 2010. We wish you and yours a joyful holiday season.
Story by Helen Gonzales, vice president, Human Resources
Small decisions, made throughout the day, are reflected in overall health and wellness. These decisions help achieve countless goals every day. Wellness goals can be as small as “I’m going to get eight hours of sleep tonight” or as complex as “I am going to run a marathon before my next birthday.” Here is some guidance on setting all types of wellness goals.
When setting wellness goals, follow the S.M.A.R.T. – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely – guidelines. Ask specific questions: What do I want to accomplish? Where will I do it? When will I do it? Who can help me?
Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress. For example, for a goal of increasing physical activity level, the specifics could include walking at the track for 30 minutes a day, three days a week, during a lunch break, with a co-worker.
Life circumstances, such as physical, intellectual, emotional and financial barriers may interfere with realistic goal setting. If the original goal is not doable, set another goal that can be reached.
Lastly, set a timeline to avoid procrastination. Goal setting is not just a New Year’s resolution. Wellness goals should be set continuously throughout the year to successfully achieve lifelong results.
The moment goal setting begins, a transformation takes place. Goal setting encourages responsibility, achievement, decision making, personal growth and prioritizing. Setting clear, defined and passionate goals instills a personal responsibility to make it happen and a desire to achieve it.
Clear goals also provide a framework that encourages better decision making in stressful situations. Without focus or direction, scattered thinking and hesitation make everyday decisions difficult. Ultimately, goal setting enhances the ability to prioritize activities and tasks in ways that focus attention on what is most important at any given moment.
For assistance with wellness goals, contact the Employee Health Promotion Program at (505) 272-4460.
Story by Tara Vig, Health Educator
The UNM RWJF Center for Health Policy and Department of Sociology offer a research presentation, “Immigration and Health Policies: Comparative Perspectives – Australia, Costa Rica, France, Russia and the United States, on Wednesday, Dec. 16 from 7-9:30 p.m. in Sociology room 1062.
Multidisciplinary teams from economics, political science, public health and sociology will share research results from the semester-long research project. The presentations and discussion will revolve around how migration policies shape the experiences of migration, immigration, as well as health, illness and medicine.
In a comparative format, the teams will present an analysis of the relationship between migration policies and health outcomes. The research teams will provide insight into the state of current research on migrants and health. They will also provide a sense of the direction and future research on immigration and health.
The presenters will share the knowledge gain through the research project and welcome the audience to join on a discussion about such a timely issue.
For more information contact, P Rafael Hernandez-Arias at phernan8@depaul.edu or (505) 277-3465.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
Community partners are an integral part of most any successful program. At UNM’s College of Education in the Teacher Education Department, they are a vital component to the success of teacher education. The department recently recognized 40 individuals from 14 partner organizations at a Partners Appreciation luncheon who support the department through a variety of ways that help to put teachers in the classroom.
Photo: Assistant Professor Laura Haniford (l.) gives thanks to APS' Nikki Dennis during the CoE's Partner Appreciation luncheon. APS helps the CoE with classroom space for Elementary and Secondary Education.
“Partnerships are very important,” said UNM President David J. Schmidly as he commended the attendees during a welcome speech. “Without community partners, we would not be able to do all the work we do at UNM.”
Partners such as Albuquerque Public Schools, the Albuquerque Teacher’s Federation, Bernalillo County Open Space Program, Bob Turner’s Ford Country, public school districts in Gallup, Los Lunas, Rio Rancho and Wingate, Teach for America and a local herbalist were all recognized during a luncheon thanking the community partners.
“Our partners in the schools and in the community are invaluable to helping us educate future teachers,” said Marjori Krebs, assistant professor, Teacher Education. ”We could not do our work effectively without their support."
The partners support UNM through a numbers of ways and means including donating space to conduct meetings for elementary and secondary education, advertising professional development, assisting with communication and the recruitment of Master’s Teachers to work with Pre-service Teachers, Navajo Bilingual Endorsement, participation on Career Development Program selection, supporting the placement of teachers and helping to plan and share historic and environmental sites of Bernalillo County Open Space with pre-service teachers, and also supporting the Master’s Licensure Program and Teach for America New Mexico program.
Colleen Langan, Bernalillo County Open Space Coordinator, feels it’s important to use the environment to help bring future teachers up to speed. Open Space in Bernalillo County provides environmental education opportunities through environmental films, programs promoting conservation and an appreciation for the environment, and cultural and historical presentations highlighting New Mexico’s unique characteristics.
“Basically, with the challenges of No Child Left Behind, we are trying to help bring future teachers up to speed by providing educational opportunities in the environment,” said Langan. “We hope that by engaging teachers now that they will come back and connect students to our environment. We need to teach kids how to care for the Earth, air, water, culture and all aspects of our open space. We need them to protect and care for it.”
Media Contact: Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu
The University of New Mexico has plans in place to cover its third budget reduction in less than 12 months while avoiding layoffs and mandatory furloughs. In outlining those plans to the Board of Regents’ Finance and Facilities Committee, UNM President David J. Schmidly warned that any further cost reductions will necessitate fundamental restructuring of the organization.
“In the face of significantly reduced state funding and increasing expenses, we must focus carefully on our priorities and strategic objectives,” said Schmidly. “We must build a new model that will change the way we work, but not the quality of the work we do.”
To meet the most recent rescission approved during the special session of the New Mexico Legislature in October, UNM will use $3 million of surplus tuition from fall enrollment growth along with $3.741 million of stimulus money that has been pledged by Governor Bill Richardson after the first of the year.
In addition, $741,100 will come from reserves and $872,800 from special line item appropriations (the 6.5% cut to special projects approved by Legislature) to cover the total $8.355 million rescission for main campus. Schmidly said the use of one-time stimulus money and extra tuition dollars will protect fund balances in anticipation of future cuts in FY 2011.
This plan has been reviewed with the deans, various faculty leadership committees and other constituency groups and has their support.
While speaking of budget allocations, the President also noted that over the past two years, the university has allocated new revenues totaling $7,155,000 during the budget process. Of this amount, 94% or $6,705,000 went to academic initiatives, with the remaining 6% going to non-academic programs.
In planning for the three reductions over the past year, UNM has been committed to avoiding layoffs and mandatory furloughs; protecting the classroom and faculty lines; and holding harmless the research mission of the university, as well as special projects relating to ethnic support centers. At the same time, UNM pledged to keep tuition affordable for students, keep cost increases in its benefits package to a minimum, and reduce costs by becoming more efficient.
“All in all, I believe we have done a good job of meeting those commitments,” said Schmidly. “But moving forward with the likelihood of additional state funding cuts, it will become necessary to reevaluate our ability to continue all of these commitments.”
Schmidly called on all campus constituencies to engage in intense conversation about the challenges that lie ahead. He said the campus will have to look at changes that could possibly entail flattening the organization chart, re-thinking how teaching is done and courses are delivered.
“Such changes will inevitably involve people and their work and will be a difficult task,” said Schmidly.
The President called on the campus to carefully examine every dollar of I&G expenditure in light of how it supports the university’s core mission. He also urged the elimination of all new hiring for administrative and staff positions except those deemed mission critical.
This action would not apply to hiring faculty, in order to insure appropriate student/faculty ratio, high standards of instruction and support for degree completion. Noting the desire of some faculty for the development of a retirement incentive program, the President said the time was right to examine the cost of implementing such a plan, as it could help foster continued growth and diversity of the faculty.
Should additional cuts be deep enough, the President said some sort of tiered furlough plan might have to be considered.
Transformational change “will and must be done together, guided by our overarching strategic framework and values and implemented using time-tested university governance and administrative processes,” said Schmidly. “It is work that will require all of our engagement, as ideas are proposed, decisions are made and changes are implemented over time.”
Media Contact: Susan McKinsey, (505) 277-1807; e-mail: mckinsey@unm.edu
The H1N1 vaccine has made its way into New Mexico, but some questions are still being asked about the vaccine’s safety. This week on “New Mexico in Focus” medical providers talk about the vaccine and the unreliable nature of tracking the impact of the H1N1 virus in New Mexico. New Mexico in Focus airs Fridays at 7 p.m. on KNME, Channel 5.1. There will be no Sunday repeat this week due to the on-air membership campaign.
Joining host Gene Grant to discuss the H1N1 virus and vaccine are:
· Dr. Beverly Kloeppel, UNM Student Health & Counseling Director
· Dr. Roderick McVeety, ABQ Health Partners, Urgent Care Services Director
Then correspondent Terrie Q. Sayre looks at the concern that women are receiving mixed messages on preventative screenings for cervical and breast cancer. Discussing this potential problem with Sayre will be:
· Christi Rich, Susan G. Komen Foundation, Albuquerque Chapter Director
· Dr. Alan Waxman, Obstetrics & Gynecology Prof., UNM
This week, panelists on “The Line” weigh-in on Bernalillo County’s property tax lightning, the first days on the job for Albuquerque’s new mayor, Richard Berry, and take a look at military recruiting in our schools. On this week’s panel are:
· Matt Brix, Center for Civic Policy
· Suzanne Prescott, Producer, Insight New Mexico
· Sophie Martin, Managing Editor, Duke City Fix.Com
· Jim Scarantino, Investigative Analyst, Rio Grande Foundation
“New Mexico in Focus” takes a multi-layered look at social, political, economic, health, education, and arts issues and explores them in-depth, with a critical eye to give them context beyond the “news of the moment.”
New Mexico in Focus can also be seen on KNME’s Digital Channel 9.1 on Saturdays at 5 p.m. Additionally, viewers can also watch it online at: KNME.
“New Mexico in Focus” is produced by Kevin McDonald and Kathy Wimmer and closed captioning has been made possible by a gift from Mrs. Elspeth G. Bobbs.
Media Contact: Evy Todd, (505) 277-1812; e-mail: etodd@knme.org
Do you want to be one of the first on campus to be notified in the event of a weather delay/closure or campus emergency? If so, faculty, staff and students are encouraged to signup for TextMe UNM, the campuswide emergency notification system that is available for messages to the Albuquerque campus. The TextMe UNM system was one of the quickest ways information about UNM’s two-hour delay last Tuesday was disseminated.
Implemented in 2007, TextMe UNM is an opt-in text messaging system that provides UNM students, faculty and staff with fast, convenient, real-time message alerts.
The TextMe UNM messaging systems allows individuals to receive important campus information on your:
* Mobile Phone (via text messaging)
* Web Page
* E-mail
* Text Pager
* Google, AOL or My Yahoo Page
The TextMe UNM registration is for a default period of one year. Those subscribers who have signed up previously will receive a reminder to re-enroll to continue receiving alerts 30 days prior to your account expiration. Subscribers will receive a text message prompting you to log in to continue receiving emergency notifications.
If you have difficulty logging in, or have any questions, contact Information Technology Services CNS Customer Care at 277-1111 or visit Fast Info for assistance.
Media Contact: Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu
The Geological Society of America recently presented awards to University of New Mexico’s Karl Karlstrom and former student Jaime Barnes. Karlstrom, a professor in the Earth and Planetary Sciences (E&PS) Department, was recognized with the 2009 Distinguished Service Award, while Barnes, who is now an assistant professor at University of Texas at Austin, was recognized with the 2009 Subaru Outstanding Woman in Science Award.
Photo: Karl Karlstrom and Jaime Barnes.
The awards were presented at the Presidential Address and Awards ceremony at the Society’s annual meeting in Portland, Ore. recently.
Karlstrom was honored for his exceptional and longtime service on behalf of GSA publications. Karlstrom served as editor of GSA Today from 2000 to 2003, editor of GSA Bulletin from 2005 to 2008, and served on the editorial board of Geology from 1988 to 1991. Karlstrom was recognized for his leadership in upholding GSA’s reputation as a premier provider of geoscience information.
“I think my strongest sustained service to GSA has been my participation with my students in presenting talks and abstracts, leading field trips, chairing and organizing topical sessions, and otherwise being a supporter of the GSA National and Section meetings,” said Karlstrom. “It continues to be a pleasure to be part of both the scientific meetings and publishing aspects of GSA — a scientific society that emphasizes its membership and the science first.”
Karlstrom worked tirelessly to maintain the international stature of GSA Bulletin and helped to shape its niche as a prime outlet for high-impact, data-rich, archival papers. GSA Bulletin’s impact factor rose steadily during his tenure, and online delivery reduced publication lag time. He helped the journal to evolve and improve, paving the way for GSA’s new journals, Geosphere and Lithosphere.
Read Karlstrom’s complete citation and response at: Karlstrom GSA citation.
The GSA also recently recognized outstanding contributions from women and minorities. Barnes, received the 2009 Subaru Outstanding Woman in Science Award given in partnership with Subaru of America, Inc., and in memory of former GSA President Doris M. Curtis, recognizes a woman whose Ph.D. research has had a major impact on the geosciences.
“It is truly a great honor to receive the Subaru Outstanding Woman in Science Award in memory of Doris Curtis,” said Barnes. “I would like to thank GSA for this award and Subaru for their sponsorship. I am exceptionally grateful to be a member of a community so supportive of its young members and am humbled to accept this honor.”
Barnes' Ph.D. and ensuing postdoctoral fellowship at the University of New Mexico dealt with chlorine isotope geochemistry of a wide range of geological materials.
"Barnes resurrected, and has given relevance to, a geochemical technique first investigated almost 50 years ago," said UNM E&PS Professor Zachary Sharp, in citing her for the award. "After spending two years developing a method for extraction and analysis of chlorine isotope ratios from rocks, Barnes went on to address fundamental questions using this new analytical approach."
Read Barnes' complete citation and response at: Barnes GSA Citation.
Media Contact: Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu
Cynthia Martin in Parking and Transportation, and Jack Srouji in the Division of Human Resources, were recognized recently as 2009 HR Excellence Award recipients for their achievements. The Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) New Mexico State Council selected Martin to receive the Culture and Exchange Steward Award and Srouji to receive the Credible Activist Award.
The Culture and Exchange Award targets a professional who recognizes, articulates, and helps shape an organization’s culture. As a steward of culture, Martin respects the past culture while also helping to shape a new culture. She understands and applies the tools of organizational change, which always has cultural implications. By coaching managers on how their actions reflect and drive culture, Martin weaves the cultural standards into everyday practices and processes. Ultimately, she makes culture real to employees.
The Credible Activist Award targets a professional who is both credible (respected, admired, listened to) and active (offers a point of view, takes a position, challenges assumptions). Srouji was recognized as having both of these qualities. As an effective credible activist, he delivers results with integrity, shares information appropriately and effectively, builds relationships of trust and performs HR with an attitude.
As award recipients, these UNM employees will be recognized at the New Mexico Society of Human Resource Management State Conference in February 2010. For more information visit: State Conference.
Dean of University Libraries Martha Bedard presented Christine Jaramillo, a student in the Bachelor of University Studies program at UNM and a staff member at the Student Health Center a $100 Lobo Cash Card for completing the University Libraries’ LibQUAL+ survey.
Photo: Dean of University Libraries Martha Bedard and student Christine Jaramillo.
LibQUAL+ is a survey of satisfaction with library services used across the country. Several thousand invitations were sent by email to UNM students and faculty. As a non-traditional student, Jaramillo appreciates the digital services like e-reserves – available 24/7 - that make it easy for her to do class-work.
Jaramillo thought the survey asked important questions about library services.
The results of the survey indicate the library is particularly appreciated for recent initiatives that have increased electronic resources, expanded library hours and for the friendly and helpful staff. University Libraries will use the results of the survey to plan for future improvements to library services.
If you have questions about the survey or reward, contact Patricia Campbell at (505) 277-1010 or pcamp@unm.edu.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu
The UNM Economics Department will conduct a survey and group discussion in conjunction with the Bernalillo County Water Authority related to water infrastructure issues on Monday, Dec. 14 from 12 to 1 p.m. and Wednesday, Dec. 16, from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m.
Focus group participants will take a survey followed by the group discussion, which will be held in the UNM Economics Department. Survey qualifications include renting a home or apartment in a residence located within the Albuquerque ABCWUA District. Qualfied individuals will receive $30 for their participation.
Interested individuals should e-mail Heidi Pitts, hpitts@unm.edu or call (505) 277-0646.
Media Contact: Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu
Curandero program cited for bridging populations
Eliseo Torres, vice president for Student Affairs, was among those honored recently as New Mexico Heroes of Health by the Con Alma Health Foundation. The first "Hero of Health" award recognizes those who make a difference in our communities.
Photo: Fred Sandoval, Torres's nominator; Mary Louise Romero-Betancourt, another award recipient; and Torres at the Heroes of Health event.
Torres was nominated for this award by Fred Sandoval, Income Support Division director for the State of New Mexico, for his work with his Traditional Medicine Without Borders: Curanderismo in the Southwest & Mexico class held annually on the UNM campus.
Sandoval wanted to recognize Torres for bringing Mexican culture into New Mexico to help provide for the well-being of New Mexico’s residents, which includes immigrants.
“Recognition of traditional healing practices is important to a diverse community and this program provides access to care and support that otherwise might not be available to residents,” Sandoval said.
The class involves community service through traditional/integrative medicine health fairs (ferias de salud) conducted by Mexican traditional folk healers throughout the Albuquerque community and Northern New Mexico, including Santa Fe and Alcalde.
“Over 2,100 people participated in the ferias de salud this summer,” Sandoval said.
This summer was the first time healers were invited to participate at the University of Colorado/Metro State Denver campus.
"I was pleased that the program has been recognized as being effective and informs New Mexicans about a tradition that has been very much part of our culture for many years," Torres said.
Con Alma has had an Annual Grantee Recognition Event for the past eight years, but this was the first time they gave out individual awards. The event included a live webcast and statewide conversation on health with a keynote address by Senator Jeff Bingaman.
For more information contact Dorene DiNaro, 277-5299.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
UNM Title-V Educational Initiatives and the Office of Equity and Inclusion present, “Sharing Best Practices: Culture and Identity,” a showcase highlighting how diversity is embraced on campus, on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2010 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Student Union Building (specific location TBA).
“We invite all academic departments, student affairs and student organizations to participate by presenting or preparing an exhibit that focuses on practices that improve the campus climate for students, staff and faculty of all backgrounds and identities,” said Jozi De Leon, vice president, Equity and Inclusion.
Presentations or exhibits can include teaching methods, training modules used within departments, recruitment efforts and ways to support students, staff and faculty from underrepresented groups. “We are open to a variety of ways individuals and programs have embraced diversity,” De Leon said.
If interested in participating visit: Diversity Showcase to submit a proposal form. For more information, call Jennifer Gomez-Chavez at 277-7763.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy at UNM was awarded more than $1.1 million in federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to establish an Exploratory NCMHD Center of Excellence.
This award by the National Institute for Health and the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities is designed to bolster the health disparities research enterprise by engaging a broad range of partners in a variety of scientific efforts aimed at improving the health of individuals experiencing disparities in health status, while boosting the economy in communities around the country.
This two-year award provides the Center with additional funding for hiring staff, researchers, community members, and trainees with the goal of augmenting and expanding the capacity and infrastructure of the institution and community to engage in research to improve the health of the nation and for prepare the next generation of researchers.
“We are delighted to receive stimulus funding that will enable the hiring of additional researchers to support the mission of the RWJF Center for Health Policy,” said Suzanne Ortega, UNM executive vice-president for Academic Affairs and provost. “As the healthcare debate continues across the country, it is important for UNM to continue developing new and innovative interdisciplinary health policy research opportunities that seek to illuminate and eliminate the health disparities experienced by the underrepresented communities in our nation," she said.
The NCMHD funding will allow the RWJF Center for Health Policy to strengthen its mentorship and educational initiatives that focus on health research and racial and ethnic health. In addition the award is designed to expand the Center's existing programs in several ways, including:
Allow for the recruitment of advanced to candidacy graduate students (ABD students) to participate in the Center's intensive dissertation completion and mentoring program; which should rapidly increase the number of new minority researchers.
Provide additional for the recruitment of minority researchers from the social sciences at the post-doctoral level who may not have thought their work was relevant to eliminating health disparities; thereby increasing the pool for successful new faculty addressing racial and ethnic disparities.
Build the capacity to administer a "population laboratory" for the greater Albuquerque region that can support a wide range of research studies.
“Current disease prevention strategies focus largely on reducing individual risk factors. Perhaps more important is changing the social and economic environment that contribute to biological, emotional, and physical stress that underlie the increased risk of illness,” said Robert Otto Valdez, executive director of the RWJF Center for Health Policy and principal investigator for the grant.
“This NIH grant allows the RWJF Center to study how to build and enhance the positive factors in communities that builds community resilience by addressing the social, economic, and political issues that give rise to health inequities,” Valdez said.
The specific aims for the grant’s exploratory NCMHD Center of Excellence are as follows:
Provide new training and mentorship opportunities designed to assist junior faculty members and graduate students to conduct interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary research with a focused emphasis on how to write research proposals and manage funded proposals.
Develop opportunities that enable trainees to translate information from various federal research initiatives focused on improving neighborhoods and communities into real-life practice.
Establish networks among these trainees and nationally prominent research mentors. Assist trainees with various aspects of career development.
Foster regional partnerships to increase new opportunities to address health disparities research in rural settings and test a new community approach to address health disparities that focuses on building on the resilience of communities in vulnerable environments.
Media Contact: Victor Cornejo, (202) 276-9342; e-mail: victor@cornejocommunications.com
The UNM Latin American and Iberian Institute is soliciting submissions by faculty and graduate students for publication in the LAII's peer-reviewed, electronic Research Paper Series and Reference Works Series.
The Research Paper Series provides a venue for the publication of academic research. Relevant disciplines include Anthropology, Art History, Economics, Education, Gender, Cultural Studies, Geography, Health Sciences, History, Journalism, Linguistics, Literature, Music, Natural Sciences, Political Science, Sociology, and related fields. Interdisciplinary research is encouraged.
Submissions should focus on Latin America and/or Iberia (Spain and Portugal). Papers may be written in English, Spanish or Portuguese. Papers should be between 5,000-8,750 words, including notes and bibliography.
The Reference Works Series is a forum for bibliographies, book reviews, interviews, archival indices, catalogs, and other important material that is not suitable for publication as a research paper. For more information please refer to: Submission Guidelines.
A full-text archive of previously published titles is available at: Research Paper Series and Reference Works Series.
Attached for your convenience is the Call for Papers and Submission Guidelines. For further information, contact committees@laii.unm.edu.
But researchers find success in collaboration
A single bacterium can act alone, performing the same kinds of actions that a group normally does. The behavior of that bacterium can be manipulated at the cellular level. That’s the intriguing finding by a group of researchers from UNM, the Dartmouth Medical School, the New Mexico Veterans Health Care System, and Sandia National Laboratories. The results are reported in the Nov. 22 issue of Nature Chemical Biology. A possible application is halting drug resistant bacteria found in hospital settings.
Image: Cell isolated within a nanodrop.
The experiment completely isolated both chemically and physically, the individual Staphylococcus aureus bacteria in nanostructured droplets. UNM lecturer and former graduate student Eric C. Carnes and former undergraduate student DeAnna Lopez, the lead authors of the paper, examined thousands of cells as they searched for signs that an isolated bacterium could sense its surroundings by sending out and detecting chemical signals.
Detection of signals can trigger the switching of bacterial behavior from harmless to virulent.
“It is generally recognized that large populations, a quorum, of cells are necessary to turn on bacterial virulence, but by confinement of individual cells within a nanostructure we were able to show that this behavioral switch occurs at the individual cell level,” said Carnes.
The students were working as part of a research group led by C. Jeffrey Brinker, a Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Professor with a dual appointment in Molecular Genetics and Microbiologyand co-director of the Center for Micro-Engineered Materials at UNM and collaborators Hattie Gresham from the New Mexico Veterans Administration Health Care System and UNM adjunct professor in Infectious Disease and Graham S. Timmins, an Associate Professor at the College of Pharmacy. Niles P. Donegan and Ambrose Cheung from the Dartmouth Medical School provided the bacterial strains for the experiment.
The researchers showed not only can bacterium sense isolation; it can react on its own to the isolation by genetically reprogramming itself to adapt and thrive. The researchers then introduced a very low density lipoprotein, (that Professor Gresham’s group had shown to inhibit quorum sensing last year in Cell Host & Microbe) and were able to stop the reprogramming process.
Most research into bacteria behavior looks at how they behave as a group and general thought in the field has held that bacteria need a group, or quorum to become virulent and initiate infection. There are computer generated behavior models that predict the possibility of bacterium reacting as individuals to an isolated environment, but the researchers believe this is the first time behavior of an individual bacterium has been observed definitively.
The research is more than scientific curiosity. Each researcher is looking for something different. Brinker is interested in cell behavior.
“Can they live for a long time outside a body and in isolation? What mechanisms do they use to survive? And can we in general use nanostructures to influence cellular behavior,” Brinker asks.
The tests were carried out in an environment that was similar to a membrane that might be found in the tissue of a mammal, and that is what interested Gresham, who is interested in how diseases develop.
Timmins is interested in using the system to study tuberculosis, and maybe even creating a stable live tuberculosis vaccine. He has funding from the National Institutes of Health to study latency models for disease and says he has been very interested in the Darwinian aspects.
He says, “It seems like it would be very important for an individual cell to behave in a way that is important to its own interests. But cells are normally studied as a group, and this research puts the focus on the individual behavior of a bacterium in an interesting way.”
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu
The SNOW Hotline, 277-7669 (SNOW), was inaccessible to University Communication and Marketing staff this morning to change the message regarding the two-hour weather delay. Fortunately, the UNM homepage, text alerts and e-mails via the All-University and UNM News Minute listserves alerted most university community members.
The problem with the hotline was rectified and the message was updated as soon as possible.
UNM will utilize several communications methods in the event of a weather delay or closure. University Communication and Marketing will send out a message on the All-University list serve, post the alert and updated information on the UNM homepage, post a message on the UNM portal, issue a Special News Minute and a TextMe alert, and update the Snow Hotline at 277-7669 (SNOW).
Local media will also have the information.
Media Contact: Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu
Effective Monday, Jan. 4, 2010, the Lomas Parking Structure and pedestrian walkover between the structure and UNM Hospital will be accessible only to designated student, staff and faculty permit-holders who have a security card known as a “prox-card.” The initiative is the final phase of a shared UNMH and UNM Parking and Transportation Services security enhancement plan for the structure in response to user safety and security concerns.
“The Lomas Structure will feature state-of-the-art closed circuit television monitoring and prox-card access controls to ensure optimum security at all times,” said Cynthia Martin, PATS Program Planning Manager.
The prox-cards will grant access to the structure and to the Lomas walkover 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m., a high-security roll-down gate at the structure entrance grants access for users with the use of their prox-cards to provide additional security. The roll-down gate will grant access to only one vehicle at a time.
All Lomas Structure permit holders will be issued a prox-card. Since this is a significant transition in service at the Lomas Structure, PATS will maintain manned security at the structure 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday, and will have representatives on hand to assist users with how to use the new prox-card system from Jan. 4 – Jan 22.
TO USE THE PROX CARD
* Enter the driveway to the structure
* Stop at the Prox-Card reader
* Touch your card to the card reader
* Wait for the green light near the gate to come on
* Move toward the gate
* As you approach the gate, it will automatically open
* Drive through and park
You do not need to use the Prox-Card to exit.
Prox-cards must be used in conjunction with the display of the Lomas Structure permit. This permit should be displayed at all times. Prox-cards will be tied to specific individuals and must not be shared. Anyone found to be misusing their prox-card may receive a fine and/or lose their permit and access to the Lomas Structure. This policy will be strictly enforced to protect the interests of customers. There will be a $25 fee assessed for the replacement of a lost prox-card.
For more information visit: Parking and Transportation or 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
Parking and Transportation Services will close South Lot for the winter break beginning the last day of finals, Friday, Dec. 18 at 7 p.m., and provide revised shuttle service according to the schedule below, including service to the Student Support Services Center.
There will be no shuttle service during the UNM closure from Thursday, Dec. 24, through Sunday, Jan. 3, 2010 or on Martin Luther King Day, Monday, Jan 18. Regular shuttle hours and service will resume Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010.
December 14-18 (Finals Week): South Lot closes and shuttle service ends at 7 p.m. on December 18. South Lot will re-open at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, January 19, 2010.
December 21-23: Reduced shuttle service hours of 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. The SSSC shuttle service will follow the summer SSSC shuttle schedule.
December 24-January 3 (Winter Break): UNM is closed; no shuttle service.
January 4-15: Reduced shuttle service hours of 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday. The SSSC shuttle service will follow the summer SSSC shuttle schedule.
January 18 (UNM Holiday): UNM is closed for Martin Luther King Day; no shuttle service.
January 19: South Lot re-opens, PATS resumes regular shuttle hours and service.
For more information visit: Parking and Transportation or 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
KNME presents a new, hour-long program, Painting Taos, exploring the colorful history that allowed six relatively unknown painters, known as the Taos Society of Artists, to turn a small mountain village into a premiere American art destination in just a few short decades. Drawing from collections across the United States, Painting Taos shares masterpieces of this pioneering group of artists. Painting Taos premieres Monday, Dec. 7 at 7 p.m. statewide on all three New Mexico PBS stations.
In September 1898, two city slickers, Bert Phillips and Ernest Blumenschein, leave behind their lives as successful magazine illustrators in New York to head West. It’s not long before their muscles are aching, and their wagon wheels are breaking. When Blumenschein goes to look for help, he stumbles across the town of Taos. It’s an accident that will change his life-- and the future of New Mexico. They seize this inspiration and the two decide to end their journey right then and there. The Taos art colony is born.
Through interviews with avid collectors, as well as historians, and the artists’ direct descendents, learn how these young, ambitious artists set out to paint vivid images of the “vanishing” West for an American public on the brink of modernity.
With color photography still out of reach, America couldn’t get enough of their oversized, brightly colored canvases showcasing the wonders of the high desert vistas and the noble men and women of Taos Pueblo, seemingly untouched by time….but not for long. The documentary will also explore how the artists’ unique relationship with railroad advertising departments helped turn their paintings of an isolated Taos into iconic images –while at the same time beckoning the outside world in.
At the heart of this documentary, are the artists’ own work and their own words. Digital filming allows amazing views of the art masterpieces of this era. Their letters and diaries provide intimate details of their struggle to build careers in a rough frontier town and their ongoing love affair with the crisp air of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and muddy streets of the Taos Pueblo. This documentary is complemented by beautiful location footage of their studios and the sites where some of their most famous paintings were created, as well as family photographs and draft sketches, many never publicly seen before.
This is a story of Taos—the one of a kind place that inspired two dusty travelers to change plans, and continues to provide painters, filmmakers, jewelers, and musicians with that “unforgettable inspiration.”
Stations airing the special premiere include KNME, Ch. 5 (northern & central NM), KENW- Portales, Ch.3 (eastern NM) and KRWG- Las Cruces, Ch. 22 (southern NM.). Painting Taos was made possible in part by The Albuquerque Tricentennial Committee, First Community Bank, and Randy Briggs.
The United Way Prize Patrol will be in the Student Union Building this Thursday, Dec. 10, from Noon to 1 p.m. giving away more gifts to those wearing their United Way lapel pin. Among the prizes are Starbuck cards, UNM T-shirts, totes, pens and more.
Anyone who donates to the 'Live United' campaign during the month of November also will be eligible for the great prizes courtesy of Popejoy Presents, Lobo men's basketball and UNM Bookstore gift certificates.
Remember to turn in your pledge forms and wear your pin in a visible spot for your chance at winning some super stuff.
For more information visit: UNM's United Way campaign.
At arts sales by the Tamarind Institute and UNM Department of Art and Art History faculty and students, holiday shoppers can find one-of-a-kind gifts while supporting the arts. The Tamarind’s Holiday Haul It Away Sale offers hundreds of original lithographs created 1970-2003 by internationally recognized artists at discounts of 50 percent or more.
Image: Passion Flower I, Emmi Whitehorse, 2008
The sale will be at the Tamarind Gallery, 110 Cornell Drive SE, Friday, Dec. 11, noon-7 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 12, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Call (505) 277-3901 or visit Tamarind Institute.
The Art/Art History and Tamarind Student Print Sale includes low-priced lithographs, etchings, monoprints, silkscreens and photographs, Thursday, Dec. 10-Saturday, Dec. 12, 9 a.m.-7 p.m. at the Art and Art History building, room 142. Call (505) 277-5359.
The Graduate Art Association Auction features sculpture, painting, photography, printmaking and more by UNM faculty and graduate students, Wednesday, Dec. 16, 4-8 p.m. at the SCA Gallery, 524 Haines NW. Refreshments and entertainment by the Albuquerque Boy Choir will be provided. Call (505) 277-6672.
The University of New Mexico graduated 55 percent of the student-athletes who enrolled at UNM as freshmen during the 2002-03 school year - a mark 12 percent higher than the graduation mark (43 percent) for all students who enrolled at UNM as freshmen during the same period.
These numbers were released in November by the NCAA and reflect the graduation rate for the general student population of a university and also the graduation rate for student-athletes.
"We value student achievement in the classroom and on the field of play," said UNM President David J. Schmidly. "For our student-athletes, graduating is the greatest victory."
The 43 percent rate includes student-athletes, which means the graduation rate of the Lobo student-athlete helped bring up the all-student rate at UNM.
"When I came to New Mexico, it was a major concern and an immediate goal to increase those graduation numbers," said Paul Krebs, UNM Vice President for Athletics.
"Obviously, we want success in competition, but any success in athletics is tainted, if your student-athletes aren't successful in the classroom. This improvement is a testament to our athletes, to our coaches, and to the academic support system that embraces our student-athletes from Day One."
The Lobos' grades have continued to climb under Krebs' administration. He inherited a program that posted a 37 percent graduation rate in 2006, a rate based on student-athletes who enrolled at UNM in 1999-2000. It went to 51 percent in 2007 (charting 2000-01 freshmen), 50 percent in 2008 (2001-02 freshmen), and 55 percent in 2009 for the 2002-03 freshmen class.
Krebs said that five percent jump from 2008 to 2009 is significant, but Lobo athletics is shooting for another five percent leap.
"When I met with Paul Krebs about establishing a realistic graduation rate, we set our first goal at 60 percent," said Henry Villegas, assistant athletics director in charge of academics.
"We were around 50 percent (in 2007) and we thought a reasonable goal was a 10 percent jump. Once we get to there, we'll shoot higher."
The Lobos also have seen significant jumps in the Graduation Success Rate (GSR) since the pre-Krebs' days. The GSR factors in transfer athletes (coming and going), while the aforementioned federal rate (55 percent) only tracks incoming freshmen. The Lobos' overall GSR was 72 percent.
In fact, every Lobo sport tracked moved in a positive GSR direction since 2006:
Baseball: 2006 - 50 percent; 2009 - 58 percent.
Football: 2006 - 43 percent; 2009 - 53 percent.
Men's basketball: 2006 - 7 percent; 2009 - 43 percent.
Men's track: 2006 - 55 percent; 2009 - 75 percent.
Women's basketball: 2006 - 80 percent; 2009 - 92 percent.
Women's track: 2006 - 71 percent; 2009 - 85 percent.
The jump in Lobo male graduation rates (GSR) went from 48 percent in 2006 to 60 percent in 2009. The women jumped from 76 percent to 88 percent over that same period.
"Paul Krebs and Tim Cass (Senior Associate AD) are adamant about our athletes becoming honor students," said Ray Birmingham, UNM's head baseball coach. "And this isn't just talk. They do everything humanly possible to stress to the coaches and our athletes that this is an institution of higher learning. That always comes first."
A few specific sports made some drastic jumps in their Graduation Success Rates from the previous season. Men's basketball's 43 percent in 2009 was an increase of 16 percent from the 27 percent rate of 2008. Women's basketball's 92 percent Graduation Success Rate was a leap of 13 percent from the 79 percent posted in 2008.
"We're heading in the right direction," said Villegas. "We can't do what we do here (academics), if we don't have the discipline from the coaches and the expectations from the administration.
The Lobos set a school-record GPA of 3.14 in the fall of 2008 and backed that with a 3.12 GPA in the spring of 2009 - the second highest all-time for that grading period. UNM had 13 of its 17 sports registering a 3.0 or higher in the spring of 2009.
The UNM Bookstore again features 3-Point Thursdays during basketball season through Feb. 25, 2010. The special shopping day provides a 30 percent discount on purchases of $30 or more of regularly priced Lobowear and Lobo Spirit merchandise. Three-point Thursdays are available at both the main campus and north campus locations.
For more information or to shop online visit: UNM Bookstore.
Anne Yegge, chair of the Board of Trustees of the University of New Mexico Foundation, announced today that John Stropp, President and CEO of the UNM Foundation, has informed her of his intention to retire at the end of the fiscal year ending June 30, 2010.
Photo: John Stropp
Stropp indicated that his core initiative, overseeing the transition of the development staff (fund raising) comprised of approximately 100 employees from the University to a separate 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, has been completed. His development of a plan to prepare the University and Foundation to initiate the public phase of a major university-wide campaign in the fall of 2010 will be in place by next summer.
Stropp noted that this is an appropriate time for him to make a responsible transition to retirement and provide for an orderly succession plan to hire the next Foundation president by the summer of 2010. “We will want that person to assume leadership as the Foundation enters the new school year and also the public phase of the campaign next fall,” said Stropp.
Stropp indicated he has greatly enjoyed the challenge and satisfaction of coordinating this effort for the benefit of UNM and said the hard work and commitment of the Development staff, Foundation Board of Trustees, Board of Regents and University personnel have been crucial in its success. “It is a pleasure to work here, but my job is essentially complete and I look forward to retirement and making way for new long-term leadership,” said Stropp in response to his plan to retire.
Yegge indicated that it has been a pleasure for the Board of Trustees to work with Stropp during this transition process and felt that the Foundation is now well positioned to move to the next phase.
Media Contact: Jill Zack, (505) 277-9075; e-mail: jzack@unmfund.org
The Public Service Company of New Mexico has donated $25,000 to the Solar Car team at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department in the UNM School of Engineering. The money will be used to buy electrical components for the car.
Photo: 2009-10 UNM Solar Race Car Team
Research Assistant Professor Olga Lavrova is mentoring 10 students as they raise money and design a car they hope to race cross country next summer. She says the students will design similar systems to the ones that are now used in some commercial electrical hybrids.
Lavrova says the students will be competing with 20 to 40 teams from other universities in a combination racetrack-cross country event. It will begin on the Texas Motor Speedway then will travel cross country from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Chicago, Illinois.
This is the second solar car team that UNM has fielded. They are hoping to raise another $30,000 so that all the members of the team can travel to the race.
More details can be found here
Media contact: Karen Wentworth (505) 277-5627; kwent2@unm.edu
One of the most celebrated authors of our time, Margaret Atwood, who penned such classics as “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Oryx & Crake,” sits down with his week, New Mexico in Focus host Gene Grant. Her longtime partner Graeme Gibson, also an accomplished author, will join Atwood. The literary duo will talk about their latest works, both of which focus on humankind’s relationship to the environment. New Mexico in Focus airs Fridays at 7 p.m. on KNME, Channel 5.1. There will be no Sunday repeat this week due to the on-air membership campaign.
This week, The Line panelists, including Sophie Martin, managing editor, Duke City Fix.Com and Jim Scarantino, investigative analyst, Rio Grande Foundation, will discuss the controversy over New Mexico’s noncompliance with the national REAL ID Act; a new round of ethics reform proposals; and a proposal to tie teens’ ability to get a driver’s license to their report cards.
This week’s guest panelists include Arthur Alpert, ABQJournalWatch.com and Lonnie Talbert, former chairman, Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce.
“New Mexico in Focus” takes a multi-layered look at social, political, economic, health, education, and arts issues and explores them in-depth, with a critical eye to give them context beyond the “news of the moment.”
New Mexico in Focus can also be seen on KNME’s Digital Channel 9.1 on Saturdays at 5 p.m. Additionally, viewers can also watch it online at: KNME.
“New Mexico in Focus” is produced by Kevin McDonald and Kathy Wimmer and closed captioning has been made possible by a gift from Mrs. Elspeth G. Bobbs.
Media Contact: Evy Todd, (505) 277-1812; e-mail: etodd@knme.org
Following months of deliberation, staff members at the University of New Mexico Press recently learned that the Press’s customer service and warehouse operations will remain in house for the time being. The possibility of outsourcing order fulfillment operations was first announced in April of this year in an effort to develop a more sustainable business model for the Press as a result of lagging sales and to preserve the fundamental mission of the Press.
UNM Press received four responses to the RFP it submitted in August. Wynn Goering, vice provost, wrote to UNM Press staff on Nov. 18, “In the end, Provost Ortega and I felt that the…marginal cost savings, combined with one-time moving charges and inevitable disruptions to [Press] operations, made outsourcing an undesirable option at this time.”
Goering added that “the RFP process was instructive and suggested some areas for our attention as we continue to pursue our goal of moving UNM Press to sounder financial footing.”
In response to the decision, Richard Schuetz, the Press’s associate director for Business Operations, said, “While the past few months have been stressful for employees, many of our client publishers, who depend on us to distribute their books, as well as a number of local customers were concerned how outsourcing would impact them. We’re obviously pleased with the outcome.”
He added, “We plan to use information from the RFP process to improve our operations, but we were particularly encouraged by how well we compared with the bidders in terms of the quality of our service.”
As a result of the poor economy, sales of Press books last fiscal year dropped about 18 percent from the totals of the previous two years. However, Press Director Luther Wilson said, “Press sales for the first four months of the new fiscal year are about 11 percent ahead of the same period for last year so we’re cautiously optimistic about FY10.”
While this doesn’t ensure smooth sailing for UNM Press, “I’m encouraged by our first quarter results,” Goering concluded in his memo. “The Press remains a great strategic asset to the university and the state of New Mexico. We are committed to keeping it that way.”
With 25 full and part time regular employees and more than 900 titles in print, UNM Press is the largest book publisher in New Mexico.
For more information contact Katherine MacGilvray, UNM Press Publicity (505)277-3291 or e-mail, katm@unm.edu
Los Reyes de Albuquerque, familiar to many from the KUNM documentary, present a farewell concert on Saturday, Dec. 5 at 7:30 - 10:30 p.m. at the Outpost Performance Space, 210 Yale SE. Tickets are $10, and $5 for members and students.
Photo: Roberto Martinez, Sr.
Los Reyes de Albuquerque celebrate the 80th birthday and the last performance of the group's co-founder and patriarch, Roberto Martinez, Sr. Acknowledged as the longest-lived, most influential traditional New Mexican Hispanic musical group, this concert will make for a special evening.
The program includes a 30 minute documentary film by Genevieve Russell and Paul Ingles. For more visit: Los Reyes.
Vice President Cheo Torres and the Division of Student Affairs aim to help feed New Mexico’s hungry this season by donating to the Roadrunner Food Bank. They invite others across campus to participate by donating non-perishable food items between now and Friday, Dec. 18.
Donate at the following locations...
Accessibility Resource Center, Mesa Vista Hall Rm. 2021
CEOP, 1921 Las Lomas NE
CEOP Outreach, Mesa Vista Hall Rm. 3011
COSAP, Mesa Vista Hall Rm. 3059
Navy ROTC, 720 Yale NE
Student Affairs, Scholes Hall 1st Floor by the President’s Office
Student Activities Center, Student Union Bldg. Rm. 1018
Student Housing & Residence Life, La Posada
Title V, 1716 Las Lomas
Women’s Resource Center, Mesa Vista Hall Rm. 1160
For more information contact Dorene DiNaro at (505) 277-5299 or Francisco Certain at (505) 277-0952.
Vera Norwood, professor, American Studies, recently received the Mary C. Turpie Award, an award named for the late Mary C. Turpie, co-founder, chair, and for many years, the guiding force behind the American Studies Program at the University of Minnesota. The award is given by the American Studies Association.
Photo: Vera Norwood
Established in 1993, the award goes annually to a member of the profession who has demonstrated outstanding abilities and achievement in American Studies teaching, advising and program development at the local or regional level.
Norwood, at UNM since 1992, chaired the program from 1993-1999. Bill Mullen, director of American Studies at Purdue, said, “Under her leadership, the University of New Mexico has grown to become a regional and national leader in American Studies. Professor Norwood has helped link geographical and intellectual specificity in both the UNM American Studies program, and Southwest studies more broadly. In many ways, the current place-bound field of American Studies, which held its 2008 meeting in Albuquerque, has followed suit.”
In his nomination letter, current UNM American Studies chair Alex Lubin reports that as chair of American Studies at UNM Norwood grew the program from four to seven faculty lines, while championing the diversification of the American Studies faculty. She revised both the undergraduate and graduate programs, developed new scholarships for students, and served leadership roles in the Rocky Mountain American Studies Association and the national ASA as Chair of the Committee on Programs.
Perhaps most notable in her service at the local and national level is Norwood’s deep and early commitment to Environmental Studies. Norwood created a departmental emphasis in Environment, Science and Technology in collaboration with the Dean of Engineering. In 1987, Norwood co-edited with Janice Monk “The Desert is No Lady: Southwestern Landscape in Women’s Writing and Art,” and in 1993, the year she assumed leadership of the UNM program, she published “Made From This Earth: American Women and Nature.”
In her letter of support for Norwood’s Turpie nomination, Professor Emerita of American Literature and Culture Annette Kolodny called “The Desert is No Lady” as ”nothing short of a milestone in the study of women’s relationship to landscape and physical environments,” and called “Made From This Earth” a “landmark” study.
Norwood has supplemented a distinguished record of publishing and program building with exemplary political public service at the local and regional level, acting as both project director and planner on the New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women. Closer to home, she is a master gardener and member of the New Mexico Native Plant Society.
Mullen said, “This year’s Mary Turpie Award then is truly a green award for a scholar who has made from and on this earth an extraordinary record of conscious and conscientious achievement and service.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
The UNM community is reminded that the UNM Bookstore's Faculty and Staff Appreciation Day is Friday – Dec. 4 at its main and north campus locations. The main campus bookstore will be open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., while the north campus store will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Great savings can be found throughout both stores including 50 percent off select hoodies (while supplies last), 30 percent off all regularly priced Lobowear and spirit merchandise, 25 percent off all calendars and planners and a $9.99 Skullcandy Ink'd headphone (while supplies last).
This year's Official UNM Holiday Ornament will also be available. The second in a series of collectibles, the 2009 ornament features the Duck Pond, designed in 1974 by landscape architect Garrett Eckbo as part of a new mall extending from the east side of the Student Union to the west side of the Alumni Memorial Chapel.
The ornament is available in the store and on the website for $18.89, a price set in honor of UNM's founding year. All proceeds benefit the UNM Parent Association. For more information or to purchase online visit: 2009 Official UNM Holiday Ornament.
Additionally, the main campus bookstore will also host a meet and greet book signing from noon - 2 p.m. For a list of authors participating visit: Author Event for Faculty/Staff Appreciation Day.
Cider, refreshments and free gift wrapping will also be part of the festivities. Shoppers are also encouraged to stop by either before and after Hanging of the Greens, which begins outside the main campus UNM Bookstore at 5:45 p.m.
For more information visit: UNM Bookstores.
Information Technologies will conduct open forum question-and-answer sessions for the top three IT Networks Director candidates. All open forums, which are open to the UNM community, will take place in the Roberts Room at Scholes Hall. The dates and times of the forums are below.
Monday, Dec. 7, 1 p.m.
Paul Bay, former IT Director at Capital Group Companies, Irvine, Calif.
Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2:30 p.m.
Vinette Ashford, former IT Director at the University of Chicago and former CIO at Tuskegee University, Ala.
Tuesday, Dec. 15, 1 p.m.
Elliott Jolesch, former IT Director for Detroit Public Schools, Detroit, Mich.
The IT Networks Director will oversee all networking, wireless, cable, voice, fire alarms and physical security networks, as well as ABQ-G Gigapop and the Lambda Rail network. The candidates were chosen from a pool of 43 highly qualified applicants. The successful candidate will start in early-2010.
For more information, contact Michael Carr, Search Committee Chair, at 277-1212.
Media Contact: Vanessa Baca, (505) 277-0987; e-mail: vjbaca1@unm.edu
Cadets to assist with ABQ Children’s Home Christmas Auction
On Thursday, Dec. 10 at 3:30 p.m., UNM Army ROTC cadets will step forward to receive awards as they prepare to contract to become Army officers. The awards highlight accomplishments achieved during their time as UNM Army ROTC cadets. They went through background checks, medical exams and passed a physical fitness test to contract. They will take their oath in front of their peers at the ceremony, which is set to take place in the UNM Student Union Building Lobo rooms A&B.
On Friday, Dec. 18 at 9:30 a.m. at UNM Continuing Education, December graduates from all ROTC programs will be commissioned as officers. Army cadets include Cadet Gabriel Montoya, Cadet Tyler Cormier, Cadet Michael Collins and Cadet Michael Kots.
In keeping with the spirit of the season, UNM Army ROTC recently helped the Albuquerque Christian Children’s home set up for their Christmas auction. “Six cadets spent their free time setting up and organizing the event,” said Cadet Public Affairs Officer James McBreen.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
University of New Mexico faculty across disciplines collaborated on the book “Santa Fe Nativa: A Collection of Nuevomexicano Writing.” The editors, Gabriel Meléndez, American Studies, Enrique Lamadrid, Spanish and Portuguese and Chicano/Hispano/Mexicano Studies, and Rosalie Otero, Honors will discuss and sign copies of the book Saturday, Dec. 5 at 2 p.m. at the Roy E. Disney Center for Performing Arts at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, 1701 4th St. SW. The event is free and open to the public.
The book illuminates the view of Nuevomexicanos of Santa Fe as once traditional and now increasingly developed and transformed by its orientation toward tourism and high-end shopping. Historical maps document places now changed or gone and Santa Fe’s neighborhoods are described from the point-of-view of the Hispano native.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
Students can register for the 2011 FSAE race car program during the coming spring 2010 semester. The program had been placed temporarily on hold, but a re-evaluation of financial resources will allow it to continue.
Photo: UNM students involved with the School of Engineering's FSAE race car program.
Dean of the School of Engineering Arup Maji said, “I am optimistic that given the value of hands-on design experiences, we will be able to engage all internal and external stakeholders and keep such programs viable in the future.”
The program had been in jeopardy because UNM was finding it difficult to find the money to cover the $70,000 cost of the program. UNM’s program covers three semesters and is more extensive than the programs used by other schools.
“I’m just happy for the students,” said Professor John Russell. “This allows for the continuation of the program next year and gives us more time to address the long-term future of the program.”
FSAE students worked hard to save the program, which allows undergraduate mechanical engineering students to design, build and race a formula one race car as their senior project.
The program has had great success in placing graduates in jobs after graduation. Russell says the program focuses on a team approach to building the car and students find the experience of performing as part of a team particularly useful as they move into industry jobs after graduation.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu
Hugh Garavan, an associate professor in the School of Psychology at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland will present a talk at MRN on Dec. 10. Titled, “The neurobiology of cognitive control and its role in addiction,” the talk will begin at 11:45 a.m. in the MRN large conference room. MRN is located in Pete and Nancy Domenici Hall on UNM’s North Campus.
Photo: Hugh Garavan
Garavan will summarize the results of a number of neuroimaging studies on executive functions, that is, those cognitive processes involved in controlling behavior. Specific focus will be placed on inhibitory control and performance monitoring and the evidence of their neuroanatomical dissociation.
These findings provide a foundation for studying individual differences in control and for studying clinical conditions such as addiction which are typically characterized by deficits in behavioral control. The talk will focus on what role these control functions have in drug dependence,in risk of dependence and in relapse.
In addition to his Trinity College appointment, Garavan is also assistant clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, at the Medical College of Wisconsin and research scientists at Nathan Kline Institute in New York.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu