Graduate student government members said goodbye and ate gooey burritos during their last meeting of the semester Saturday morning.
They discussed next year’s plans to allocate $100,000 the group received from the Legislature for graduate research into $1,000 to $5,000 awards.
Since few showed up to the meeting, and the council lacked the number of members required to vote, they decided to have an informal discussion during breakfast in the Willard Reading Room of Zimmerman Library.
Nancy Brown from the Center of Southwest Research was a guest speaker at the meeting and said the Center for Regional Studies and Southwest Research has nine fellowships available for graduate students worth $12,000 each.
She encouraged the Graduate and Professional Student Association members to spread the word before the fellowship’s deadline, which is May 18, 2001.
Brown said graduate students who are interested in local history should apply because recipients will work with various archives and collections, some of which include Spanish colonial documents, Latin American political posters and Navajo chants.
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For more information, call Marilyn Fletcher at 272-7212 or e-mail her at mfletch@unm.edu.
After learning about the fellowships, council members looked over a worksheet prepared by Council Chairman Hector Balderas outlining the Graduate Research Development Fund Committee’s plans to allocate $100,000. A panel will give 15 research projects during a two-year period with awards ranging from $1,000 to a “high-priority” $5,000 award.
The “high-priority” awards will go to recipients who will collaborate with public agencies or directly impact New Mexico communities.
Balderas said some recipients will be asked to present their awards to the Legislature as a way to lobby for future funding.
“We need to impress people of all ideologies with this money,” he said.
Annie Shank, a council representative from the English Department, suggested using money from other GPSA grants to fund research on how GPSA grants affect the state.
Shank has been involved with GPSA for about five years but will not be returning after graduation this semester.
She thanked the council for its hard work and contribution to her learning experiences at UNM.
