Graduate student Jennifer Follstad Shah would not have been able to conduct research about Rio Grande water use and how its movement affects wildlife without outside funding.
Shah and seven other graduate students are implementing projects that work with state agencies or nonprofit organizations. They have been awarded $24,000 for research projects that work with state agencies, tapping into a funding the Legislature allocated two years ago to the Graduate and Professional Student Association.
"It's very exciting because this is the first time I have received funding as a graduate student," said Shah, who is a doctoral student in the Freshwater Sciences Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program. "I had been wanting to do this for awhile, but wasn't sure how I could get it funded. This was perfect."
She will use the $4,622 she was awarded to pay for aerial photography and satellite imagery, which will allow her to more accurately decipher water flow and how it effects vegetation and wildlife.
"It's an expensive project, but it's one that can really benefit the community by giving us a more accurate view of our water resources and the effects of our water use," she said.
GPSA President Rachel Jenks and fund administrator Keith Valles, both third-year law students, said they received an overwhelming response to the fund after establishing a distribution process for the $100,000 in the middle of the fall semester.
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"We gave students about four weeks to turn in proposals and we got some amazing applications," Valles said.
One of those was from graduate student Joanne Eekhoff, who was once a school social worker and is now getting her master's degree in architecture. She has turned her passion for schools into a project during which she will monitor how well the state Legislature's formula for allocating construction funds works for rural schools. The model is based on a square foot per student formula, which Eekhoff said does not necessarily work well for more spread out populations.
"I'm going to observe these schools and seek community input on what their construction and maintenance needs are and how to better meet them," she said.
Eekhoff's inspiration came from conversations with legislators who described a need for better assessment of how appropriations are being used. She secured $3,211 for her research.
Since Eekhoff was planning to study in Denmark during the summer, she will continue her research there, observing rural schools that use a more community-based formula for teaching and that she suspects might work well in New Mexico.
Sociology graduate student Jason Ben-Meir says he and some peers in a racial and ethnic relations course could not leave their work in the classroom, prompting them to start a nonprofit organization that received $1,882.
"We just had such stimulating conversations and knew that we had to take this from an academic exercise to something that can really benefit our community," he said. "Now we have this money that really is just the first door that opened from which we can embark and do a lot more in the community as a self-sustaining nonprofit organization."
Ben-Meir and a few other students will work with 40 homeless women who will be asked to participate in a variety of hands-on activities to see what institutions in the community work well for them and which don't.
"We basically are allowing them to lead us through what they need and establishing what problems they face and opportunities they have to help themselves," he said.
Graduate student Nancy Darbro supervises a treatment program for chemically dependent nurses that allows them to seek help confidentially before being forced out of the medical profession. She will use the $3,000 she was awarded to find out why some nurses are successful in the treatment program but others leave.
Darbro said she knows that some are forced out because they cannot stop their substance abuse problems, but others leave because the stressful nursing profession was a catalyst for their problems.
"It's sad, but something that the New Mexico Board of Nursing needs to know more about so that it can better serve the public and these nurses who work in a demanding field," she said.
Law student Chris Collins' project was awarded $4,000 and also builds on an existing program. He will research how well ethics programs worked for small business owners.
"We want to see how it has affected their personal and professional lives to determine whether the program is working," he said. "It's an exciting chance to see how the community responds to these ideas that often aren't taught outside of the classroom."
Valles said GPSA is still distributing grants to students who are working on projects independently and hopes to announce the recipients by the first week of February. He added that the program will again be offered in the fall but that the group is seeking $300,000 from the Legislature to expand the program and continue it beyond next year.
He said that 49 applications were turned in for the program, with 12 of them given high priority for working with state agencies, and $117,763 was requested out of $44,000 available.
"The only frustrating part about this exciting program is that we don't have nearly enough money to fund all the fantastic grant proposals," he said. "That's why we will ask those who received money and those interested in having it to talk with their legislators about the value of giving graduate students this funding. It helps the state and it helps us."
