UNM West provides community with quality faculty, services

Editor,

I work at UNM West in Rio Rancho. Apparently, UNM West was presented as an item of discussion and controversy during the faculty meeting last week.

The citizens of Rio Rancho passed a tax bill to allocate money for the building of a campus in Rio Rancho. Moreover, many of the citizens of Rio Rancho are extremely pleased that UNM has begun the process of building a higher-education location based on their passage of the tax bill. Moreover, the Sandia Foundation has decided to assist the city of Rio Rancho based on its desire and need for higher education by funding the building of the new UNM West location near the Rio Rancho City Center. The new UNM West building will house academic classrooms, library services and the beginning of the UNM Sandoval County Hospital. UNM is wanted and desired in Rio Rancho. In addition, institutions such as Hewlett-Packard and Intel have stated that they wish to obtain education for their employees and families at the UNM West campus. At this point, there is no discussion of adding additional staff to our small staff.

UNM West is considered a part of Main Campus. The money we obtain each semester goes to the UNM Main Campus. Many of my students live, work and raise children in Rio Rancho. Many of my students do not have the opportunity to drive to and from Main Campus, take courses, maintain their incomes and raise their families due to the amount of time required to travel to and from Main Campus.

UNM West has been providing education to the city of Rio Rancho and the West Side for the last 10 years.

Our staff is fairly small: six full-time staff and two instructional assistants. We offer more than 50 courses each semester with our current staff. We are proud of the services we provide to UNM students that live on the West Side of Albuquerque and Rio Rancho. In addition, we have a strong senior citizen student population who enrolls in courses with us each semester. Many of our students work in Rio Rancho, the West Side, Santa Fe and other far locations. As a result of our location, these students are able to finish their education with UNM.

I do not feel it is appropriate for individuals (staff, faculty and others) to speak of UNM West without reviewing our statistics, our student comments, Rio Rancho community members' comments, the comments of individuals who have and are teaching courses with UNM West, and asking those of us who work at UNM West for our comments, achievements and success stories.

UNM West provides the West Side and Rio Rancho communities a great service with the assistance of wonderful faculty and staff members. The Rio Rancho community has spoken loudly and clearly (through the passage of the tax bill) that they desire UNM in their community.

We are a highly successful portion of the UNM Main Campus. UNM West is a very proud portion of UNM. Each staff member attempts to assist students and faculty by providing important information and services each semester. In addition, the UNM faculty and instructors who teach for UNM West are proud of their work and involvement with students.

Sherri R. Barrett

UNM West adviser