The Daily Lobo spoke with ASUNM President Jaymie Roybal about ASUNM’s plans for this year. Roybal outlined both long- and short-term goals for the University.
Short-Term Goals
ASUNM Website — More than half of the semester has already passed and ASUNM’s website still isn’t up and running. The site displays spring election results and reads “Have a good summer” on the main page. Roybal said the site isn’t up yet because it is being completely revamped.
“Previously the website had to be redesigned each year, with each new webmaster,” she said. “We are looking for something permanent that is easy to amend. My vice president and I made the decision to have the University build the website.”
ASUNM signed a contract with University Web Communication Services for 67 hours of work on the site, estimated to cost $3,350. “Most likely it will cost less, but we budgeted for this amount to ensure everything could be completed,” Roybal said.
Student Participation naming new Residence Halls — ASUNM passed a resolution requesting Administration allows students to take part in naming new residence halls, after the Casas Del Rio project was named without consulting students.
“It’s a student resident hall, students should name the buildings,” Roybal said. “The administration has been supportive and is going to allow students to name them.”
Roybal said she also hopes to work with American Campus Communities and University Administration on design features of the new buildings. She said ACC sent representatives to ASUNM meetings earlier last year and showed them a number of possible designs for the residence halls.
UNM day at the Legislature and Tuition Credit — On Jan. 30, students can present proposals and requests before the State Legislature during the Legislature’s annual UNM day in Santa Fe.
Roybal said ASUNM’s focus for this year is to persuade legislators to permanently remove UNM’s tuition credit. “The tuition credit basically says that the state will take a portion of UNM’s tuition and will allocate it to any other agency they wish,” she said.
“It’s basically a tax on students. You are being taxed for attending higher education. Students shouldn’t be used to balance the state budget.”
ASUNM will provide free lunch at Tomasitas Mexican Restaurant in Santa Fe and a free Railrunner ticket to participating students.
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Long-Term Goals
Improved Lighting on Campus — Roybal said ASUNM plans to improve on-campus lighting as part of a safety initiative. “We are requesting capital funds from the state to improve lighting on campus,” she said. “It’s a work in progress and we can’t guarantee it, but we’ve had some issues with safety before and that is one of my main priorities. We are working on getting a proposal put together to figure out how much this costs.”
Bike Share — Roybal said her primary long-term goal is creating a campus bike-share program. The proposed program would allow students to rent bicycles from various electronic pay kiosks on campus.
“That is my number one right now,” she said. “We always talked about being alternative transportation-friendly, but I don’t see a lot of evidence of that and I think this is a good proactive way to do something about it. A student could rent a bike from a resident hall and go to Nob Hill … then return it at a different location if they wanted.”
Roybal said the project is in its early development stages, so cost estimates and locations are not yet available. She said she plans to seek private funds to aid in cost reduction, and is considering placing advertising space on the kiosk and bikes.
Keeping Tuition Low — Roybal said she disagrees with the Administration over tuition hikes. She said she is working to keep price increases to a minimum. “I met this girl in my class who said she was taking 21 credit hours this semester to graduate because she couldn’t afford to stay another semester with a tuition raise,” she said. “These are the students that are in the back of my mind.”
