Despite prevalent disagreement between two student organizations, a divestment resolution intended to encourage transparency in access to UNM investments will be presented and voted on at Wednesday’s Associated Students of UNM Senate meeting after unanimously passing the Steering the Rules committee last week.
Students will have the opportunity to eat locally grown food, watch live music and dance performances, purchase growing supplies and learn about sustainable practices at the 7th Annual UNM Sustainability Expo. The event, organized by students enrolled in the Growers’ Market Practicum course through the Sustainability Studies program, will host local vendors, farmers and value-added producers. Break dancers and local folk indie band Brush Strokes will perform from noon to 1 p.m. In addition, the event will feature work from the ASUNM arts and crafts studio and various student projects related to sustainability. The expo takes place Tuesday from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Cornell Mall.
Five shipping containers were cemented in place at Green Jeans Farmery off of I-40 and Carlisle Boulevard on Friday. The recycled containers are the first of eight that will house several local businesses come early summer. Roy Solomon, the developer of Green Jeans Farmery development, said he is excited to bring something entirely new to Albuquerque. A third of the one-and-a-half-acre piece of land will be dedicated to the businesses within the shipping containers, and the rest to a small portion of parking. That was partly why the lot stayed vacant for so long, he said: it’s such a small piece of land to work with. Part of the land needs to be accessible to the Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority and the easements underground.
The medical field usually reigns supreme when it comes to who gets paid the biggest bucks. At UNM, it is no different. According to the University salary book, which can be found at sunshine.unm.edu, each of the top 10 highest-paid employees at UNM are associated with the medical field in one way or another, from chairs of medical-based departments to professors to deans. Their average salary is $481,552. The top earner is Paul Roth, chancellor of UNM’s Health Sciences Center, CEO of the UNM Health System and dean of the school of medicine. Roth makes $650,000 a year, and is one of only two at UNM who make more than half a million.
Some UNM students are running a campaign to inform others of the detrimental effects from bottled water, and to make clean drinking water more available on campus. The Lobo BYOB (bring your own bottle) campaign provides education to staff and students of UNM about the cleanliness of the tap water on campus versus the cleanliness of one-time-use water bottles. According to the organizers, the movement also focuses on the detrimental effects of plastic bottles on the environment. The initiative aims to support the ‘Take Back the Tap’ campaign by Food and Water Watch, “a nonprofit organization that advocates for common-sense policies that will result in healthy, safe food and access to safe and affordable drinking water,” according to the organization’s website.
Albuquerque Rapid Transit made an appearance on campus Thursday in an effort to hear students’ opinions on a new line that will connect Tramway Boulevard and Central Avenue to 98th Street and Central in about 30 minutes. This meeting was one of a series dedicated to receiving feedback from the community, said Dayna Crawford, deputy director for ABQ RIDE. Forty-one percent of ABQ RIDE’s passengers commute along Central, which is why the $100 million project is so important, she said. The line will stretch 17 miles down Central, stopping every seven minutes.
Campus briefs HEADLINE The U.S. Department of Justice staff will visit campus Tuesday through Thursday to discuss issues pertaining to sexual violence with students, faculty, staff and others, according to a UNM press release. The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division opened a review into the University’s policies and procedures regarding sexual harassment, including sexual assault, at the University of New Mexico, last December, as stated on the UNM’s website. “UNM is fully cooperating with the DOJ on this review.
A panel of experts spoke about the process a survivor of sexual assault at UNM would go through at an open forum on Thursday. LoboRESPECT organized the event in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and in perfect timing with respect to the Department of Justice’s visit next week. “I get this question quite a bit: ‘When are you going to be satisfied? When is it going to be enough?’” said Thomas Aguirre, dean of students. “And I always say, ‘Until we don’t have any more sexual violence.’ One is too many in my mind, so we’re just going to keep pushing at this and keep working on this until we have created a culture where everyone feels safe.”
After five years of research, UNM’s Health Sciences Center has created an interactive website to help parents and their daughters make an informed decision about the human papillomavirus vaccine. HPV is common and many types can cause cervical cancer and genital warts. Today, it is highly recommended that girls ages 11 to 13 get the vaccine. At a Communications and Journalism research colloquium on Wednesday, Gill Woodall, a communication professor and researcher, discussed the website and the research that went into building it.
On April 7, an employee at the Student Union Building received a disturbing voicemail about the Muslims Student Organization event on March 31, which some considered to be a pro-ISIS talk. According to a UNM Police Deparmentreport, the recording was of a male voice that cussed at the employee and suggested she kill herself because she invited pro-ISIS people onto campus.
The Global Education Office is hosting the annual International Festival on campus today outside the SUB with new additions to the event since last year. While many food options will be available in booths, this year many food options will be served in trucks. The event, described as “a true celebration of culture and diversity at UNM --- featuring food, crafts and performances from all over the world,” by its organizers at GEO, will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today in the Cornell Mall, east of the SUB and west of Mesa Vista Hall.
The MiABQ Millennial Project and The Young Professionals of Albuquerque are organizing the first-ever city-wide young professionals mixer event, coming Friday. The event will provide an opportunity for young professionals in the Albuquerque area to meet colleagues, network, mingle and join a new organization if not already involved with one, the organizers said. “This will be a great opportunity for young professionals and UNM community to get involved with the wide variety of organizations in Albuquerque, and network with other professionals and colleagues,” said Jaclyn Myers, social committee chair for the Young Professionals of Albuquerque, a non-profit organization.
Tema Milstein, an associate professor of communication, was awarded the Presidential Teaching Fellowship Award earlier this month. It is the highest honor for faculty on campus. The Presidential Teaching Fellowship Award “promotes excellence in teaching by establishing a core group of faculty who are given the highest recognition for their effective teaching,” according to UNM’s Center for Teaching Excellence website.
While zinc is a vital part of the human immune system, some researchers at UNM are delving a little deeper to understand just how it works. Zinc finger proteins play a major role in the day to day life and are an important part of the human proteome, the entire set of proteins that can be present in the human body. They also repair DNA that has been damaged by carcinogens such as UV radiation or arsenic.
UNM’s chapter of Sigma Chi is hosting Derby Days, the fraternity’s largest philanthropic event, for the first time since the fall of 2012 this week in an effort to raise money for cancer research while providing friendly competition between sororities. According to the Derby Days Facebook page, there are events held by Sigma Chi every day for the rest of the week.
A group of 64 out-of-town visitors left the UNM Soccer Complex with their six passenger vans burglarized, according to UNM Police Department report. The report stated every piece of luggage in the six vehicles was stolen.
At last week’s Associated Students of UNM elections, voters passed a constitutional amendment that will make all pronouns in the ASUNM Constitution gender-neutral. All pronouns in the constitution will now consist of they/them/they’re as the primary form of identification.
The Board of Regents approved a 3.37 percent increase in tuition and fees, as well as a tuition plan that incentivizes four-year graduation, during the annual budget summit on Thursday. Both will take effect in the fall semester. The decisions were made in light of a $3.6 million tuition and fee revenue shortfall in the 2015 fiscal year. President Robert Frank attributed a large part of that budget deficit to a 1.5 percent decrease in overall enrollment during this academic year, which he said is part of a larger national trend. The budget plan for 2016 included a projected flat enrollment rate.
Civil engineering students tested their mettle at the concrete canoe building competition during the 44th annual American Society of Civil Engineers Rocky Mountain Regional Conference. Eleven of the 14 schools participating in the conference, hosted by UNM, presented canoes, which were displayed on Johnson Field on Friday and then raced on Saturday at Cochiti Lake. NMSU, South Dakota School of Mining and Technology and Utah State won the first, second and third spots, respectively. Members of the NMSU team were awarded with a $9,000 scholarship.
Three students have received renowned scholarships and fellowships for their academic performances. Gregory Ottino, a sophomore physics and mathematics double major, has been awarded the Goldwater Scholarship, the leading national scholarship for undergraduate science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) students, according to a UNM press release. The scholarship program was established by Congress in 1986 to honor Sen. Barry Goldwater.
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