The Board of Regents selected the endowed chair of a program designed to educate students on sustainable food and agriculture. The W.K.
Gov. Susana Martinez witnessed another one of her legislative priorities fail Saturday in committee. House Bill 49, designed to prosecute individuals arrested for driving under the influence of a controlled substance such as cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin, would have allocated more funding for law enforcement officials to draw blood samples from those suspected of being under the influence of drugs.
The Lottery Scholarship fund could run dry, and if the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee’s prediction is correct, funds will dry up by 2014. The Lottery Fund continues to finance more students and pay more for each student because of tuition hikes.
One state senator wants to outlaw synthetic marijuana in New Mexico. Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort (R-Sandia Park) introduced a bill that would ban synthetic cannabinoids and fine anyone caught using or selling it. Beffort said children’s safety is at stake. “(Parents) might not know that their children are getting high on harmless-sounding products like incense, potpourri and bath salts,” she said.
The Faculty Senate unanimously approved a proposal to create a dental medicine department at UNM. UNM’s dental medicine programs are under the Health Science Center’s Department of Surgery but have grown large enough to need their own department, the proposal said. Most University Health Science Centers already have a dentistry department, UNM Chief of Dental Services Gary Cuttrell said. “We’re just bringing UNM’s health sciences up to the standard of most health science centers with a department of dentistry,” he said. Faculty Senate President-elect Tim Ross said UNM should have a dentistry department because dental hygiene programs don’t belong under a surgery department. “There’s already a dentistry sciences program, and for years it’s existed under the Department of Surgery at UNM …,” he said.
Student Health and Counseling placed tighter limits on services last month in order to meet increased demands on a stagnant budget. SHAC slashed counseling and psychiatric sessions available to students in a 12-month period from 20 to 12.
Huwaida Arraf, an activist onboard one of the ships seized by the Israeli Defense Force in the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid, spoke at the SUB on Tuesday.
Student veterans have the chance to reduce their stress one pinprick at a time. The Veterans Acupuncture Clinic, a free service for UNM and CNM student veterans and their loved ones, holds sessions Tuesdays at 4 p.m.
A group of about 70 students, faculty and staff came together Wednesday to plan ways to force UNM’s administration to “focus on the University’s core academic mission.” Graduate Employees Together, or G.E.T., organized the meeting, which featured information on the University’s funding. The University’s tuition revenue has doubled in the last decade, because of tuition increases and a rise in enrollment, according to G.E.T.
Students at Monday’s Student Fee Review Board town-hall meeting chatted with board members about how they want their fees allocated. SFRB member Heidi Overton said rising student fees are a cause for concern.
If all goes according to plan, UNM’s Board of Regents will have two new members. On Tuesday, Gov.
New Mexico’s animal shelters launched a spay-and-neuter initiative Tuesday to help combat animal overpopulation and euthanasia. Every day, 66 pets enter New Mexico shelters, Public Safety Director Darren White said during the Spay Day event at Albuquerque’s Eastside Shelter.
UNM will soon have a new member on the Board of Regents. Gov. Susana Martinez appointed Jacob Wellman to the student regent post Monday.
Gov. Susana Martinez proposed a $4.9 million cut in remedial education funds from the state’s colleges in order to focus on problems in the K-12 system that make remedial courses necessary.
UNM is at the top of its game in cyberspace. UNM’s web access and presence was ranked 76th out of 12,000 universities worldwide and 62nd out of North America colleges. UNM Website Administrator Matthew Carter said the quality of a university’s electronic content can factor into a student’s decision to attend UNM. “The ranking represents UNM has a fair amount of scholarly content and makes it readily available,” he said. Webometrics Rankings of World Universities, an initiative of Cybermetrics Lab, conducted the analysis of global universities’ web content.
Student Fee Review Board members couldn’t agree over whether a video camera should be allowed to record applicant hearings, so undergraduate and graduate members held separate sessions over the weekend. ASUNM board members met in one room of the College of Education Building, while GPSA board members deliberated next door.
A lawsuit filed in January alleges UNM unethically awarded the $60 million Pit renovation project to an Oklahama-based contractor, but the contractor says it is not responsible for UNM’s actions. The lawsuit, filed by the New Mexico Building and Construction Trades Council and The Local Electrical and Iron Workers Union, alleges contracting company Flintco was given the construction management contract for the Pit because of its relationship with UNM President David Schmidly.
Several UNM students are one step closer to realizing their small business dreams after winning a campus-wide entrepreneurship contest. Anderson School of Management hosted its first annual Entrepreneurial Challenge on Friday.
Democrats halted a bill that would have required New Mexican voters to show photo identification at the polls.
The UNM Women’s Resource Center is working to combat what they consider cuts aimed at New Mexico’s women. New Mexico’s first female governor, Susana Martinez, proposed cutting 100 percent of funding for the N.M.
Solutions by The State News
