Albuquerque’s City Council has made appointments for the new nine-person Police Oversight Board. The nine appointees, who will have the job of reviewing complaints against the Albuquerque Police Department, voting on appropriate discipline for officers, and making policy recommendations, were approved in a unanimous vote on Monday night’s council meeting.
Jack White is coming to Popejoy on Tuesday — arguably the biggest artist the venue has hosted in years — and the people who made it all happen couldn’t be more excited. Student Special Events booked White for a one-night concert in Popejoy Hall, a 2,000-capacity venue, only five days after the artist played a sold-out performance in New York’s Madison Square Garden, an 18,200-seat auditorium. “It brings Popejoy a whole new audience, it’s not a Broadway show at all,” said Emily Garrity, marketing director for Student Special Events.
Next year junior midfielder Ben McKendry will be a “different ball of wax,” as they say in Canada. Last week McKendry signed a Homegrown Player contract with the Vancouver Whitecaps, and will thus forgo his senior season with the UNM men’s soccer team to join the MLS. According to MLS rules, a club may sign a player to his first professional contract without subjecting him to the SuperDraft if the player has trained for one year in the club’s youth development program and has trained 80 days with the academy.
Students representing every graduate school in the state advocated for higher education and presented their research and scholarship to lawmakers at the Roundhouse on Friday. The first-time event was coordinated by the New Mexico Council of Graduate Deans, and they intend for Graduate Education Day to become an annual event during the legislative session. Five UNM graduate students representing diverse fields displayed research projects. The Graduate and Professional Students Association representatives were present to further advocate for UNM’s many graduate programs.
The New Mexico Legislature is considering a proposal to fund the establishment of a new center at UNM specializing in child maltreatment. Funding will allow the Child Abuse Response Team at the UNM Health Sciences Center to bring in staff dedicated to supporting the center and expand clinical services to better reach areas outlying the metro area, said Dr. Leslie Strickler, medical director for the Child Abuse Response Team and associate professor of pediatrics at UNM Children’s Hospital. “Our goal is to improve clinical care, education, advocacy and collaboration between all stakeholders and incorporate primary, secondary and tertiary prevention initiatives,” Strickler said.
It’s one extreme to the next for Heather Dyche. After years of working at the club and Olympic level, Dyche will be moving onto the collegiate ranks following her introduction as the new head coach of the New Mexico women’s soccer program on Thursday.
On Monday New Mexico legislators joined with UNM men’s basketball coach Craig Neal to support “Coaches vs. Cancer Suits and Sneakers Week,” an American Cancer Society awareness campaign. Gov. Susana Martinez and state lawmakers wore sneakers with their dress clothes to the Roundhouse to show their support for the nationwide event.
The intersection of Iron Street and First Street now goes by an unofficial name — “Tent City” — due to the substantial homeless population that camps beside the rail yard fence. Neighboring homes and businesses have called upon the city of Albuquerque to help with the situation, relying on charitable organizations like St. Martin’s Hospitality Center to relocate and assist those who live on the small stretch of sidewalk.
Credit cards can be a blessing or a curse for college students. Those little pieces of plastic could develop a student’s credit score or they might lead to early financial distress. The key to finding the benefits, experts say, is solid credit management. While credit is important, a recent study conducted by The Ohio State University shows younger Americans have higher debt and are paying it off at a slower rate.
The University Policy office is in the preliminary stages of updating the University’s smoking policy to include enforcement of protocol, among other initiatives. University Policy and Administrative Planning Director Pamina Deutsch said she hopes to revise the policy to include cracking down on smokers outside of designated smoking areas on campus has been a goal of hers for some time. “Ever since I’ve taken over this role — I’ve been here since Feb. 2012 — there have been concerns about enforcement (of the smoking policy),” she said.
Over winter break, the College of Education underwent major renovations to entice new students while providing a professional ambiance for those already involved in the college’s programs. Program Operations Director for the College’s Center for Student Success, Smith Frederick said the changes implemented in the college have been driven by the needs of the students. The college utilizes the opportunity to have students take surveys and provide feedback in other ways to address support services and potential areas in need of updates or enhancements, he said. Frederick said a major concern of the students was the need to update the areas in which advisement occurs in the Center for Student Success, located in Travelstead Hall.
Senior guard Hugh Greenwood’s “Pink Pack” received an unexpected gift from a state figure on Monday afternoon to go toward the UNM Cancer Center. New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez presented UNM men’s basketball head coach Craig Neal with a $10,000 check to be given to Greenwood’s campaign, money that was unused from a privately-collected inaugural fund.
UNM will soon open the doors to its newest research facility, the Center for Stable Isotopes, which will allow researchers from a wide range of fields to delve into the mysteries of the natural world by looking at its smallest building blocks. The new facility will expand an already existing program based within the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences into an interdisciplinary center.
Before the term “sustainability” was coined, Mary Clark was interested in leading an environmentally-friendly lifestyle. Now, Clark is the manager of UNM’s Office of Sustainability, a one-person department that oversees the University’s recycling programs, green fund, conservation initiatives, energy use reports and the promotion of sustainable practices on campus. The position is part of the Physical Plant Department, which produces and distributes all of UNM’s utilities.
It is an indispensable essence for communities and a valuable resource for the economy, but most of all, water is life. “Agua es Vida: Acequias in Northern New Mexico,” currently featured at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, highlights a hydro-social cycle that has come to embody New Mexican heritage among the farming community.
Innovate ABQ, UNM’s ambitious plan for a business incubator district, is looking for private developers who are interested in investing in the project during the first phase of development. Innovate ABQ sent out a Request for Statements of Interest and Qualifications last week, hoping to get private companies to submit proposals for contracts to build on the new campus.
UNM’s Honors College, in partnership with the Mellon Foundation, is using a $420,000 grant to fund undergraduate students who would like to become professors. The primary objective of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program is to increase diversity among professors, said Kate Krause, a professor of economics and the dean of the Honors College and University College at UNM.
An Albuquerque man has been indicted in the November car crash that killed two UNM students and sent two others to the hospital. Joshua Leal, 21, is charged with three counts of vehicular homicide due to reckless driving, one count of vehicular homicide due to DWI, and one count each of child abuse, larceny, tampering with evidence and stealing a motor vehicle, according to nmcourts.gov.
With the help of a Health Sciences Center research group, New Mexico’s accidental opioid overdose deaths and addictions are down for the first time in years. A new study released by the UNM Pain Consultation and Treatment Center shows that a new state-mandated training program for doctors and clinicians is resulting in significantly fewer opioid painkillers being prescribed to patients, which has led to less addiction and fewer overdoses. Dr. Joanna Katzman, associate professor of neurology and director of the UNM Pain Center, led the team that developed the training program. Katzman was also integral in writing the legislation, Senate Bill 215, which passed the New Mexico Legislature in 2012 and created the mandatory training program.
MedBow, a branch of the UNM Center for Disaster Medicine, is preparing to jumpstart the University’s first student-run emergency medical services team, which will consist of student volunteers responding to 911 calls on campus. UNM EMS Chief Kane Darling said the group’s main goal is timely and efficient medical response to 911 calls — essentially being an extra set of eyes for UNM police. “Our mission is dedicating ourselves to providing quality emergency medical care to all students, faculty, staff and visitors to the UNM campus,” Darling said.
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