Press Release 2005 :: UNM Gallup | The University of New Mexico

UNM-GALLUP NEWS RELEASE

For release - November 7, 2005

The University of New Mexico-Gallup Student Senate is hosting a special ceremony to honor U.S. veterans on Thursday, Nov. 10, at 10 a.m. in the Gurley Hall Commons.

The colors will be presented by the Gallup High School ROTC, followed by the National Anthem, a playing of Taps, and a presentation by the UNM-Gallup Drum Group of the Flag Song. A moment of silence to honor MIAs and POWs will follow.

Several guests of honor will be present, including local veterans and former POWs. Ribbons honoring United States veterans and POWs will be passed out to those attending. Certificates will be given to honor students and faculty and staff who are veterans.

UNM-GALLUP NEWS RELEASE

GALLUP—An art student at the University of New Mexico-Gallup is one of the eight muralists chosen by the City of Gallup to create art throughout downtown Gallup. The murals, the City hopes, will help brighten Gallup’s faded downtown area, and provide a more enjoyable experience for visitors.

Paul Newman is painting what is officially known as “The Greater Gallup” mural, which encompasses a broad view of the history and culture of Gallup. The seven other painters have taken other, more specific topics having to do with Gallup’s history. Newman and the others worked with the City of Gallup to develop the focus for their murals. It is being painted on the west wall of the City Administration Building on Aztec Street.

“I focused on the things that made Gallup economically. Because 90 percent of history is about people going to work, I decided to portray aspects of Gallup such as coal mining, railroads, Highway 66, movie making, rodeos and Native American culture,” Newman said. Rodeo will actually figure prominently in his mural: the first major figure emerging at this early stage of the painting is a barrel racer.

While steeping himself in the culture and history of Gallup, Newman decided to concentrate on the 1930s through the 1950s. It was during this period, he notes, when travel became common –particularly on the fabled Route 66.

This is Newman’s first mural, and although he is accustomed to working with large canvases, designing a mural has its own innate challenges.

“I decided to make the mural’s shape a part of the overall image, in a sense. It’s supposed to be evocative of the distinctive geological strata, the wind, a balloon filling with hot air, and other such aspects of the local ambience,” Newman said.

Newman has also become familiar with the physical challenges of painting on large surfaces outdoors.

“There are a lot of gymnastics, clambering up and down the scaffolding, and then you’re out in the elements, whatever they are—windy, cold, hot, dusty,” he noted.

There is also the challenge of maintaining the scale as he moves from the original sketches to the mural.

“When you get up to the wall, you’re going to make changes and modifications, and this can change perspective. Also, there are two points of view to consider—features that will look good from a distance, and some that will hold interest close up,” Newman said. Furthermore, there is the ongoing distraction of passersby. Newman says it’s easy to get his attention away from his painting, which starts every day of the week at 8:30 a.m. People are always passing by Newman and his mural on their way to pay their electric bills. “This is a very public process, and I am a distracted sort of painter. Lots of people stop by to talk, but I don’t mind.”

Newman, a relative newcomer to Gallup, arrived in Gallup two years ago after retiring as an administrative professional at the University of Florida. With no more than one previous art course in drawing, he started studying art with UNM-Gallup Professor Ken Roberts, as well as other instructors such as Laura Bentz, Michael Gambill and Jeff Beekman.

Over the past two years, Newman has developed his own naturalistic style, painting in oils and acrylics. And although he had never thought of doing murals before he applied for and was awarded one of the City of Gallup commissions, he has quickly warmed to the process, meeting the challenges for painting outdoors on a bigger scale with ingenuity and enthusiasm.

“They provided us with high quality acrylic, because it has the greatest endurance outside, and preservation is a problem. I’ll be adding coatings for preservation,” he said. Prior to beginning his mural, he stuccoed the rough wall to get a smooth surface.

As to brushes, he says he uses “everything—cheap and expensive, large and small, sponges, whatever.”

The deadline for the work is sometime in October; Newman believes he’s on target with that schedule.

Some of Newman’s finished works may be seen on view at the Ingham Chapman Gallery at UNM-Gallup through July 15. The gallery is located in Gurley Hall, and is open Monday through Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Thursdays, until 8 p.m.

UNM-GALLUP NEWS RELEASE

For Release: June 29, 2005

GALLUP—Communication between the University of New Mexico and its various branches around the state is sometimes not all it should be. In an effort to improve relations and to invite input, Interim Provost Reed Dasenbrock met with various administrators, faculty, staff and community members on June 28 on the UNM-Gallup campus.

Among the several meetings Dasenbrock attended was a lunchtime gathering of the Ambassadors, UNM-Gallup’s community liaison group. He told the Ambassadors that the demographics of college enrollment in New Mexico are changing, and that no longer does UNM have a monopoly in the Albuquerque area, while New Mexico State University monopolizes enrollment in other areas. UNM is now more aggressively reaching out to penetrate the statewide population, and branches such as UNM-Gallup offer the university the best opportunity to increase enrollment.

He also noted that UNM-Gallup is critical to UNM’s initiatives regarding diversity, as the Gallup branch enrolls more Native American students than anywhere else in the UNM system.

UNM is working toward a number of incentives to boost enrollment among these populations. Among those is a fast-track, seven-year medical degree, designed for recruitment from middle school, high school, pre-college and college students interested in a career in medicine. Students will be admitted from high school to both the UNM College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Medicine. Local communities will participate in identifying, encouraging and mentoring potential applicants.

“We would want this class to look like the state of New Mexico,” Dasenbrock said, noting that this program is designed to recruit minority students in areas like Gallup, in the hope that the students would want to return to those communities and serve them as doctors. “We don’t have enough doctors, and this might be one way to answer that need.”

Dasenbrock also encouraged listeners not to “play the blame game” in trying to determine why such a large percentage of New Mexico’s college students come to college need transitional help. He said that no purpose is served when colleges blame the high schools, the high schools blame the middle schools, the middle schools blame the elementary schools and those schools blame the home environment. New Mexico, said Dasenbrock, is a complex state and many factors, from public school experiences to home environment, contribute to learning challenges.

Dasenbrock also discussed recent efforts by UNM in regards to preparing students in entrepreneurship and manufacturing, high tech start-ups and work force development.

Besides speaking to the Ambassadors, Dasenbrock met with UNM-Gallup faculty and staff and toured the Zuni campus.

UNM-GALLUP NEWS RELEASE

GALLUP - Dr. Dusti Becker has joined UNM-Gallup as the Program Manager for the Zuni Campus. She has been in the interim position since December.

"Working for UNM-G at Zuni is really exciting. Local people seem really enthusiastic about advancing themselves, so it is rewarding to promote our programs and foster new ones,” said Becker, adding that the Zuni staff has been providing some professional development courses to meet needs of local employees.

Becker was most recently a faculty member in the Department of Horticulture, Forestry & Recreation Resources at Kansas State University, and before that was faculty at Indiana University. She teaches a wide variety of natural resources and environmental science topics and is involved in research on the conservation of biological diversity.

Becker, who grew up in North Carolina, completed her BSed. at the University of Virginia. She joined the U.S. Peace Corps to teach in Kenya, East Africa. She completed a Master’s in Forest Science at Yale University and worked in conservation (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in England) and then with experiential university programs offered by the School for Field Studies in Kenya, Switzerland and Costa Rica.

As a child Becker lived in the tropical forests of Chengmai, Thailand. Since 1994, she has been working with the indigenous community of Loma Alta in western Ecuador to protect tropical forests, water resources to sustain villages, and wildlife. Her research on fog capture prompted local people to establish a tropical forest protected area to conserve water. With the help of students and Earthwatch volunteers (www.Earthwatch.org) she researches the ecology of bird communities in western Ecuador and works with rural communities to develop ecological tourism. She has worked with Earthwatch volunteers for over a decade and has fielded over 30 teams during summer and winter breaks.

She and her husband, Dr. Anthony Povilitis, a specialist in endangered species conservation, are hoping to bring their expertise in environmental issues to new programs at UNM-Gallup.

"People in New Mexico face a lot of challenges and opportunities related to natural resources. We need to conserve our water, maintain the quality of our forests and rangelands, and protect the many plants and animals that are unique to our region. We have regional opportunities in nature tourism and in production of clean renewable energy from wind and sun, so having a good educational background in natural resources makes sense for UNM-Gallup students," Becker said.

UNM-GALLUP NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – April 5, 2005

GALLUP - The late Alyse Neundorf, a UNM-Gallup associate professor of Navajo who died in January 2004, wanted to preserve her native heritage and language. To that end, she taught the "Dine Bisaad" language to children, college students and adults.

Navajo is a creative language, in which metaphor, simile, and personification are used regularly and multiple versions of one-word function to mean the same thing. This duplicity is likely the result of Navajo contact with other cultures: for instance, the Spanish.

"Languages grow with the people," Neundorf wrote. "If the people do not make new terms, the language becomes less able to deal with new situations, and sometimes borrowed terms take over instead."

To Neundorf, Navajo was a "good, healthy language" that should be used to describe anything and everything in the world within human understanding. Borrowed words, she believed, should be kept to a minimum and the descriptive nature of Navajo preserved.

In her posthumously published "A Navajo/English Bilingual Dictionary ($64 hardcover, University of New Mexico Press), Alyse Neundorf offers 1500 noun entries and 300 verbs and adjective to add to readers' knowledge of Navajo and to children learning to read and write in bilingual classrooms. Words selected are terms used in and around school settings.

"Most of our knowledge depends on our ability to internalize and understand our world through language," Neundorf believed. "I hope with the aid of this dictionary, the Navajo students will verbally describe and discover the world in which they live, so they will be able to transfer this knowledge to any situation they may encounter.

A joint endeavor between Neundorf, the Ramah Navajo School Board, Inc., and the University of New Mexico Press , A Navajo/English Bilingual Dictionary is divided into two main parts for each letter of the Navajo alphabet and features words for place names, numbers, body movements and parts, and kinship. Illustrations for commonly used words and an index in English are included.

This dictionary will help Dine speakers and beginners try some new words. Neundorf, after consulting Navajo language scholars and tribal elders, added new words to the dictionary that explain a new concept or were developed to accommodate Navajo contact with other cultures and modernization. In this way, Neundorf's life legacy-to nurture the Navajo language-persists.

A Navajo/English Bilingual Dictionary is available at bookstores, including the UNM-Gallup bookstore, or directly from the University of New Mexico Press. To order from UNM Press, call 800-249-7737, or visit www.unm.press.com

Neindorf obtained her PH.D. in linguistics at UNM in 1987. Her dissertation was titled "Bilingualism: A bridge to power for interpreters and readers in the Navajo tribal council. Neundorf joined the faculty of UNM-Gallup in 1996. She was born in Lukachukai , Ariz. , and was a member of the Two Joining Rivers Clan and a former Miss Navajo. She is survived by her husband Ken and two children of Albuquerque.

UNM-GALLUP NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -January 24, 2005

EDITORS: Please note change of venue from UNM-Gallup to El Morro Theatre.

GALLUP - Arctic photographer John Schwieder will speak and present a slide show on the Alaska Wilderness on Friday, Feb. 18, at 7 P.M. in El Morro Theatre, 207. W. Coal. There will also be a showing on Wednesday, Feb. 9, at 7:30 p.m., in the Commons at the Zuni Campus of UNM-G.

Schwieder spent 3 months in the Arctic Refuge, exploring and photographing the flora and fauna. Through his photography, he hopes to bring attention to the ongoing debate in Congress over the fate of the Alaska Refuge, to keep the area free from oil exploration, and ultimately, to see this pristine place receive the permanently protective wilderness status.

The 100-mile stretch of arctic coastal plain in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the only fragment of the United States ' total 1,100-mile arctic coastline not already open to oil and gas development. The oil industry is pushing for access to this area. According to opponents of this drilling, which is supported by the Bush administration, development would lead to production of only 3.2 billion barrels of oil, lessening dependence on foreign oil by only two percent. Were oil and gas development to occur, the U.S. Department of Interior estimates up to a 40 percent decline to the 129,000 animals of the Porcupine Caribou herd, which utilizes the coastal plain as their calving grounds.

"After 20 some years adventuring in Alaska I've seen some wild places and can honestly say there are none wilder than this. Like Yosemite and Yellowstone the purpose of the Arctic Refuge is simply to be and we should just let it be," said Schwieder.

John Schwieder lives in Durango , Colo. , his base to pursue wildlife, landscape and adventure photography. In addition to being a photographer and writer, John works part time as a flight paramedic and has had previous careers as a Denali climbing guide and Alaskan commercial fisherman.

His photography and writings have been published in Alaska Geographic, Milepost, Inside / Outside, Outdoor Photographer, Patagonia , and Paddler magazines and numerous conservation organizations.

Schwieder's presentation will feature Landscape, wildlife and adventure photographs along with discussion about the political history, oil debate and reasons why the Arctic Refuge deserves permanent wilderness protection.

For further information contact Linda Thornton, Senior Public Affairs Representative at UNM-Gallup, 863-7565, or Dusti Becker, interim director of the Zuni Campus, 782-6012.

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