Press Release 2006 :: UNM Gallup | The University of New Mexico

UNM-GALLUP NEWS RELEASE

For Release Dec. 4, 2006

Three positions on the Local Board of the University of New Mexico-Gallup will be open for new four-year terms, starting March 1, 2007.

Position 1, now held by Brett Newberry, will be voted on by those residing in the Gallup McKinley County School District.

Position 4, now held by Ruby Wolf, will be determined by qualified electors residing in the Zuni Public School District.

Position 5, now occupied by Teresa Dowling, will be determined by voters residing in the Gallup-McKinley County School District and the Zuni Public School District.

A declaration of candidacy for a position on the Board must be filed with the McKinley County Clerk between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on December 20. In making a declaration of candidacy, the candidate must submit a sworn statement of intent.

A person who wishes to be a write-in candidate for this election should file with the McKinley County Clerk a declaration of intent before 5 p.m. on January 2, 2007.

“The University of New Mexico Gallup Branch is a comprehensive community college serving the needs of Gallup/McKinley County residents and businesses. Central to our ability to serve the communities of are the members of our locally elected Board. These five individuals, representing constituencies throughout McKinley County help guide the activities of our campus,” said Larry Sanderson, Director of Community Affairs.

“We encourage all McKinley County residents interested in UNM Gallup to support this election process and, if appropriate, to consider running for the Advisory Board,” he said.

UNM-GALLUP NEWS RELEASE

For release December 14, 2006

Two University of New Mexico-Gallup students have been nominated to the All USA Academic Team. They are Alvin Harvey and Joel Yazzie. Sixty team members will be selected in May from all the nominees across the nation, to be on the first team, second team and third team.

Alvin Harvey, who is currently working toward an Associate’s Degree in Criminal Justice, was born in Fort Defiance, Arizona. He was brought up in Three Turkey Ruins, near Canyon De Chelly, and attended the Nazlini Arizona Boarding School and Kinlichee Boarding School, and schools in Chinle. He joined the Gallup Army National Guard in 2000 and did a 15-month tour of duty in Iraq, for which he received an Army Commendation Medal for exceptional meritorious service.

He has been on the Dean’s List seven times, and in Spring 2006 received a UNM-G Excellence in Student Leadership Award. He also received a Recognition Award from New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron for “exemplary dedication and service in enhancing the quality of life among all the peoples of the Land of Enchantment.”

Currently Harvey is serving at the UNM-Gallup Student Senate President, and helped establish the UNM-G Collegiate Veteran Association, along with the Veterans’ Memorial Gallery. One of his plans is to “create a cohort of [student veterans] to acquire funding to assist student veterans that are in financial need to purchase books and other school supplies.” He also established the UNM-G Basketball Club in Fall 2004.

The father of a boy, Harvey became interested in the plight of children he saw while in Iraq. Along with his plans for a career in Social Work and Law Enforcement, he says he may focus on working with children. He has already interned with a local government agency to work with children and families. The future may also hold a career in internal affairs with the BIA, he says. His current goal is continue his education and obtain a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Social Work.

A member of the Gallup Sunrise Kiwanis, he has helped with various Kiwanis projects, and also helped plan events with the National Indian Youth Leadership group. He is also a professional Native American jewelry inlayer.

Joel Yazzie is seeking an Associate Degree in the Construction Technology program, with an ultimate goal of earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Business or the Bachelor of University Studies program. His career goal is to be a general contractor.

Yazzie, who attended Jefferson Elementary School, Gallup Mid-School and Rehoboth Christian School, has been on the Dean’s List four times during his enrollment at UNM-Gallup.

He has been active on the campus and the local community, serving as president of the Basketball Club, and also with Habitat for Humanity, helping to build a house for that group during the Spring 2005 semester. He also assisted in renovating a house on First Street as a construction project for his program. He was a supervisor and coordinator for this project. Once this house is finished, the house will be sold by the college.

Other activities include involvement with Special Olympics, helping to coach children and organize a day of competition in May; he was a cook and server to the homeless for Care 66; and, he helped an elderly person with various chores this past year.

UNM-GALLUP NEWS RELEASE

For Release September 1, 2006

Our University of New Mexico-Gallup faculty members were recently awarded tenure and promoted to the rank of associate professor.

They are: Carol Frick, chair of the Zollinger Library; Kathy Larason, Business Management and Technology; Kamala Sharma, Mathematics and Science; and Elvira Stahn, Business Management and Technology.

Frick has a Master of Library Science from Emporia State University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Education from Slippery Rock University. She also has her New Mexico Professional Librarians Certification and her School Library Media Endorsement.

Larason has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and a Master’s of Library Science from the University of Oklahoma. She participated in a Ph.D. program in Computer Science at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and completed all the coursework except the dissertation. She started working at UNM-Gallup in 1996 as a librarian, and transferred to the Business Management Tech program in 2000. Most recently, she has been researching bioinformatics, the application of computer science to biology/genetics.

Sharma has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology in Portland, Oregon. She previously received a Master’s degree in chemistry from University of Oregon in Eugene. She joined UNM-G in 2000. Sharma is the Project Director for the Office of Research Initiative at UNM-G. The Office of Research Initiative (ORI) at UNMG receives funding from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health. The ORI provides money for faculty members to work on their pilot projects. I am also the UNM-G coordinator for the Bridge Program as well as the Idea Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence at the New Mexico State University.

Stahn was recently elected chair of the Business Technology and Management Department. A high school dropout who got her GED in 1973 from Window Rock High School, she went on to earn an Associate of Science Degree in Business from AAA Business College in Albuquerque in 1976, and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from the University of Albuquerque in 1980. She received a post-Bachelor of Arts Degree in Elementary Education at UNM-Gallup in 2000, and has a New Mexico licensure to teach K-12 with endorsements in Information Tech Coordinator and Business. She is now working on a Ph.D. in Organizational Learning Instructional Technologies, School of Education, UNM. She maintains a 3.45 grade point average.

She is also a volunteer educational assistant in a first grade class at Roosevelt Elementary School. For the past couple of years, she has had her college students participate in service-learning activities with Battered Family Services and My Sister’s Resale Shop.

Tenure-track faculty receive a mid-probationary review after three years of employment, and if successful , they are reviewed again for tenure and promotion at the beginning of the sixth year, said Chris Marlow, Dean of Instruction.

“Faculty are reviewed on the basis of service, professional development (scholarly work, research, creative work and disciplinary growth), teaching, and personal characteristics” Marlow said. “Teaching is of course the most important at UNM-Gallup. Once they have applied for tenure and promotion, the rank and tenure committee makes recommendations, and the dean makes recommendations to the executive director, with the Provost making the final decision. Tenure results in a continuous contract.

Some faculty are employed as non-tenure track faculty, and they go through a different review process, Marlow said,, if their performance is satisfactory their contracts are renewed annually.

UNM-GALLUP NEWS RELEASE

For Release: August 11, 2006

By Linda Thornton

Senior Public Affairs Representative

GALLUP--On a sunny day last year at UNM-Gallup’s South Campus in Zuni, one of the major highlights of the open house being held was a jar of beans boiling in a solar oven.

Passersby gasped at the sight of the percolating beans, as well as at a pan of brownies baking beautifully alongside.

Unless you’ve cooked beans at 6,500 feet, and are aware of how much energy is required from the time the beans go in the pot in the morning until they’re done in the afternoon, you may not appreciate the sense of amazement with which the open house visitors regarded this demonstration of solar cookery. They listened incredulously as they were told that they could put an entire meal inside the oven in the morning before going to work, and come home to find dinner ready—all without spending a cent on propane or electricity.

And while saving money and energy may be the major hook for most who would acquire a solar oven, for Jean Martinez Welles, the crusade to promote solar cookery has much deeper significance. A professor in Health Careers at UNM-Gallup, Martinez-Welles is the co-inventor, along with Gallup High School wood shop instructor John Welles, of the solar oven seen at Zuni last year. And, she’s also a strong advocate of alternative ways of cooking to help promote better health in our area.

The solar oven invented by Martinez-Welles and Welles was funded by a Center for Disease Control grant awarded to UNM-Gallup to develop a program to combat diabetes in this region. The ovens were distributed to various persons in the Pueblo of Zuni and on the Navajo Reservation for testing.

As Martinez-Welles explains, people of our region often favor the frying of food, not only as a matter of taste but also because of the high cost of fuel needed for baking. The solar oven project was developed to acquaint rural people with alternative and more healthful ways of cooking.

After introducing their solar oven during the diabetes initiative, the co-inventors were besieged by people asking for plans. It was at that point that Martinez-Welles began to wonder if their invention was patentable.

“There are a lot of different solar ovens out there,” Martinez-Welles said. “I wasn’t sure if ours was different enough to copyright.”

Over the last year, however, Martinez-Welles came to realize she and her co-inventor might have something unique. They were encouraged by Arizonan Barbara Kerr, a leading researcher in solar cooking, who praised the oven’s beehive door. The unique design of the door allows less air to escape than other designs, and allows the cook to set a stockpot inside. Paul Funk, an engineer with the U.S.D.A. Agricultural Research Service and an expert in solar cooking, also applauded the design, which is well adapted to the rigors of the Southwestern region. It has a large base and doesn’t have the solar “wings” that some designs feature—both factors contributing to design stability and making it less likely to become airborne during high winds.

The inventors also tout the oven’s sturdy design as being “rez dog-proof,” a must in a region where roaming canines would be likely to tear apart flimsier construction in search of a chance meal.

Such features helped convince the Science and Technology Corporation@UNM that the inventors did indeed have something patentable. The University began to work with Martinez-Welles and Welles on copyrighting the oven, and undertook the task of creating downloadable plans to be sold on www.foliodirect.net a site where the public can purchase technology, courseware, training materials and the like developed by personnel from UNM and other universities—a kind of eBay for universities, as it has been described. The plans were recently made available on this site for $30.

Martinez-Welles said that she and her co-inventor were mindful, as they developed the plans, to keep them simple.

“We wanted the plans to work for people with only basic skills and tools,” Martinez-Welles said. Some of the tools needed: power saw, hammer, caulking gun and a drill. Basic materials, which include plywood and either regular or tempered glass, she said, could be purchased for around $100.

“The plans are very tight—and anyone can do this,” Martinez-Welles said.

Some of the dishes that Martinez-Welles and other faculty and staff at UNM-Gallup have prepared: roasts, muttons, shrimp, breads, baked eggs, quiche, meringue and rice, as well as turkey breasts and spare ribs.

“It’s not hard to clean, everything is covered and doesn’t boil over,” Martinez-Welles said.

The oven bakes at a temperature of approximately 250 degrees, a little lower than a commercial oven, but more than adequate for a well-done repast. The inventors have tested the solar oven in various sites across the region, and have found that the intense sunlight at this elevation appears to compensate for the cooling effects of the persistent winds that blow across the Colorado desert plateau.

So what are the drawbacks? Well, on a rainy day, you might have to make alternative plans for cooking – but as folks in Dinetah and Zuniland know, that’s usually not an issue after monsoon season finishes.

For more information on how to obtain plans for this solar oven, contact Jean Martinez-Welles at 863-7515.

UNM-GALLUP NEWS RELEASE

For Release: August 11, 2006

GALLUP---It’s been more than two years since the Lumina Foundation approved a grant for $400,000 to implement institutional change at the University of New Mexico-Gallup through its Achieving the Dream initiative. Over those two years, the college has launched several initiatives designed to increase the success of underserved students.

Targeting students in high school has been one of the college’s primary goals. High school/college articulation workshops were held last year, and among the goals established was that of dual enrollment, whereby students can start working on college courses while in high school.

COMPASS tests were also introduced in local high schools, so that students can take the tests earlier and discover what kinds of courses they need to take, and what areas they might need extra preparation for.

“That way, they won’t use up all their financial aid taking transitional courses, and then can enter into college courses more rapidly,” said Chris Marlow, dean of instruction and the administrator in charge of implementing change with Lumina funds.

Thus far, two college courses are being offered in local high schools, with plans for more as qualified adjunct faculty are identified locally. There are already signed agreements with two school districts – Zuni and Gallup-McKinley County—and two private high schools.

The college is currently accepting applications for an Achieving the Dream coordinator, whose duties will include overseeing dual enrollment.

Another initiative, instituted this past summer, was a “Lobo Camp” in Zuni. Ten students, who were either high school graduates, in high school, or had taken their GED tests, took college success courses, plus math and English for college credit, and also took the COMPASS test. The tuition was waived, and all the students had to pay was an application fee.

Marlow hopes to expand this pilot project to the Gallup campus next year.

Lumina funds also helped launch a much-appreciated culture series, consisting of four events that were specifically targeted for the college’s largely Native American student population. Those who appeared in the series were actor/physician Evan Adams, the musical group Ulali, psychologist Terry Tafoya, and guitarist John Siqueiros.

“We saw this as a way of engaging students and getting them to connect more closely with the campus,” Marlow said. “Surveys and data had shown the students didn’t feel very connected with the campus and we think this has helped.” The series will be repeated next year.

The establishment of learning communities, which was started with funds from other grants, is being further supported with funds from AtD. Learning communities are groups of 25 students with similar academic goals who study together and give each other support as they learn. Lumina funds have also provided an enhanced faculty development series, focusing on improving teaching.

As a reward for being on the college’s Dean’s List, UNM-Gallup recently awarded students a voucher for $50 – with funds from Lumina -- to use at the bookstore. Each student was also recognized with a personal letter and certificate.

The Lumina grant will be in place through 2009 at UNM-Gallup.

UNM-GALLUP NEWS RELEASE

For release: August 16, 2006