DAILY LOBO new mexico
Pitching for homerun see page 7
February 3, 2010
wednesday The Independent Voice of UNM since 1895
Schmidly balances budget by furlough
Playdate
by Andrew Beale Daily Lobo
Benton distributed a draft of the resolution to UNM Planning officer Mary Kenney and Vice President for Institutional Support Steve Beffort before presenting it to the Council. Beffort said a partnership between the four entities will help to reduce congestion and open dialogue among the University and the neighborhoods that envelop it.
The president of one of UNM’s peer institutions is making news by taking a voluntary 4.6 percent pay cut, but President Schmidly contends he’s been there, done that. Richard Lariviere, University of Oregon president, has joined other Oregon university presidents in taking a voluntary 4.6 percent cut, scraping more than $11,000 off his $234,000 yearly salary. Schmidly said his 10-day voluntary furlough this summer, as well as another five-day break he has planned in May, will save the University $21,000 from his more than $400,000 yearly salary. Schmidly said university presidents nationwide are cutting their salaries to serve the interests of their university. “That’s happened at other places, I think — in the country too — and other places have done what I’ve done, which is do a voluntary furlough,” he said. “And I’ve furloughed myself 15 days.” University Spokeswoman Susan McKinsey said 15 business days without pay will amount to about a 6 percent salary reduction. Diane Saunders, director of Communications for the Oregon University System, said all presidents of public universities in Oregon voluntarily took a 4.6 percent pay cut this year. “The reduction for the presidents was voluntary. They are under multi-year contracts, so they were
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Gabbi Campos / Daily Lobo From left: Cator Buck, Jamie Buck, Silas Peeders, Atticus Peknik and Felix Peknik descend upon campus on their scooters Tuesday. They saw the musical “Nate the Great” as part of Popejoy Hall’s Schooltime series.
UNM-area traffic woes addressed by local entities by Pat Lohmann Daily Lobo
Albuquerque’s largest universities, the city and the county are working in concert to address parking and transportation ills afflicting the UNM area. The Albuquerque City Council unanimously passed a resolution Monday asking UNM, CNM and Bernalillo County to enter into
a Memorandum of Understanding and contribute to a study examining alternative transportation possibilities. Neighborhood associations and residents have expressed their displeasure with traffic problems in the University corridor, particularly along Yale Boulevard. City Councilor Isaac Benton, who introduced the resolution, said a collaborative effort of this sort is refreshing after months of dissent
and disagreement among UNM, the city of Albuquerque and surrounding neighborhoods. “It’s all very good, positive stuff. I feel very good about it,” he said. “Neighborhood folks came down and spoke in favor of (the resolution). University folks spoke in favor of it, and it passed unanimously and we expect the mayor to sign it.” Mayor Richard Berry has eight more days to sign the resolution.
Earth’s response to rapid cooling by Candace Hsu Daily Lobo
Two UNM researchers are examining stalagmites to study the link between winter moisture and the glacial climate shifts. Yemane Asmerom and Victor Polyak, researchers in the earth and planetary sciences department, work in two major labs at Northrop Hall. There, stalagmite samples from Fort Stanton Cave are broken down, and the uranium and thorium are separated, Asmerom said. The elements then can be analyzed and dated in a mass spectrometer. “The research was a project we put together and the question was how to respond to rapid cooling variation,” he said. “One of the most interesting scientific problems is the whole issue of global warming as a
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result of human contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The climate is very complex, so we looked at past periods of climate variations and how different parts of the earth responded.” The National Science Foundation is funding the research with $400,000, in addition to $1 million for instrumentation, Asmerom said. The University itself has also been supportive with the project, Asmerom said. The lab is one of the best of its kind in the world, with modern mass spectrometers to test the majority of the samples, he said. Asmerom and Polyak tested a Fort Stanton Cave stalagmite, which grew 11,000 to 60,000 years ago in the cave. The connection between the climate and the samples is found through oxygen isotope variability,
Asmerom said. “Essentially what you have in these yearly layers are variations that reflect the ratios of the precipitation,” he said. “So, when you have specific dominated moisture, like winter moisture, the ratio will be lower compared to summer precipitation. You have a way to track the winter moisture variability over the last 60,000 years.” The spectrometers used in the study are able to give precise ages of each sample. From that, researchers can determine how winter moisture has varied over time, Asmerom said. The researchers found that climate was changing rapidly and results from large changes in the overall balance and amount of moisture. “The earth went through global
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Victor Polyak shows “separation wells,” which separate uranium isotopes, in a laboratory at Northrop Hall on Tuesday. Polyak and his colleague, Yemane Asmerom, are examining stalagmites thousands of years old to catalog climatic shifts through time. Daniel Hulsbos / Daily Lobo
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