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February 10, 2012
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Groups: Help students keep Lottery Scholarship by Avicra Luckey
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aluckey@unm.edu
About a third of freshmen awarded the Lottery Scholarship lose it within a semester, said Ann Brooks, chair of the Faculty Senate Budget Committee in a presentation to the regents on Thursday. The Tuition and Fee Team, a board appointed by the UNM president and the Board of Regents that makes decisions about tuition and fees, recommended that 20 percent of any increase in tuition be invested in needbased financial aid for students to keep them in school through graduation. “Need-based financial aid has been shown to increase retention and graduation rates,” GPSA President Katie Richardson said Wednesday morning during the Board of Regents Finance and Facilities Committee hearing. Brooks, who also serves on the President’s Strategic Advisory Team, said students need to find what the team calls an “ahha” moment in deciding the major they want to pursue. “It is the time it takes for a student to identify the major they want and connect with the faculty that are within that major,” she said. “The longer it takes to identify that major for the student, the longer it takes on their journey.” GSPA President Katie Richardson said that, in an effort to increase student support, UNM will also hire four new advisers per year for the next five years, as well as 20 tenure-track professors to give students more support. According to the PSAT’s presentation at the regents’ meeting, hiring more tenure-track professors will increase the number of
Adria Malcolm / Daily Lobo Rebecca Graham (left) and Dmitri Glover process orders for customers at the Frontier. Since Thursday students have been able to use their Lobo Ca$h to pay for food at the restaurant.
available courses, foster research and increase supervision of graduate students. The PSAT has come up with nine additional low- to mid-cost initiatives to fight high drop-out rates. “One is called the Student Success Summit, where interested faculty and staff would meet each March to discuss, learn,
strategize and volunteer for opportunities to connect with incoming freshmen,” Brooks said. Brooks said another initiative, Graduation Coaches, would pair faculty and staff from the Student Success Summit with incoming freshman to help them anticipate and navigate obstacles on the road to graduation. Interim Provost Chaoki Ab-
dallah said although information on how to maintain the Lottery Scholarship is available early to freshmen, often they still fail to meet the GPA requirements or take sufficient credit hours to maintain their eligibility for the scholarship. Abdallah said meeting one-on-one with students early on is the key to success. “We find in many cases that
you need that personal touch,” Abdallah said. Agenda items that were not approved at the regents meeting included an approximately $1.5 million project that would renovate the interior of the Student Residence Center apartments.
Student groups miss ASUNM budget deadline Kiva Club president: Don’t let my mistake affect future generations of the Kiva Club by Nathan Farmer
news@dailylobo.com The Kiva Club missed the deadline for its ASUNM budget request for the 2013 fiscal year by 2 minutes and 18 seconds. Isaac Romero, finance chair of ASUNM, said the request would not be accepted. He said the law book clearly states that any budget request turned in past the 5 p.m. deadline would not be accepted. President of the Kiva Club Makhpiya Black Elk said the last submission was due to an Internet failure. He asked ASUNM at the Wednesday meeting to look past his mistake and to not pun-
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ish his club for the error. “I take full responsibility for the mistake, but don’t let this mistake affect future generations of the Kiva Club,” Black Elk said. ASUNM funds chartered student organizations with undergraduates members who request funding. ASUNM does not fund graduate student organizations or non-student organizations, like the Student Fee Review Board does. The American Society of Civil Engineers and Africana Leadership Opportunity Team also turned in their budget requests late. Article II, Section 4C of the ASUNM budget code requires
that completed budget requests be submitted by 5 p.m. on Wednesday of the fourth week of the spring semester. Section 4D states: “Incomplete budget requests or those turned in after the deadline will not be accepted. This will result in the group being dropped from the semester’s budget process.” Any organization that failed to meet the deadline was sent an email at 5 p.m. saying it could petition its case at the 6 p.m. meeting. Romero said the senators would deliberate at a later time to find a solution. “After hearing everything you have to say, I will discuss this
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with the vice president and email all the groups with what we have decided and I will continue to hear input from all of the senators,” Romero said. Adrian Cortinas, vice president of ASUNM, said it is regrettable that so many student groups failed to turn in their budget requests on time, but the law book clearly states the rules. “Deadlines are deadlines, and it is stated in our law book that 30 seconds late or 30 minutes late count as late,” he said. “You have a whole lot of time from the workshops to turn in your stuff. It’s unfortunate. It happens.” The meeting was not on the ASUNM website, but Cortinas
said the website is still under maintenance. In October 2011, Jaymie Roybal said one of her short-term goals was to get the website up and running. She said she hired University Web Communication Services to re-design the site. “It has been addressed,” he said. “The website is still a work in progress, and President Roybal just hired a new director, and she has been in the office all day working on it.” The meeting was held without Roybal, who was at the Student Fee Review Board deliberations. Cortinas said the weekly meeting had to go on, even without her presence.
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