DAILY LOBO new mexico
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February 22, 2011
The Independent Voice of UNM since 1895
SLOWLY BUT SURELY
Guv proposes slash in remedial funds by Alexandra Swanberg aswanny@unm.edu
Gov. Susana Martinez proposed a $4.9 million cut in remedial education funds from the state’s colleges in order to focus on problems in the K-12 system that make remedial courses necessary. Remedial education courses are 100-level courses in math, reading and writing and do not count for college credit. Students whose SAT/ACT scores fall below a certain point are required to pass the classes before moving on. Scott Darnell, Martinez’s spokesperson, said the proposal does not call for eliminating remedial classes, just providing less funding for them. He said Martinez doesn’t want the state to allocate so much money to teach college students material they should have learned in high school. “The state currently faces a budget deficit of up to $450 million,” he said. “We must balance the budget, and that involves making difficult decisions. Unless we make cuts like these, deep cuts would have to be made to K-12 classrooms and to health care for those most in need, which the governor does not support.” Wynn Goering, vice provost for academic affairs, said on average, 30-35 percent of incoming freshmen require remedial education. He said the proposal doesn’t address the root problem in the public school system. “It’s a budget cut that simply makes a serious problem worse,” he said. “If (Martinez’s) goal is to make New Mexico’s educational institutions more ‘accountable’ for this issue, then, in this case, the real need is to find ways to enable New Mexico high schools to
do a better job of preparing their graduates for college.” Darnell said Martinez laid out an education reform agenda designed to correct the problems in the K-12 school system that produce college students who need remedial education. He said schools that measure students’ performance on a grading system are more effective at tracking students’ progress. He said ending social promotion ensures students learn material before moving on to the next grade.
“It’s a budget cut that simply makes a serious problem worse.” ~Wynn Goering Vice Provost for Academic Affairs “The idea is to be able to better target resources toward lowperforming students and schools so that they are well-prepared to enter college,” he said. Goering said UNM main campus does not receive remedial education funds because it subcontracts CNM professors to teach those courses on main campus. Goering said all UNM branch campuses receive remedial education funds. He said community college students who return to school after several years often need remedial courses. “The other thing the community colleges will tell you is that a lot of this work, from their perspective, goes into educating people who have been out of school for a long time,” Goering said. “From their perspective, it’s not a matter of just the high schools aren’t doing their job.”
Zach Gould / Daily Lobo Construction workers apply stucco to Castetter Hall’s new wing. Progress continues on the wing, which was set to be completed this fall.
Web access receives high marks
THE WILDE BUNCH Linda Jensen twirls Scott Amspoker on Monday during the Wilde Bunch’s weekly square dance gathering at the Albuquerque Square Dance Center. The Wilde Bunch is a local gay and lesbian square dancing group, but includes people outside of the LGBT community.
Scholarly archives get institution’s best ranking by Shaun Griswold shaun24@unm.edu
UNM is at the top of its game in cyberspace. UNM’s web access and presence was ranked 76th out of 12,000 universities worldwide and 62nd out of North America colleges. UNM Website Administrator Matthew Carter said the quality of a university’s electronic content can factor into a student’s decision to attend UNM. “The ranking represents UNM has a fair amount of scholarly content and
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makes it readily available,” he said. Webometrics Rankings of World Universities, an initiative of Cybermetrics Lab, conducted the analysis of global universities’ web content. Universities were scaled on four different rankings: size, visibility, rich files and scholar files. UNM received its highest ranking, 57, for scholarly archives. University Libraries Associate Dean Nancy Dennis said UNM provides online systems that allow students to access an extensive collection of scholarly archives. She said these systems, which include the Rocky Mountain Online Archive and Lobo Vault, are free to students and make UNM stand out on the web. Among its 16 peer institutions, UNM was ranked eighth by Webometrics. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s web content was No. 1 in the world, followed by Harvard and Stanford. “We have been working to implement more consistent branding and web-best practices across various UNM websites,” Carter said. “In doing so, we hope to see an increase in both the quality and visibility of our web presence.”
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