DAILY LOBO new mexico
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April 28, 2011
thursday The Independent Voice of UNM since 1895
Residents recall Santa Ana memories by Chelsea Erven cerven@unm.edu
Residents of Santa Ana dorm bade the dorm farewell Wednesday evening. It will be demolished this summer. The demolition is part of the first phase of new main campus housing renovations, and Santa Ana Community Association President David Ishmael said the goodbye party was bittersweet. “I have mixed feelings,” he said. “I’m sad that the community is going to be disrupted again, but at the same time, I respect the need for the University to invest in more student housing.” Ishmael said he enjoyed his time as a resident of Santa Ana and planned to live there next semester until he heard about the dorm’s impending demolition. Residents painted their handprints across the walls in the dorm to commemorate their time as
see Santa Ana page 3
Robert Maes / Daily Lobo A memorial banner hangs from one of Santa Anta’s dorm windows. Students gathered Wednesday to bid the complex farewell. It will be torn down during the summer.
Sprinkler breaks Frustration drives away faculty ‘almost every day’ by Alexandra Swanberg aswanny@unm.edu
by Elizabeth Cleary news@dailylobo.com
At around 3:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, a sprinkler broke just west of the Communication and Journalism Building, and the resulting trail of water stretched about 470 feet down Central Avenue before falling into the drain near University Avenue. Willie West, manger of grounds and landscaping for UNM’s Physical Plant Department, said sprinkler heads break and leak almost every day. He said these water-wasting mishaps are usually the result of vandalism. “Probably what happened is one of our homeless was sleeping in the area and the sprinklers came on and got him wet,” he said. “Or somebody from one of the bars that had passed out. It happens very regularly on that side of campus. They get wet, they get mad, and they get up and break them.” West said main campus contains 4-5,000 irrigation systems and about 30,000 total sprinklers. He said PPD has four employees who check and repair the sprinkler systems at least once a month. He said the sprinklers west of Communication and Journalism Building run on a newer, more-
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Daily Lobo volume 115
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efficient system than the other ones on main campus, but they waste more water when someone kicks the top off of them.
“It happens very regularly on that side of campus. They get wet, they get mad, and they get up and break them.” ~Willie West PPD Landscaping Manager “It’s designed to allow the soil to take in water a lot longer without run-off,” he said. “It’s a very good system so we can have good, long run times. What happens though, unfortunately, is when one of our heads gets broken, it does run for a longer period of time.” He said his department usually runs the sprinklers at night, which is in compliance with city lawnwatering regulations. The city mandates that after April 1, residents
see Water Problem page 3
Some faculty members are reaching their breaking points. English professor James Burbank said that, in his department alone, more than 10 percent of faculty members are retiring — three members out of frustration with the administration. He said budget cuts have affected the administration, but it’s nothing like what the faculty faces. “We are top-heavy with administrators and more and more funds go to Athletics,” he said. “I mean, this is what’s causing a great deal of anger — when we can’t do the job of educating, and when our budgets are cut to the point that every day there’s a new problem. These are thrown at us again and again, but then we have this bevy of vice presidents.” The Office of Institutional Research’s UNM Fact Book for 2009-10 shows that the number of tenure/ tenure-track professors shrank by 2.1 percent between 2005-09, while non-tenure track faculty increased by 0.2 percent. Temporary faculty increased by 4.6 percent. Provost Suzanne Ortega said in an e-mail that she is not aware of an unprecedented number of faculty leaving after this semester, but the office won’t know for sure until fall when resignations and terminations are processed. Gary Scharnhorst, a distinguished professor of English, said he
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is retiring after 24 years of working at UNM to instead work pro bono in Heidelbeck, Germany. Disgusted with the University, Scharnhorst said he was disenchanted when he didn’t get a raise with his distinguished professor promotion.
“It’s very much shouting into the wind to try to raise any questions about the educational quality of academic programs with administrators.” ~Wanda Martin, English Professor “I’m often embarrassed and occasionally ashamed to go to work here,” he said. “The University has become an institution where there is very little shared purpose and certainly no shared sacrifice. … The University is increasingly a joke. … The academic mission of the University has been neglected by the administration, and Athletics have prospered.” Vice President for Enrollment Management Carmen AlvarezBrown, who is leaving for position at Cleveland State University, said
in an e-mail that the administration, despite its flaws, has faculty and students’ interests at heart. “All attempt to do the best work they can,” she said. “The biggest problem with the University is the revolving door of top-level administrators that consequently brings about lack of accountability in the area of performance, service to students and support to faculty and their academic mission.” UNM’s Council of University Presidents released a report in November 2010 showing faculty-tostudent ratio increased from 18-to-1 in 2000 to 21-to-1 in 2009. The report said that the average undergraduate lower-division class size increased by five students from fall 2005 to fall 2010. When the Board of Regents reviewed potential presidential candidates in 2007, the regents made an effort to include faculty in the process said Wanda Martin, retiring professor of English. However, despite faculty’s rejection of David Schmidly, he was chosen. She said it became clear to faculty that nobody was listening to them. “It’s very much shouting into the wind to try to raise any questions about the educational quality of academic programs with administrators,” she said. “As long as the regents have such a disdainful attitude toward faculty members and shared governance to have so little interest
see Faculty Exodus page 3
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