DAILY LOBO new mexico
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The Independent Voice of UNM since 1895
August 25, 2009
Schmidly to focus on accountability
Staying focused
by Kristian Macaron Daily Lobo
Gabbi Campos / Daily Lobo Eric Versig juggles Monday outside Tokyo Hardcore on Harvard Drive.
UNM greases the wheels with biofuel by Michael T. Ruhl Daily Lobo
UNM took a step toward reducing its carbon emissions this week by introducing the Veggie Bus, a shuttle powered entirely by waste vegetable oil. The oil comes from the kitchens of La Posada, the SUB and the cafeteria of UNMH. The University would otherwise pay $300 a week to dispose of the oil. The shuttle starts running along the Redondo route today. Senior Crystal Wong designed the bus’s exterior decor, which depicts the Sandia Mountains and sunflowers. Wong said the theme was community and sustainability. The sunflowers represent the vegetable oil used to power the shuttle, and the Sandia Mountains and sky represent Albuquerque and all of New Mexico, she said.
Parking and Transportation Services Director Clovis Acosta said the organization will test the economic viability of the alternative energy shuttles before converting more of the fleet. Acosta said the shuttle is one of many efforts the University has undertaken to reduce its carbon footprint. “It’s a matter of being a symbol of thinking green,” he said. Cynthia Martin, PATS program planning manager, said the converted shuttle was old and would have been retired soon if it hadn’t been turned into the Veggie Bus. The shuttle’s fuel comes from Albuquerque-based Southwest Bio Fuels. The owner, Nathan Gonzales, said his brand of B-100 vegetable fuel runs in all diesel engines. He said he will soon produce 2,000 gallons of the environmentally-friendly fuel daily.
see Veggie bus page 5
President David Schmidly has a to-do list for the 2009 school year. In Schmidly’s Monday-morning message Aug. 17, he outlined five major goals for the University this semester: leadership accountability, student success, fundraising, the Rio Rancho campus, and communication between the president and the Board of Regents. The full list has 13 goals, which the UNM Board of Regents approved at their Aug. 11 meeting. In his campus-wide e-mail, Schmidly briefly described the emphasis he would place on leadership accountability. “We must continue to develop an organizational and leadership infrastructure at UNM that creates and reinforces a culture of accountability, continuous process improvement and transparency, with measurement and results-driven performance,” Schmidly said. Faculty Senate President Doug Fields said the president and the Senate have been collaborating on a “Shared Governance Decision Matrix,” which would help to balance governance between the faculty and the administration. Fields said Schmidly’s emphasis on communication and accountability is a step in the right direction. “I think that these goals (Schmidly) has laid out represent an opportunity into a time where there is more trust between the faculty and the administration,” Fields said. In February, the UNM faculty voted no confidence in President Schmidly and two other University administrators, former Regents President Jamie Koch and Executive Vice President for Finance Administration David Harris. Schmidly’s other goals incorpo-
rate accountability and collaboration to develop student success. In the Monday-morning message, Schmidly said the University would focus on retention and graduation. “A primary focus will be to establish an integrated system of services to prepare, recruit, enroll, develop, retain and graduate both undergraduate and graduate students at the University of New Mexico, with special focus on the recruitment of high-achieving students and national merit scholars,” he said. Richard Holder, deputy provost of academic affairs, said the plan is the first step in focusing system accountability on student success. “We’re in the earlier stages of trying to implement that (system),” he said. “We certainly agree with the notion that that’s an area that needs to be worked on, and it falls on us to work on it.” Holder said the first priority is an advisement system that increases recruitment and retention numbers. “As far as a detailed list of what we plan to do, the only thing I can say for sure is that we have placed revamping our system of advising on a very high priority,” he said. “We think if we can get our advising system working as well as we can that it can really make a difference as far as retention and graduation rates.” Fields said an upcoming audit, which the faculty asked for in February, will investigate whether Schmidly’s plan is carried out. “The faculty asked for an audit and the way that audit is done — who is in charge of the audit and who has access to that information before it gets published — is going to determine whether the rust between the faculty and the president and the Board of Regents improves or declines,” Fields said. “I think that is a very, very important thing.”
Use of Second Life reaching fever pitch by Abigail Ramirez Daily Lobo
UNM is the first university to create an online, 3-D virtual training program for the H1N1 influenza virus. Adel Saad, who created the program on Second Life, an online, 3-D virtual-world Web site, said it teaches users how to organize a mass preventative clinic. Saad said the Center for Disaster Medicine financed the project with a $6,000 grant. Luke Esquibel, coordinator for the Albuquerque-UNM Medical Reserve Corps, said the training was created for his group, which assists in local response in an emergency or disaster. Because of the project, Saad was invited to present at the Aug. 13 Second Life Community Convention. Saad said coordinators of the conference were looking for anyone within Second Life who had done a project about H1N1. “They went to go look and MIT didn’t, Harvard didn’t, Stanford didn’t,” he said. “I mean, there were talks (about creating something virtually), but no one did creative training.” Saad said anyone can now walk through the 30-minute
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training by going to a virtual UNM island, which has a flu clinic building with information slides. Saad and his assistant developed the training program in three weeks. “It was a big learning curve, but it’s not too hard,” he said. “Once you get the hang of it, I think any age can learn to build (the virtual island), and you have plenty of help within Second Life, and instruction to help you build whatever you want.” Esquibel said the project has seen increasing traffic since the training opened in June. “In June, we probably had about 300 people go through,” he said. “But in July we had about 1,200. ... A lot of the feedback that I’m getting is that a lot of the public likes this kind of technology because it’s reachable.” Ryan Hodnick, an MRC volunteer, said he didn’t complete the training but was impressed by the project. “It really takes online learning to the next level,” he said. “It’s very visual, very live. It’s not the boring flat screen.” Courtesy of Adel Saad Saad said several other UNM entities are interested in using Second Life in their programs. The UNM New Media and A Second Life avatar stands in front of learning objectives relating to a virtual H1N1 pandemic. see Virtual clinic page 7
Never too much tapas
Fashion Q&A
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