DAILY LOBO new mexico
Bet you can’t guess who this is see page 4
August 28, 2012
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
TAROT FOR QUARTERS
Football player off team after DWI charge
Devonta Tabannah
by Elizabeth Cleary and Thomas Romero-Salas sports@dailylobo.com
Adria Malcolm / Daily Lobo Twenty-three-year-old UNM alumna Mary Coker conducts 25¢ Tarot Card readings late night at Frontier for laundry money. Coker says she realizes the potentially devastating outcomes of her readings and says, “I do believe in it (the Tarot readings), I don’t take any guilt for the outcome of my readings, it’s their responsibility to do with the readings what they will.”
tuesday
Lobo football player Devonta Tabannah was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated on Sunday and was immediately suspended from the football team. According to APD, the sophomore cornerback was driving a black Chevrolet and ran a red light to make a left turn onto Lomas Boulevard from Second Street. The maneuver forced APD officer Thomas Ivie to brake to avoid colliding with Tabannah’s vehicle. Tabannah was arrested and charged with DWI, failure to obey a traffic control device and failure to provide proof of insurance, registration or a driver’s license. According to the criminal complaint, Tabannah said the vehicle was not his and that he was unsure where to locate the registration or insurance. The officer asked the “unidentified female passenger” in the car if she knew where to locate
the documents, which she did not. Tabannah is a native of Oxon Hill, Md. He graduated from Potomac High School in 2010 and was recruited to play for the Lobos by former head coach Mike Locksley. Tabannah enrolled at UNM in January 2011, and kicked off his college football career in the 2011 season. Injuries sidelined the cornerback for the latter half of the season, and he was slated to return to the field this year before Davie suspended him. Davie said Tabannah immediately came to him and was honest with him about the circumstances surrounding the arrest, but that honesty could not stay the suspension. “I appreciated that he came to me, but that doesn’t resolve or doesn’t change the actions. There’s no margin for error with something like that,” he said. “He won’t be a member of this football team in the near future.” Under former head coach Mike Locksley, football players were banned from participating in Downtown nightlife after a player was arrested at the Library Bar and Grill in 2009. Locksley was relieved of coaching duties in September 2011. Davie said that since he’s been the team’s head coach, he hasn’t felt it necessary to ban players from certain parts of town. “I don’t see any need to keep them from going to certain places now,” he said. “Maybe I will the more I come to understand what Albuquerque is all about, but I’ve never tried to shield guys or keep them from making decisions; it’s all about making the proper decisions.”
HR mulls health care costs SHAC program to aid by Svetlana Ozden news@dailylobo.com
Annual UNM health care costs have increased by $7 million over the past three years and are estimated to cost the University about $62 million in the current fiscal year. In FY 2011, UNM paid about $55 million for health care costs; about $40 million went to medical claims costs alone. In FY 2012, health care costs increased to about $59 million, including about $43 million in medical claim costs. UNM health care costs include medical and pharmacy claim costs, administrative fees and stoploss insurance costs. Stop-loss insurance is designed to protect UNM from having to pay excessive health care costs in the case of a catastrophic claim that exceeds a certain limit. Vice President of Human Resources Helen Gonzales said about 86 percent of insurance claims for the UNM Medical Plan are for chronic illnesses, such as hypertension, diabetes and asthma, and that obesity is considered to be one of the most significant risk factors for chronic illness. About 64 percent of Americans are considered to be overweight or obese, according to the Department of Health and Human Resources for Disease
Inside the
Control and Prevention. “The hard fact is that the cost of health care continues to rise,” she said. “UNM has responded thoughtfully and aggressively to increasing health care costs. A premium increase was again avoided for FY 2012 through changes in plan design. Implementation of the plan changes helped avoid a premium increase to all employees by attaching part of the cost of certain types of care to individual utilization.” Gonzales said poor lifestyle choices are one of the reasons health care costs continue to rise and that the University is considering different methods to improve employee health. She said that UNM employees have access to voluntary and confidential personal health assessments, exercise facilities, health and wellness programs and news about customized services to promote wellness. “Health care plans across the country are seeking and implementing strategies to motivate members to make good lifestyle choices, which reduces the cost of health care to both the plans and their participants,” she said. “These strategies typically involve incentives which reward good choices, and financial disincentives — penalties, actually — for poor lifestyle changes.” Gonzales said that penalties usually include higher costs
Daily Lobo volume 117
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for health care services and that some institutions, including Albuquerque Public Schools, provide programs such as Personal Health Assessments and wellness initiatives to promote healthy lifestyle choices. She said that in some cases, employees who choose not to participate might pay higher health insurance premiums. Gonzales said that although UNM doesn’t reward or enforce penalties for based on employees’ lifestyles, the University will consider various options to reward employees for healthy lifestyles rather than penalize employees for unhealthy lifestyle choices. She said the University already provides employees with healthy lifestyle choice incentives, such as the confidential health assessments and the Tuition Remission policies that provide employees with up to two credit hours per calendar year for health and fitness courses through the UNM Division of Continuing Education or other University departments. “Johnson Gym is available to University employees … and Human Resources publishes regular news and offers customized services to departments to foster wellness through Employee Health Promotion Programs,” Gonzales said. “UNM strives to make good choices available for its employees.”
student weight loss by Hannah Stangebye news@dailylobo.com
The Student Health and Counseling Center began a new program Monday to help improve students’ health and physical fitness. SHAC Health Education Manager Malissa Lyons said that for a $45 nonrefundable fee, qualified students can participate in the Healthy Weight Program, which is designed to help students make healthy lifestyle choices. She said each participant will receive a customized health weight plan and support from the Healthy Weight Team to meet their personal goals. The fee includes 16 sessions with a personal coach, 10 sessions with a nutritionist and five sessions with a personal trainer. Students will meet with the personal coach at SHAC to create a healthy-lifestyle plan that incorporates healthy eating and exercise habits. The nutritionist will evaluate students’ eating habits and offer advice about making healthier food choices and small changes that can improve diet, while the personal trainer will meet with students in Johnson Gym and go through personalized exercise plans. In Albuquerque, a consultation with a nutritionist costs between $100 and $200, follow-up visits cost about $80 to $150 per visit, and one-on-one personal training sessions cost about $45. But Lyons said the program can only accommodate 20 students at a time and is only available to students enrolled in six credit hours or more. She said participants must
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Crushed cloves of fun
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meet the body mass index requirements for their healthy weight goal. The body mass index, or BMI, is a calculation taken from an individual’s height and weight to indicate the amount of fat in one’s body. Students who want to lose weight must have a BMI above 24.9 and students who want to gain weight must have a BMI below 18, in order to ensure that students maintain a medically approved healthy weight. Lyons said SHAC surveyed students last March in order to find out what kind of services students wanted SHAC to offer, and out of the 16 percent of UNM students who participated in the survey, one of the most popular requests was for SHAC to provide students with access to a nutritionist and a low-cost weight management program. In response, SHAC hired a nutritionist and implemented the Healthy Weight Program. Lyons said she feels the addition of the program was a good choice for SHAC and that the program takes class and work schedules and personal challenges into account. “Each team member works together to assist the student with a lifestyle change,” she said. “I think the program gives students an opportunity to make changes and sustain their progress.”
For more information, visit the Health Education Department at the Student Health and Counseling Center across from the Student Union Building.
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