DAILY LOBO new mexico
Out of the game
monday
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November 28, 2011
The Independent Voice of UNM since 1895
NAACP: UNM discriminates in hiring, promotion by Luke Holmen holmen@unm.edu
Local African-American leaders are calling on UNM to end what they say are discriminatory practices against African-American employees, particularly those at UNM Hospital. The Albuquerque chapter of the NAACP, in conjunction with the Ministers Fellowship of Albuquerque and Vicinity, filed a complaint with Bishop the Justice DeDavid C. Cooper partment and the federal Department of Education on Tuesday claiming UNM is biased against African Americans. The New York Times reported the Title VI complaint. It says the University created a racially hostile environment for African-American faculty, staff and students. The complaint says African
Americans have been excluded from upper administration positions and that African-American women have not been placed in positions of authority within UNM and that African-American faculty face salary disparities. The complaint alleges the majority of African-American doctors who left UNMH over the past decade did so because of workplace discrimination. “We basically got to a place where we felt the administration was not willing to even consider making changes, even though they themselves conceded there were disparities,” said Bishop David Cooper, senior pastor of New Hope Full Gospel Baptist Church’s Albuquerque location, to the New York Times. Cooper, who helped file the complaint, said faculty have come to him with concerns about UNM’s environment of discrimination for years. “We hope this brings change in policy and practice as it relates to retention, promotion, recruitment
Tenure/Tenure-Track Faculty for 2010 Hispanic
and the treatment of African Americans on campus,” he said. UNM President David Schmidly and Health Sciences Center Chancellor Paul Roth denied the claims of discrimination in a joint statement issued Tuesday. “We do not discriminate against African Americans. We do not discriminate against any individual or group based on race, religion, sexual orientation, age, gender or ability,” the statement said. “The University has very clear policies in place which prohibit discrimination and we train our employees to comply with the law and our policies.” Darnell Smith, president of the Albuquerque Chapter of the NAACP, told KOB that an African-American Doctor at UNM took heat for whistle-blowing on poor practices at the hospital. “He actually reported an incident that could cause people harm in the operating rooms, and rather than him being supported by the staff, he was actually reprimanded by the administration,” Smith said.
In April of this year, the UNM President’s Office issued an African-American/Black Climate Review Report in an effort to evaluate and address the need for inclusion of African Americans in higher education. “The African-American/Black community has become isolated within a university community that has historically identified itself with the Native American and Hispanic cultures,” the report concluded. “UNM has made a significant and bold decision to look at itself in terms of whether the African-American/Black Community is truly one that is being included, respected, acknowledged; as well as, considered to be relevant and integral to the University’s mission of excellence in research, teaching and engagement.” UNM administrators said in the report they are working on creating a culture that is more inclusive and more aware of racial issues, but continue to deny the
Non-Tenure-Track Faculty for 2010 128
Hispanic
claims of discrimination put forward by the complaint. Look for continuing coverage of this issue in the Daily Lobo.
For full text of the official complaint visit Dailylobo.com.
DL
•Only 3.1 percent of nontenure track faculty hired by UNMH since 2006 are AfricanAmerican. •According to 2010 data, only 1.8 percent of currently serving non-tenure track faculty at UNMH are African-American, and only one tenured professor at UNMH is African-American. •All information is according to the UNM 2010-2011 Fact Book.
Student Enrollment Ethnicity for 2010 103
Hispanic
13,143
African 18 American/Black
African 20 American/Black
African 880 American/Black
American Indian 30
American Indian 21
American Indian 4,242
Asian
81
Asian
Native Hawaiian/ 1 Pacific Islander
Native Hawaiian/ 0 Pacific Islander White
61
804
White
705
Asian
1,011
Native Hawaiian/ 50 Pacific Islander White
14,423
Numbers do not include students who identify with two or more demographics, international students, and non-responsive students.
Lobo Gardens take LaPo cuisine to new extremes by Jessica Hitch
, staff- and faculty-run gardening project. UNM officials shut the garden down because Borowski didn’t obtain the correct permits, but Borowski’s Students eating at La Posada dining hall or in idea grew and the gardening project bloomed the Mercado in the SUB this semester may have since then, according to Travis McKenzie, who eaten food made with ingredients grown right helped launch Lobo Gardens. “We’ve come a long way,” McKenzie said. “At here on campus, in the Lobo Gardens. first there was a lot of resistance Items with an “Extreme to even having a garden on Local” label feature ingredients campus, and now we have mulfrom Lobo Gardens, garden tiple sites. When I coined the coordinator Mona Angel said. name ‘Lobo Gardens,’ I put an “Everything with the sticker ‘s’ (on the name) strategically sold like hotcakes, and we were to show it’s not just one garden, able to supplement Chartwells but keeps growing and sprout(The food provider for La Posaing more.” da) for several months with our Students are preparing a harvest,” she said. “They made ~Travis McKenzie proposal for Lobo Gardens’ sandwiches with our vegetaUNM student new site, which they will presbles, fruit cups with our melent to UNM Physical Plant and ons, and pumpkin bread and Real Estate Department representatives for apsoup with pumpkins grown at Lobo Gardens.” Extreme Local items are limited right now proval during the spring semester, student Adribecause the growing season is over, but Angel an Carver said. Carver is a student in the American studies said she expects to supply more food on campus 309 class, which is one of the classes focused on in the spring. There are three garden sites on UNM’s main developing and maintaining the Lobo Gardens. campus. Angel said she hopes to increase its The class’s professor, Andrew Marcum, said compresence even more in the new year with a new munity gardening is a form of social change. “The industrial food system affects our garden site outside Mesa Vista Hall. Alex Borowski started a tiny garden outside choices and control over food access,” he said. his Hokona Hall dorm room in November 2009, “Knowing where our food is from is a social and which was the seed of inspiration for the student- political issue.”
jehitch@unm.edu
“At first there was a lot of resistance to even having a garden on campus.”
Inside the
Daily Lobo volume 116
issue 67
Isabel Hees / Daily Lobo Prep-cook Richard Kannary cuts squash at La Posada dining hall. Many different kinds of fresh produce are harvested from the Lobo Garden project and used at La Posada.
Runs with wolves
Briefly in sports
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TODAY
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