DAILY LOBO new mexico
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November 30, 2010
tuesday The Independent Voice of UNM since 1895
Witness: Drunk fan groped Lobo Lucy
by Shaun Griswold and Laurel Brishel Prichard news@dailylobo.com
A drunk fan allegedly groped mascot Lobo Lucy at a home football game against TCU on Saturday, according to a UNMPD report. Daniel Candelaria witnessed the incident and said he and a friend called police 15 minutes after Anthony Chavez walked up to the mascot for a photo, posed with his right arm around Lucy and allegedly groped her breast, according to the police report. He said the woman in the Lobo Lucy costume will pursue charges against Chavez. “I was more in shock that the whole thing happened. I stood there stunned,” Candelaria said. “The general consensus was, ‘Did that just really happen?’ He basically thought it was a kick for him, and when Lucy pushed him he stumbled when he was pushed away.” Witnesses said the man was intoxicated when he approached the 18-year-old female student who was dressed as Lucy during the game. They said she was posing for photos with children and giving high fives before Chavez came down to the north end zone and allegedly groped the mascot.
Lobo Lucy entertains fans during a basketball game last season. The woman inside the Lobo Lucy costume was allegedly groped by an intoxicated fan during the last football home game against TCU on Saturday, according to UNMPD. Vanessa Sanchez Daily Lobo
see Lobo Lucy page 3
Provost puts degree programs on chopping block DE
S P E R ATE ti m e s
by Ruben Hamming-Green rhamminggreen@gmail.com
Eight UNM degree programs are in danger of being cut after the Provost’s Office flagged them for possible removal in an effort to reduce costs. Deputy Provost Richard Holder said the programs were selected based on a set of characteristics.
“Academic degree programs were evaluated for up to 15 characteristics, such as number of majors, has the number declined by 10 percent or more, number of degrees granted, total number of credit hours produced, etc ...,” he said. “Programs that had negative values for five or more of these characteristics were flagged for further review.” Russian, Russian studies, an education degree in chemistry, Portuguese, a joint economics and philosophy degree and a master’s in Portuguese are on the chopping block, as well as a Ph.D. in French
studies and Latin American studies. Departments have until January to appeal, and Holder said the Faculty Senate will vote on the cuts during the spring semester. Before any cuts will be made, Holder said, benefits and downsides will be weighed, and departments have an opportunity to protest degree program cuts. He said the amount that could be saved by cutting the programs hasn’t been determined, as well as whether professors and classes would be cut. “These data would be identified in the more complete study now underway for each flagged program,”
Holder said. “We are a long way from deciding if any one of these will be cut. If that were to happen, currently enrolled students would be allowed to finish.” Natasha Kolchevska, chair of the foreign languages department, said four years ago that the Russian and Russian Studies faculty had five teaching professors but it now has two, and students pursuing the two degrees dropped from about 20 students to about 12. “We’re already down to bare bones because the college has not given us the resources to have an
adequate staff,” she said. “The reason this major has been falling is not because of the lack of interest, but because of lack of resources. If you have any pretensions to any international depth you have to cover Russia and Eastern Europe.” Anthony Cardenas, a Portuguese professor, said the Portuguese degree program isn’t expendable. “We have probably one of the better Portuguese programs in the country,” he said. “I think that by the time we’re done with our investigation ... it would be insane to get rid of the Portuguese program.”
UNM officials, students come together for the DREAM by Sofia Sanchez sanchez@unm.edu
More than 20 students gathered in support of the DREAM Act on Monday afternoon in hopes of convincing the government to allow students whose parents came to the U.S. illegally into higher education and the military. Project for New Mexico Graduates of Color (PNMGC), along with other student groups, organized the rally, and a phone blitz will take place throughout the week. Rep. Martin Heinrich and Sen. Jeff Bingaman each support the bill and sent representatives to Monday’s rally, said Christopher Ramirez, project assistant for the
Inside the
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Office for Equity and Inclusion. “We are lucky in this state because we are celebratory about this act while people in other states are still demanding their rights,” Ramirez said. “We are able to have our delegation recognize not only the work that students have done but acknowledging education.” Students will call New Mexico Delegation members who promised to vote on the bill. The national legislation would allow undocumented students to remain in the country if they earned a high school diploma or the equivalent, don’t have criminal records and spent two years in a university or the military, according to OpenCongress.org.
UNM President David Schmidly and acting president Paul Roth sent a joint statement to the rally supporting the bill. Breda Bova, the President’s Office chief of staff, said the president supports the bill because it would give a better life to students struggling for education in America. “We gladly proclaim the University of New Mexico’s support of the Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. New Mexico has taken the lead in giving all students the opportunity to aspire to a better life and now it is time for the country to take action on behalf of its students. We urge congress to take swift and decisive
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action in passing the DREAM act,“ she said. According to PNMGC, about 65,000 immigrant students graduate each year from U.S. high schools and are uncertain about their future. The DREAM Act would help students who were brought to the U.S. illegally as young children. To qualify, aspiring students must have been in the U.S. before age 16 and be of “good moral standing.” The bill would allow individuals to enlist in the military, attend college and gain eventual citizenship. Twelve universities around the country have supported passing the DREAM Act, according to
PNMGC’s Lead Project. “Now we have administrative leadership saying we support the DREAM Act, we support students, and other universities should see this as model of how other presidents should act,” said Eric Castillo, lead project assistant for PNMGC. Student Natalia Gurule said the bill will allow immigrant students to contribute to the country’s growth. “I wholeheartedly support the DREAM Act,” she said. “If you have a student with potential who has been in the country for an extended period of time, why not give them a chance to become something?”
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