DAILY LOBO new mexico
Rio Grande rivalry see page 5
friday
December 3, 2010
The Independent Voice of UNM since 1895
Widowed student soldiers on for her kids, degree Nontraditional
by Ruben Hamming-Green rhamminggreen@gmail.com
Editor’s note: This is the second in a series on nontraditional students at UNM. Jodi Carrasco wakes up at 4:30 a.m. and starts her day by running on a treadmill for a couple hours. She takes her 16-year-old daughter to school and then goes to school herself. At 48 years old, Carrasco works 30 hours a week and goes to school full time. She’s working toward a bachelor’s in sociology and has two semesters left. “It would have been a whole lot easier if I started college back in the 80s after I graduated high school,” she said. “But I got married, we had children, and life kind of happens to you. School went to the backburner.” On top of the class load and the work hours, Carrasco is recently widowed and cares for three children. Her husband, Mike Carrasco,
see Nontraditional page 3
Daniel Hulsbos / Daily Lobo Student Jodi Carrasco studies in the offices above Parish Library on Thursday. Carrasco, 48, is recently widowed and is caring for her three children on top of a full-time work and school schedule.
UNM introduces
LOCKED IN FOR YEAR 3
new bio degree Biomedical engineering program awaits approval by Chelsea Erven cerven@unm.edu
Robert Maes / Daily Lobo Head football coach Mike Locksley takes one-on-one questions from a member of the media on Thursday at University Stadium. Despite two wins in two years and 22 losses, Locksley will return for a third season in 2011. See page 3. Check out DailyLobo.com for a photographic recap of Locksley’s career so far.
Inside the
Daily Lobo volume 115
issue 71
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Set for success
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Likely starting fall 2011, UNM will offer doctoral and master’s degrees in biomedical engineering on main campus, making it the first university in New Mexico to do so. Steven Graves, associate director for the UNM Center for Biomedical Engineering, said the Ph.D. program got approval to begin fall 2011 enrollment. He said the Faculty Senate approved the master’s program at its November meeting, but it is pending the Board of Regents’ and Legislature’s approval. “In the future, we hope to increase the number of biomedical engineering sub-disciplines that we cover, too, but we’ll be starting with molecular systems,” he said. UNM is one of 13 flagship universities nationwide that does not offer a biomedical engineering degree program. The approved degree proposal says that, “Biomedical engineering is one of the fastest growing engineering fields and a key area of U.S. competitiveness around the globe today.”
Biochemistry student Taylor Canady said the program would provide students hands-on experience. “The cell has a complex interworking of biology and will require a special set of tools to approach its solutions,” he said. “So, seeing the University of New Mexico implement a degree where undergraduates and graduates get a chance to get their hands dirty is a good thing.” Another selling point, Graves said, is that UNM has all the resources to support the program. He said students have high interest in the degree programs. “The fact that the School of Engineering and the School of Medicine are both here on the same campus makes this an ideal place to have these programs,” Graves said. The degree proposal says students’ enrollment in non-degree biomedical engineering courses the past 12 years has been strong, and students have had an “avid interest” in BME. Canady said the program will prosper. “We will now have an attempt to tie all this science under one umbrella,” he said. “This is truly going to be interdisciplinary as far what subjects are taught and what students are attracted.”
TODAY
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