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March 28, 2014
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
Williams’ slate focuses on transparency by Ardee Napolitano news@dailylobo.com @ArdeeTheJourno
The Associated Students of the University of New Mexico’s third-highest-ranking official will try her luck at the undergraduate student government’s presidency during this semester’s ASUNM election. ASUNM President Pro-Tempore Rachel Williams will run for presidency this semester on the Connect ASUNM slate. Williams will have to snag the spot from incumbent Isaac Romero, who will run with the Forward UNM
slate, and ASUNM Sen. Colt Balok, who will run with the Team U slate. Williams said she has always dreamt of being the student government’s president. She said she took a step toward making it real last semester while talking to her vice-presidential running-mate Jenna Hagengruber. “The presidency for me has always been a faraway dream,” she said. “When I was a freshman, I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll do it.’ Somewhere along the way, it started to not be real anymore because there was always someone going to do it… We were kind of joking about it one day, then it was just, ‘Let’s do this. We can do it together.’”
William Aranda / Daily Lobo ASUNM presidential candidate Rachel Williams, right, and her vice-presidential running mate Jenna Hagengruber talk about their campaign outside the SUB on Thursday afternoon. Williams will vie for the presidency against fellow candidates Colt Balok and incumbent Isaac Romero in the upcoming student government election.
First elected as a senator in fall 2012, Williams was re-elected last semester. This semester, she won the president pro-tempore position from Balok. She said she has advanced knowledge of the nitty-gritty of ASUNM. “I have lived, breathed, slept ASUNM since I was a freshman,” she said. “I had two semesters when I literally went to every senate meeting every Wednesday. I understand the constitution. I understand the law book. And I understand finance, which is something a lot of people don’t really understand.” Williams said that if elected as president, she would focus on encouraging collaboration among University bodies. “This campus is so diverse… that sometimes it loses its meaning because we throw it around so much and we’re not truly appreciating what it actually means,” she said. “We have all these resource centers and they’re all silo-ed off. That’s something that, we found, is a major issue this year. ASUNM is so disconnected. The concept for our team is to start connecting everything back together.” Williams said she also aims to run her campaign on transparency. She said that to reach out to students, she aims to establish an ASUNM blog that would regularly be updated by officials, which she thinks is doable. “ASUNM has a director of communications, and they work at the executive branch,” she said. “Should I be elected, I would be working with the director of communications on it… We plan to connect our students through communication and transparency.” Hagengruber said ASUNM should also be more transparent with regard to informing students about its finances. She said the government should reach out to various University bodies, such as the resource
centers and Greek Life. “The students are actually paying student fees, which is money that we would give out as a student government,” she said. “But many of them don’t know that they can submit appropriations, that they can come and submit resolutions. They don’t understand that these are things that they have access to just as much as we do.” Hagengruber has been serving as an ASUNM senator for a year, and has served as senate clerk for former ASUNM Vice President Sunny Liu. She currently serves as chair of the Steering and Rules Committee. Hagengruber said she is confident about running with Williams and their slate. “We’re really happy to be running together,” she said. “We love everything and everybody about UNM, and I think that is just something that we take seriously. We take this race seriously, we are competitive, and we are strong women.” But what really sets their slate apart is their love for UNM, she said. “Something that our team very passionate about is being passionate,” she said. “We have experience and we have education on ASUNM, but we also bring such extreme about this University. We want it to succeed in every aspect.” Williams said she finds her fellow presidential candidates and other students running for ASUNM positions fit for the post. She said that although she is optimistic that she would win, she still expects a civil election. “We don’t want to say that anybody else isn’t qualified,” she said. “There are definitely people that are so qualified running against us. So, it’s going to be a great race.” Early voting for the ASUNM election start Thursday.
UNM law program among top in nation by Zachary Pavlik
news@dailylobo.com @zachpavlik
Only eight clinical law programs in the nation can claim to be better than the clinical training program at the UNM School of Law, according to a recent U.S. News and World Report ranking. The University tops 193 other law schools in the United States ranked by the survey. UNM jumped two spots from its 2013 ranking. David Herring, dean of the law school since July of last year, said that clinical programs in law schools are designed to give potential attorneys a taste of what the profession is like by allowing them to represent a client in a real case. “Students in the course are trained and they actually do represent real clients — either in court, negotiations, or anything a client requires,” Herring said, “The students are being supervised by professional faculty, but they are providing the actual legal services to clients.” Herring said during his time teaching at the University of Michigan’s law school, he was aware of and admired the clinical program at UNM. He said one of the things that sets the University’s program apart is its long-standing history of an outstanding program. “This law school has been a leader in clinical education,” Herring said.“They were really one of the first
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law schools, and still one of the only law schools, to require students to take a clinic. All of their clinic faculty are tenure or tenure-track faculty, which is distinctive.” This year, UNM ranked 72nd in the nation overall as a law school, down from its 2013 ranking of 64th. Yale University holds the title of best overall law school in 2014.
Top 10 U.S. Clinical Training Programs 1
Georgetown University
2
New York University
3
American University
4
CUNY
5
Yale University
6 8
Washington University in St. Louis University of the District of Columbia (Clarke) University of Michigan Ann Arbor
9
University of New Mexico
7
10
Stanford University U.S. News & World Report
UNM’s law school has long been hailed as one of the biggest bargains when it comes to acquiring a law degree, especially when compared to bigger names, Herring said.
According to the UNM website, a year of tuition and fees at UNM for a New Mexico resident is estimated at $15,701.00. In comparison, A year of tuition and fees at Columbia University is estimated at $57,838.00, according to that school’s website. Camille Carey, an assistant professor at the law school, has been assisting students in the clinical program for the past five years. She said that UNM’s clinical program is set apart by its many options and the interaction present between the differing sections of the clinic. “We have a model that is unique and significantly more collaborative between clinic sections than most law schools,” Carey said. “We have five clinic sections. One is our Southwest Indian law clinic. We have a business and tax clinic. We have two sections of a community lawyering clinic, and then a law practice clinic.” Carey said students in the clinic soon set aside any worries that they may have had going into the program and embrace the field and the doors it opens to them. “I think they are originally pretty nervous about the work and the responsibility,” Carey said. “But once they start working with real clients, they get excited about their chosen profession and ability to help others.” Jason Wallace is in his third and last semester at the law school in the clinical program. He said the
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program is a key factor in preparing him, as well as other students, for the professional world because it provides vital experience. “The clinic is a great opportunity for law students in New Mexico that a lot of students elsewhere in the country don’t get,” Wallace said. “We’ll work under a supervising attorney who is licensed in the state and, through them, we’ll get to operate entire cases. I would say that working in the clinical law program sets us
ahead of a lot of other law students.” Wallace said that it is great to be attending a law school with both a highly acclaimed clinical law program and a humble tuition figure. “To be able to attend a school that’s, first of all, one of the cheapest in the country, but that offers one of the top 10 practicing clinical law programs in the nation, that’s a great deal,” Wallace said. “I think that could easily be a reason why someone would choose UNM School of Law.”
William Aranda / Daily Lobo Law student Jason Wallace works on a proposal to approve a clinical appearance for the Second District Judicial Court at the UNM School of Law on Thursday afternoon. UNM’s law school has the ninth best clinical training program in the country, according to an annual ranking by U.S. News and World Report. This is Wallace’s last semester at UNM before he graduates this spring.
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