Daily Lobo new mexico
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
New GPSA president talks tuition, transparency and inclusion
monday April 21, 2014
Students react to Governor’s abuse by Zachary Pavlik
news@dailylobo.com @zachpavlik
William Aranda / Daily Lobo
Texanna Martin
by Chloe Henson
news@dailylobo.com @ChloeHenson5 During her campaign for president of the Graduate and Professional Student Association, Texanna Martin said she would focus on funding, transparency, equity and inclusion if she were to be elected. Last week Martin snagged the presidency from contender Glenda Lewis. She will succeed Priscila Poliana as GPSA president in May. The Daily Lobo spoke with Martin about how she plans to achieve her goals for the graduate student body next year: Daily Lobo: This past year, graduate organizations requested more funding than was available. Do you have any plans to remedy the situation? Texanna Martin: One of the things that we’re looking at is to find a way to reach outside of the community to pull in more funding. One of the ways we can do that is through fundraising, reaching out to our alumni to help grow our funding. Priscila has been working hard on an apparel project, and finding a way to get our apparel out there for the graduate and professional students. But the good news is that the Graduate and Professional Student organizations are growing, so we have a lot of more interest-based organizations. We definitely want to continue to have those interests grow and we want to find a way to support them. DL: You also talked about helping to provide more grants for graduate students for research. Can you elaborate on that? TM: I’d like to put together a subcommittee. I’ve already talked with our grant chairs to find ways to establish emergency funding. Our funding process is at the beginning of the semester, so one of the things that I want to look at is finding a way to provide funding to graduate students when they realize, ‘Oh, I have a conference in two months and the grant
Inside the
Daily Lobo volume 118
issue 138
process has already stopped.’ I want us to establish an emergency conference fund, and maybe one of the ways we can do that is, again, reaching out to our community to help establish maybe a scholarship. DL: How do you plan to increase transparency for GPSA? TM: For GPSA specifically, I think we have been instrumental in working with the provost’s office, IT and the bursar’s office to develop a billing transparency project for student billing, which is the bursar’s account. I want to continue working on that program because I think it’s important that, as students, we’re educated, and we can understand what our fees are for and maybe create a way that we can look up those fees and find out where that funding is going. Another thing that I think is important is creating a committee to help evaluate differentials. I think that we need to, as students, understand where those differentials are coming from. To do that, I think putting a committee together to work on defining it is important. And again, that would be working in unison with IT, bursar’s, provost’s office and (UNM) President Frank to ensure that we can better understand what is happening and what we’re paying for. DL: Did the recent differential tuition increases influence your concerns about this? TM: Yes. I’ll be honest, from the feedback I’ve gotten from the students, it was a surprise. We did not get a tuition increase, but we did have differential increases and changes, and I think that a lot of students were affected by that. I think that it’s important that students who are affected by that get involved and help ensure that we create this program. My ideal program would be for them to present the differentials to the students for a discussion platform so we can all talk about it. DL: On the night you were elected, you talked a bit about equity and inclusion. Do you
have anything you want to add about that? TM: Our current equity and inclusion chair at GPSA is Amber Duke. I have invited her back for next year, and she has accepted. I want to continue working with her for momentum to continue reaching out to the diverse community that we have here on campus. She’s on the Civil Campus Council board, and also on the Faculty Ethics Committee. She is working hard to make sure that we are getting more involved and becoming a safe place. We had the Safe Zone training yesterday that she set up with the LGBTQ Resource Center, and I think we’re working toward making GPSA one of the safe places on that map that LGBTQ is developing. DL: Do you have any plans to address the issue of sexual assault on campus? TM: We are looking into that because it is a factor, and it’s something that we want our graduate students involved in and getting out there. Kris (Miranda) is one of the representatives for that. He is a volunteer at the GPSA office and he does a wonderful job working with the Women’s Resource Center and the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance. I think that with equity and inclusion comes safety, too. DL: You said during your campaign that you want to build on what President Poliana has started this year. What specific policies do you want to continue that she’s started? TM: One of the things that I think she’s been really good at is the (Student Fee Review Board), making sure that students are represented, and I think it is important that we continue to work on that too. I look forward to working with Rachel (Williams) and John Garrity at (Associated Students of the University of New Mexico) on this project. She has been instrumental in a lot of areas on this campus and I can honestly say I’ve learned a lot and I have a lot of takeaway from her.
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For many UNM students, last week’s leaked recordings of Gov. Susana Martinez were considered shocking. Oscar Gamboa, a sophomore studying music, said he was amazed when he first heard the comments by Martinez, which were recently leaked by Mother Jones. He said he believes educators easily work as much as other professionals, even during summer holidays. “I thought it was really bad, especially the part about the teachers,” Gamboa said. “I think teachers work twice as hard. They have to go to school and teach, but then after school they also have to make their lesson plans, grade papers and do other outside-ofclassroom things. I think that makes up for the months they don’t work.” The DC-based organization Mother Jones released audio Wednesday of Martinez speaking to her aides in private. In the recordings, Martinez says teachers don’t work two and a half months out of the year, though they get paid as much as people who work for 12 months. Martinez also called former Lt. Gov. Diane Denish “a little bitch.” Gamboa said he believes all careers have their respective challenges, but that educators are definitely underpaid. He added that he has never been a fan of politics because comments like these are often expressed in a private conversation. He said too much goes on behind closed doors, and people don’t truly know what many politicians believe. “That’s very unprofessional,” Gamboa said. “Everyone’s flipping out. It’s definitely something she shouldn’t be doing.”
Rachid Saghrouni, who is pursuing his doctorate in linguistics, said he does not agree with Martinez’s view that jobs should be compensated based on the number of working hours. He said the value of the work put in is what should determine salary. “This is wrong to say that someone who is an educator, doing a great job, is measured by how many hours they put in,” Saghrouni said. “I would rather look at the value of the work. Every work is constructive and has value. I think the compensation for work should not be measured by the hours, but by how constructive it is to our society. Educators should be well-paid.” Saghrouni said although the leak is sad, it is common for politicians to have a separate face for the public, and he has come to expect this. “Usually when government officials express their true intentions, they like to keep it hidden from the public,” Saghrouni said. “That shows in her effort right now to change or conceal it, make it look like it’s not a big deal, when in fact it is.” Saghrouni said he hopes more students get involved with politics in the future. He said a high level of political participation is important to expose politicians’ true intentions, and that the community is involved in politics regardless of whether people enjoy it. “Most people will tell you that politics is corrupt, and they don’t want to be a part of it,” Saghrouni said. “But, unfortunately, politics pervade all aspects of our lives. If you decide to stay out of it, it is still going to affect you in one way or another. So, opting out and saying that it doesn’t concern you — well, one day it will concern you, and it will be too late.”
Up in a cloud of dust
Di Linh Hoang / Daily Lobo New Mexico infielder Michala Erickson slides into home plate during the game against UNLV at Lobo Field on Saturday. The Lobos lost to the Rebels 12-9. See full story on the Back Page.
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