DAILY LOBO new mexico
wednesday May 7, 2014
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
Site will connect students, research by Chloe Henson
news@dailylobo.com @ChloeHenson5 A new UNM website aims to connect students with faculty who can provide research opportunities on campus. Research Match will help students find research positions based on their major and interests, said Kiyoko Simmons, director of the Center for Academic Excellence and Leadership Development. “It seems like research opportunities are the hardest for students to find on campus,” she said. “And for freshman and sophomores, many of them are not in their major yet, so it’s harder to find professors you share an interest with.” While the site is open to both undergraduates and graduate students, Simmons said she was primarily motivated to help undergraduate students. “Some undergraduates think that (research positions are) a graduate student thing,” she said.
The pilot version of the program started in November, but the site has been simplified since then and the official launch date was in late April, Simmons said. About 200 students and 55 faculty members have signed up so far. One of the advantages of the website is that it helps students interact with professors who they may not have otherwise met, and it gives faculty the opportunity to recruit students from outside the department, Greg Heileman, associate provost, said. “The way that students got in touch with me is that they saw me in class or we just happened to have a discussion about stuff we’re working on,” he said. “This kind of increases the opportunity to have collisions of faculty ideas with student desires.” Edl Schamiloglu, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, said he was one of the first professors to try out the new system because he tends to require a lot of students.
MMM, DELICIOUS THIS IS
Frida Salazar / @FridaSg5 / Daily Lobo Natchlada Anantachaisilp, a freshman IFDM major, holds her hand-decorated Yoda cookie at the Star Wars event in the SUB on Tuesday. People were invited to decorate their own Star Wars-themed cookies with edible frosting and color spray.
see Site PAGE 5
ASUNM parking summits give drivers a voice
Students say parking situation still lacking
by Zachary Pavlik
assistant-news@dailylobo.com @zachpavlik
The Associated Students of the University of New Mexico and Parking and Transportation Services are collaborating to incorporate student voices on the University’s parking availability. Jenna Hagengruber, ASUNM senator and vice-president elect, said when she was elected to the Senate, her most immediate goal was to communicate with PATS about the student complaints she heard regarding a perceived lack of parking and the fines incurred from citations. Many of students who have approached Hagengruber are dissatisfied with the amount of parking available at the University, she said. The amount of parking spaces is much less than the amount of people who visit campus every day, Barbara Morck, director of PATS, said. “There are approximately 44,000 people on campus every day and approximately 13,000 parking spaces available for them to park in,” said Morck in an email statement. “The UNM Master Plan has identified many of the main campus surface parking lots as potential sites for new buildings, which will result in the loss of proximity parking.” An estimated 44,000 citations were issued in FY 2013, she said. These citations generates an estimated $715,000 in revenue, which is used primarily to maintain parking structure and lots.
Inside the
Daily Lobo volume 118
issue 150
by Zach Pavlik
assistant-news@dailylobo.com @zachpavlik
Frida Salazar / @FridaSg5 / Daily Lobo A parking citation sits on a car outside of George Pearl Hall, where parking is not allowed, on Monday afternoon. “The cost of a new surface parking lot per space ranges from $6,000$8,000, and the cost in parking structure ranges from $24,000 to $42,000,” Morck said. Hagengruber said both she and Sen. Earl Shank have been intensively working with PATS over the past year to make sure that students’ voices are heard when it comes to parking. ASUNM and PATS decided to have a parking summit, which took place in April, the goal of which was to address student concerns, brainstorm possible solutions and highlight ways in which students can get involved, Hagengruber said. “I think the underlying goals were reached. I don’t think that we are going to have answers to all of the
problems immediately, but because we have had that conversation with the students and the administration, I think it creates a bridge to a future where we could create solutions,” she said. A few of those solutions were building a second parking structure, modifying the ratio of parking spots to parking passes sold and starting a new program called Park Share, in which multiple people would share a single parking spot, Hagengruber said. One of the things many students don’t understand is that PATS is a self-funded department and so they do not get any money from student fees, Hagengruber said.
see Summits PAGE 5
Practice Green
MVP
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Students said price, efficiency and crowding were their chief concerns with the parking and transportation system at UNM. Sophia Gruskos, a senior psychology major, said she chooses to park off campus because of the price of oncampus parking and because the parking meters on campus where she would park only allow payment by card. “I usually park at the church that’s right across the street from campus,” Gruskos said. “I pay about $5 a day to park there and would park on campus more often if the meters right by the anthropology museum or Dane Smith Hall would take cash. But they only take cards, which I find really irritating.” The parking garage on campus would cost approximately twice as much as her current parking spot, and while a permit would cost about what she pays now, that amount is hard for Gruskos to come up with it in one large payment, she said. She said has never attempted to contact Parking and
Transportation Services, but she hopes they would be receptive if she did. Another service provided by PATS is the University shuttle system that transports students from various off-site parking lots to locations on the north, south and main campuses. Rosa Reyes, a senior family studies major, said she rides the shuttle between South Lot and Yale Boulevard every day. The shuttle service has improved during her time as a student at the University, and she can now arrive at South Lot much later without having to worry about being late to class, Reyes said. “It works better than it used to work. Now I can leave my house like 30 minutes early and I know I can make it to class,” Reyes said, “Before I had to leave about an hour early, and sometimes I was still late.” She said the shuttle service does an especially good job in the morning and estimates the arrival times of shuttles to be no more than 10 minutes. The shuttles arrive slightly more infrequently during the afternoons, she said. “Going back home, going back
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