Daily Lobo 10/17/2019

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Daily Lobo new mexico

The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895

Union election this week; results ready for Friday By Justin Garcia Makayla Grijalva @Just516garc @Makaylaeliboria The University of New Mexico faculty is set to vote for or against the formation of collective bargaining units on Oct. 16 and 17. If enough faculty vote “Yes,” a full-time and part-time union would begin to form as United Academics of UNM (UA-UNM.) If “No” wins out, it’s unclear what would happen to the multi-year effort to unionize. After months of dramatic showing by pro-union professors — covering the campus in signs reading “Yes” and flooding previous Board of Regents meetings in matching UA-UNM t-shirts — the "no" argument made itself heard. “I started out ambivalent about the vote. I am personally prounion. I just don’t think its right for our faculty,” Civil Engineering Professor Andrew Schuler said during the Public Comment section at the Oct. 15 Board of Regents meeting. Schuler is a Director at UNM — a status that bars him from voting. Schuler’s engineering

colleague, Abhaya Datye, said “disenfranchisement” was one of his principal concerns. “Do I see myself as a supervisor or a manager? Absolutely not,” Datye, a chairperson in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department, said. “I’m a mentor or a coach. My goal is to make everybody in my department successful.” In a letter sent to the Daily Lobo outlining his concerns, Datye also accused the pro-unionists of “deception and intimidation.” He pointed to the union’s purchase of internet domain names similar to an anti-union website. Datye also pointed to a recent Provost communique that condemned the removal and replacement of antiunion signs around main campus. For UNM School of Law Professor and union organizer Ernesto Longa, the feeling of intimidation is mutual. “I’ve actually witnessed faculty who were genuinely fearful to share their opinion in favor of the Union,” Longa said. Longa added that faculty without tenure he’d spoken to, were fearful their support might cost them their job.

Early voting begins in Albuquerque By Megan Holmen @megan_holmen As municipal election season approaches, multiple locations across Albuquerque will open for early voting on Oct. 19. Several of these locations are close enough to the University of New Mexico that students who are ready to vote now can head to the polls now. Several offices are up for election this voting season including four city council districts. Districts two, four, six and eight have new candidates as well as incumbents running for reelection, with the exception of Brad Winter, an incumbent for District 4 who will not be running. Pat Davis, who is the current city council member representing UNM constituents, is running for reelection against Gina Davis. This is a nonpartisan election that will directly impact UNM students because the University is located within district six.

Early voting locations close to the University include: The University of New Mexico Student Union Building Monday through Saturday 8 a.m. through 8 p.m. starting on Oct. 19 through Nov. 2 Clerks Annex - 1500 Lomas A NW Currently open for both absentee and in-person voting Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Oct. 18 Monday through Saturday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Oct. 19 through Nov. 2 There are also other polls located throughout the city are open for early voting. These locations can be found on the Bernalillo County Clerk website. Additional locations will be open for election day, Nov. 5 2019. Megan Holmen is the news editor at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @megan_holmen

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Nunez gives new timeline on media deal By Justin Garcia @Just516garc

Justin Garcia / @Just516garc / Daily Lobo

A pro-union poster above an anti-union poster on the corner of central and yale. Provost James Holloway warned professors against removing such posters after a video depicting a poster’s removal came to his attention.

“It really does call into question the extent to which we work at a University that respects academic freedom when that fear is so real for so many people,” Longa said. Theo Walker, a part-time Spanish and Portuguese instructor who said he will vote in favor of a union, said he was cautiously optimistic the Union would form,

but he couldn’t be sure. “One never knows where the faculty is at on the campus. One really doesn’t get a feeling. I think that has to do with the lack of esprit de corps, kind of a depressed spirit amongst the faculty over the last few years, feeling that their voices aren’t heard,” Walker said.

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The University of New Mexico Athletics Department is one step closer to signing a multi-million dollar media-rights deal, months after Athletics Director Eddie Nunez went public with the deal in Sept. Nunez said during an Oct 15. Board of Regents meeting that he expects the deal to be done by December. In the meantime, Nunez told the regents that until the new contract with Outfront Media was signed, “bridge contracts” have been allowing the company to handle UNM’s media, such as the golobos website. The contract with the previous company, Learfield, was worth $4,456,500, according to the Athletics department. The Santa Fe New Mexican reported that the department was expecting the new contract to be worth around $3.5 million. Outfront also represents Louisiana State University (Nuñez’s previous employer), University of Maryland, Wichita State University, the University of Virginia, along with five other university sports programs. Justin Garcia is the Editor-inChief of the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at editorinchief@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Just516garc

ASUNM

Fee raise fails after SFRB aid By Alyssa Martinez Alex Hiett @amart4447 @Nmal1123 In a special session held last night in the Kiva classroom, the Associated Students of the University of New Mexico (ASUNM) unanimously failed a constitutional amendment to raise student government fees from $20 to $25 after receiving news that UNM granted a one-time funding block that would be doled out by the Student Fee Review Board (SFRB). The one-time funding of $500,000 to the SFRB will be enough to keep ASUNM functioning at status quo, with some of the money also going to athletics and recreational services. Senators will now have the spring semester to work on creating a single, comprehensive bill to raise fees that all senators can agree on. Vice President Madelyn Lucas elected to convene the special session at last Wednesday’s full Senate meeting, when discussion about the bill grew into a nearly four-hour debate before the Student Union Building had to close. It was decided that the special session would be held after committee meetings on Wednesday. In a surprising turn of events, ASUNM President Adam Biederwolf opened the meeting with a

Ellie Aikman / @eaikman1230 / Daily Lobo

Alice Vernon, former chief and staff of ASUNM talks to the senators about how they are uninformed about the legislation up for debate on Wednesday, Oct 16.

speech explaining the new information to the 19 senators present and about the nature of the fee raise. Biederwolf told senators that he believes they should fail the bill because the SFRB secured the one-time funding that will allow ASUNM to function effectively for the rest of the school year. He iterated that the senators will now have

“four to six months instead of four to six days” to work on “one cohesive bill” that would raise student fees for the next academic year. “If we come together in these next couple of months to push one bill, our message to the students will be much more impactful,” Biederwolf said.

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Inside this Lobo BRITT & KNUDSEN: NM Attorney general warns against vaping NISOLI: ABQ celebrates first Indigenous Peoples Day

GRIJALVA: Crime Briefs PENNINGTON: UNM says goodbye to Richard Perce


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