DAILY LOBO new mexico
Cracks in the system see Page 4
tuesday December 3, 2013
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
FLC project incites personal insights Understanding one’s culture builds confidence, prof. says by Ardee Napolitano news@dailylobo.com @ArdeeTheJourno
Sergio Jiménez / @SXfoto / Daily Lobo Professor Angela Wandinger-Ness holds a culture medium containing human ovarian cancer cells in her laboratory at the UNM Cancer Center on Monday. The Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Service) selected Wandinger-Ness, a UNM professor of pathology, as a research ambassador to Germany.
Raising the exchange rate by Chloe Henson
assistant-news@dailylobo.com @ChloeHenson5 A UNM professor aims to inspire students and faculty to study in central Europe. The Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Service) selected Angela Wandinger-Ness, a UNM professor of pathology, as a research ambassador to Germany. According to the DAAD website, the ambassadors are scholars and scientists who have experience researching in Germany and are “interested in promoting research in Germany at their home universities and among
their peers and students.” Wandinger-Ness said she worked in Heidelberg, Germany for six years after she finished her Ph.D. in the United States at UCLA. She said she also received a visiting professorship at the Max Planck Institute, a research organization in Germany. At UNM, she has worked on enzymes called GTPases, which act as “molecular switches” that regulate the movement of molecules and the skeletons of cells. She said she has focused her research on these enzymes to help study how certain diseases work. “In diseases, (GTPases are) either defective or there is too much of them, or they’re turned on all the time, or
they’re not turned on at all,” she said. “Any of those options are bad because you have to have dynamicness.” Wandinger-Ness said the diseases she has looked at include ovarian cancer, polycystic kidney disease and an inherited form of a neurological disease that impairs sensory input from the fingers and toes. She said the German federal government distributed money through universities and research institutes to allow undergraduate and graduate students and faculty to study and work in Germany. “The reason they’re doing this is because German science was always extremely well known in the ‘50s for see Research PAGE 2
HealthCare.gov now online by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s newand-improved health care website faces yet another test in just a few weeks — its biggest yet. If HealthCare.gov becomes overwhelmed by an expected year-end crunch, many Americans may be left facing breaks in their insurance coverage. Until now, the main damage from the website’s technology woes has been limited to Obama’s poll ratings. But if it chokes again, it will be average people feeling the consequences. Some of those at risk are among the more than 4 million consumers whose individual policies have been canceled because the coverage didn’t comply with requirements of the new health care law. A smaller number, several hundred thousand, are in federal and state programs for people whose health problems already were a barrier to getting private insurance before the overhaul. “The chances are almost 100 percent that someone who would like to continue coverage next year and intends to secure it is not going to be able to do it,” said Mark McClellan, who oversaw the rollout of the Medicare prescription drug benefit under President George W. Bush. “It’s important to recognize that none of these programs are going to work perfectly from the start and a big part of implementation is having mechanisms in place that anticipate problems and help mitigate their effects,” added McClellan, now a health care policy expert with
Inside the
Daily Lobo volume 118
issue 73
Evan Vucci / AP Photo White House press secretary Jay Carney answers a question during the daily press briefing Monday in the White House briefing room. the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. But on Monday, administration officials projected renewed confidence that they’re on top of things. White House spokesman Jay Carney declared that the federal site serving 36 states got 375,000 visitors by noon. Even as fixes continued on back-end features of the system, enrollment counselors said the consumer-facing front end is working noticeably better — but is still not free of glitches or delays. As Carney acknowledged, some of Monday morning’s visitors were shuttled into a queue and advised when to return for speedier service. That’s actually
see Healthcare PAGE 2
Manhattan project project
Thanksgiving hunger
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On Wednesday night, a few UNM students will celebrate their identities through art. About 80 students taking a Freshman Learning Community course will present their poetry, posters and digital artwork at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, said Chicano and Chicana Studies Department Director Irene Vasquez. Vasquez said that although words are the focus of the event, it will feature various student styles and stories. “This will be a celebration of student writing,” she said. “What we’re going to see is a diversity of experiences and expressions from a very diverse group of students. I think the important point that one can walk away with is that when an individual knows who they are … they’re better prepared to interact with people in any setting.” The idea for the exhibit came about in the spring semester, and the department started organizing the event during the summer, Vasquez said. Participating students take a course titled “Intro to Chicano Studies” along with an English course or communications and journalism course as part of the FLC. Vasquez, who teaches the Chicano studies component of the FLC, said her students have improved critically over the duration of the project. “I’ve seen these students blossom,” she said. “First-time freshmen who were very introverted (changed) to students who are really owning their learning. It’s very exciting.” Levi Romero, associate director of the department, said attendees should expect a multimedia environment at the exhibit. He said the event encourages students to be proud of their origins. “Primarily what they’re working on in the class is the concept of personal identity and communal identity,” he said. “Often, it’s difficult for people to talk about themselves. If you ask somebody, ‘Tell me who you are,’ people are at a loss for words. If you ask them about where they’re from, they can begin to describe where they come from.”
Romero said the event is a celebration of students’ identities through artistic expression. He said this aspect will also affect the academic success of participating students. “With these exercises, you instill to students that they are here, and they can also bring what it is that makes them who they are into the academic discourse,” he said. “If you can get students to get comfortable about that early on, I think it’s going to be easier for them to be successful in the future.” Encouraging artistic expression can also enhance students’ campus involvement, Romero said. Claudia Mitchell, a Chicana/ Chicano Studies major who is a student instructor for the FLC, said the event also encourages an aspect of community. She said that through the project, she discovered deeper aspects of her identity. “I’m going to graduate, and I just realized that I have so much history and so much in my family that I never grasped onto,” she said. “I’m just learning this stuff, but it’s never too late. I think learning from each other is really important.” Vasquez said that though delving into participating students’ identities can be confusing for them because of popular ethnic stereotypes, the event aims to propagate acceptance among the community. “What the majority of the Latino students in the class learn is that they have origins from Italy, from Greece, from Mexico, among Native American populations,” she said. “They’re actually learning something outside of the stereotype, which, unfortunately … can have a negative impact on underrepresented students. But students in the class learn that our differences don’t make divisions. We can celebrate differences as human beings.” As students see themselves as creators, they will be motivated to continue their art in the future, Vasquez said. And Romero said the event will celebrate diversity in the Albuquerque community in general. “We’re all working together,” he said. “The support systems that we have outside the University are important as well. This is a night that will celebrate all of that.”
Chicana and Chicano Studies Literacy Project Symposium Wednesday, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 National Hispanic Cultural Center 1701 4th Street SW Free to attend
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