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Thursday, Februar y 9, 2017 | Vo l u m e 1 2 1 | I s s u e 4 2
Chaouki Abdallah discusses recent controversies By Sarah Trujillo @sarahtweets_abq
Chaouki Abdallah is the acting President of the University of New Mexico. Abdallah began serving UNM as Provost in July 2011, but stepped up when then-President Bob Frank was forced to leave his post. Abdallah sat down with the Daily Lobo to discuss the controversial events that have rocked campus recently. DL: How is the security fee for the Milo Yiannopoulos event being handled? Abdallah: “So what happened is, as our practice, we have a policy that gives a lot of leeway to the Chief of Police to make the decision about what it costs and so on and so forth. When the first group that wanted to invite Milo, when they approached us, they go through the SUB and talk to them and they tell them. In fact, every chartered student organization has that information. If they want to have speakers and so on, it does give them that. Maybe they don’t read it carefully, but it is there. So then the Police Chief met with them, and there was a change in sponsoring organizations — it started out with the Young Americans for Liberty and then went to the UNM College Republicans — then they met with them and told them it was going to be about $3,400. Then they went out and said this was a surprise and it became a concern and came before the Board
Colton Newman / Daily Lobo / @DailyLobo
Interim UNM President Chaouki Abdallah sits in his office on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017 at Scholes Hall. Abdallah spoke about recent events on campus such as controversial alt-right speaker Milo Yiannopoulos.
of Regents. The Regents asked, ‘why are you charging people?’ And we described to them the process and they asked us to review it. They said, ‘this sounds strange.’ So I asked our legal office to review it. They reviewed
it and within a few days they came back and they said look, it won’t pass muster legally if you charge based on the content of the speech. You can charge the security fee and other universities have and do, but it cannot
be based on the type of speech. You can charge it based on the size of the audience, based on a lot of different things, but they didn’t finish their review. We will look at the policy, we will make sure it satisfies everything.
If it turns out we could not charge for whatever reason, we’ll go back. If it turns out that the policy says we cannot do it, then we’ll go back and review the people that we charged before and make sure that they’re treated the same.” DL: So the Board of Regents is doing the policy review? Abdallah: “No, the Board of Regents doesn’t do it. What happens is they ask us to do the review, we have our legal office do it, and we have a policy process within UNM.” Dianne Anderson: “It’s called the Office of University Council. That’s our lawyers. Then we have the Policy Office. So the lawyers will review and then they’ll go through the Policy Office, which has an entire process that they vet the policy through.” DL: So this could take a long while? Abdallah: “It could take months, because they put it out for comments and they get a lot of people to do it. This is the process for changing policies at this University.” DL: What was the total cost of the event? Abdallah: “We don’t know that yet. The UNM police are getting those numbers for us. But I can guarantee you it’s more than $3,400. I can guarantee you it’s a lot more than that, but I don’t know. Once we made the decision to have the event, then it became up to the police and the police chief to determine how to
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Abdallah page 8
Forum tackles child adversity Campaign embraces UNM’s diversity By Hannah Eisenberg @DailyLobo
On Tuesday evening UNM Health Sciences Center held a symposium to address the issues of childhood adversity affecting New Mexico. Dr. Andrew Hsi, professor of pediatrics at the UNM School of Medicine and a key figure in UNM’s fight against childhood adversity, walked on stage for his presentation with a large, black trash bag thrown over his shoulder. Hsi dropped the bag on the floor as he said that it was a visual presentation of the burden children and families carry with them after adverse childhood experiences. Being involved in the field of childhood and family adversity for over 27 years with FOCUS, a division of UNM’s Center for Development and Disability, Hsi knows the weight all too well. A staggering 60 percent of kids and adults in New Mexico have had at least one adverse childhood experience in their lives. Hsi defines adverse childhood experiences, or ACE’s, as physical,
By Elizabeth Sanchez @Beth_A_Sanchez
Nick Fojud / Daily Lobo / @NFojud
Richard D. Krugman opens up his presentation on child abuse and neglect Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017 at the Domenici Center for Health Sciences Education.
sexual and emotional abuse or neglect that a child faces, within or outside the family unit. Family dysfunctions, exposure to substance abuse, mentally ill parents, suicide attempts, violent treatment of a maternal parent, a parent’s imprisonment or the loss of a biological parent also fall within the ACE realm, he said.
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Children exposed to ACE’s are at a higher risk for developing future mental health issues, economic instability, intravenous drug use, alcoholism, suicide attempts, obesity and risky sexual behavior, Hsi said. Young girls who have been exposed to ACE’s are twice as likely
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Children page 6
Lights. Camera. Equality. Yesterday, students, staff, faculty and community members gathered in the SUB Atrium, taking photographs and short videos, sharing pins reading “welcome” in various languages and creating a short film. This was part of an effort to appreciate diversity at UNM through the #YouAreWelcomeHere campaign. Danielle Gilliam, the administrative officer at the UNM Global Education Office, said the #YouAreWelcomeHere campaign has already been brought to over 20 other universities. “(This is) to let the global community of international students and scholars know that we want them to study here, in the U.S.,” Gilliam said. “International students and scholars bring invaluable perspectives into UNM’s classrooms, research labs and community, for example, which stimulates innovation and collaboration in meaningful and important ways.” Yesterday, the campaign
launched on UNM campus with the creation of a video that included over 100 students, faculty and staff who supported the cause, and who were photographed and filmed within just two hours, she said. The film’s final product illustrates the many faces of UNM and is set to music with clips of messages of welcome for all, Gilliam said. “We intend to carry the campaign out through the end of the year with additional social media, feature stories and other content to continue to spread a positive message about the value of global perspectives on campus,” she said. UNM decided to take on the project in the form of a video, Gilliam said, as the final product will visually show the many faces of UNM. Linda Melville, the GEO director for International Student Scholar Services, said the anti-immigrant rhetoric on the campaign trail has been concerning the international education community, but Trump’s recent travel ban propelled this campaign into quick action. Gilliam said the collaborative initiative generated campus-wide
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Video page 3
MALER: Recap of the Women’s hoops home game against Air Force REISEN: Q and A with local award-winning author Michael McGarrity GONZALEZ: Men’s Basketball faced off against Air Force on the road Wednesday night