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Monday, March 27, 2017 | Vo l u m e 1 2 1 | I s s u e 5 3
ASUNM CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENT
Gabe Gallegos
Elena Garcia
Born and raised in Albuquerque, sophomore business major Elena Garcia has always felt comfortable in New Mexico. But it wasn’t until she began serving on ASUNM Senate last fall that she found a home at UNM.
Garcia said she initially didn’t feel like there was much of a community on campus, but she found it through trying to
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After three years of being involved in the Associated Students of the UNM and interning for the U.S. Senate and Department of State, Gabe Gallegos is now running to be ASUNM president for the 2017-18 academic year. Originally from Las Cruces, Gallegos
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decided to become a Lobo and major in both political science and strategic communications. His experience with ASUNM began as a
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Diana Cervantes / Daily Lobo / @Dee_Sea_
Art show highlights book art By Nichole Harwood Nolidoli1 Zimmerman Library Frank Waters Room 105 will play host to the event “Crazy Paper: A Book Arts Open House Back to Events,” displaying the work of artists who take the traditional format of a book and try to do new things with its material, all while expanding ideas about how books communicate information and ideas. The event is set for Friday, March 31 from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. and is open to the public. Michael Taylor, a public services librarian, said the event showcases different ways artists expand on the potential of traditional formats, including the use of alternative materials, moving parts or arranging text in unusual ways. “You wouldn’t sit down and read
an artist’s book the way you would read a normal book, but you can read it the same way that you can interpret a painting, sculpture or other work of art,” Taylor said. “In other words, the communication is primarily visual.” The Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections owns about 900 artists’ books, Taylor said, and the event will be displaying a sampling of about 30 of those books. “Many of the books relate to Latin America and the Southwest, but there are titles in the collection from all around the world,” he said. The art that will be shown at this event impacts students who are studying art, graphic design or communications who will hopefully be able to find inspiration for their own work, Taylor said. The materials for the event are also going to be shown to the Libros New Mexico Book Arts Guild for their monthly meeting on April 1.
“Since the materials will already be out, we decided to invite the public to view them on March 31 as part of our ongoing Collections in Focus series,” Taylor said. The series was started last October and is intended to help UNM students and faculty, as well as members of the local community, become more familiar with the holdings of the library’s Special Collections, which are focused on Southwest culture, but also include many historical materials from outside the region, he said. “Everyone is welcome to stop by and chat with our staff about the library’s collections and services or anything else you’ve been wanting to ask,” Taylor said.
Nichole Harwood is a reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @ Nolidoli1.
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Trump budget cuts target public media By Andres Del Aguila
UNM students take a plunge in the fountain next to the CERIA building on a hot Wednesday afternoon, while one of UNM’s many resident ducks looks on.
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In an effort to rein in federal spending, Donald Trump proposed an “America First” budget that slashes $54 billion from numerous federal departments and programs, including the elimination of funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. KUNM, a public radio station that originated on UNM’s campus, faces a $251,825 cut to its budget if Trump’s budget is passed. The cut represents 12 percent of the station’s $2 million annual budget, which is primarily funded by donors. “Even though 12 percent does not sound like a big piece of the pie, it’s a fragile pie,” KUNM General Manager Richard Towne said, adding that eliminating CPB funding can cause an “unraveling.” KUNM utilizes CPB funding to purchase national programing that generates a wider audience and a larger donor pool. He said canceling national programing will subsequently lead to a smaller audience and less donors. CPB is a private, non-profit corporation that is funded by taxpayers to provide financial support to public media across the nation. In 2016, the corporation received $445 million, five percent of which accounted for administrative purposes, the latest audit indicates. Congress created the corporation in 1962 with the Public Broadcasting Act, which sought to “encourage the growth and development of public radio and television broadcasting, including the use of such media for instructional, educational and cultural purposes.” Republicans have kept the corporation in their crosshairs for defunding since the 1990s,
many arguing that it would fare in the marketplace. “If what we are doing had a viable marketplace, commercial media would be doing it already, and they haven’t,” Towne said. “Public broadcasting is 50 years old this year and there is nothing like it on the commercial dial. The noncommercial band was set up specifically by the federal government for noncommercial educational stations, and that’s what we do.” Due to New Mexico’s struggling economy, it would not be sustainable for KUNM to continue national programing without CPB funding, Towne said. He emphasized that noncommercial public media is an essential source of information, adding that public media prizes traditional, unbiased journalism “In our newsroom and from National Public Radio, we see very traditional journalism,” he said, “which is finding the facts, finding the sources, getting them verified and presenting them in a way that’s balanced for perspectives.” He assured that KUNM would survive, but indicated that its operations would be diminished. With transmitters across New Mexico, KUNM’s broadcast reaches over 99,000 listeners a week, according to the organization’s websites. Towne said the cuts would impact their coverage area, negatively impacting rural communities that rely on public media. Towne admitted that KUNM does not have a strategy to deal with defunding. However, he has been searching for expenses to cut without impacting programs and staffing. He said KUNM could save money by leaving the National Federation of Community Broadcasters and refusing to purchase
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