Higher Education Bond C Passes Handily

Real­iz­ing a sig­nif­i­cant need for major improve­ments at col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties across the state, vot­ers in New Mex­ico over­whelm­ingly passed Bond C for Higher Edu­ca­tion with a whop­ping 61 per­cent or more than 410,000 vot­ers approv­ing $119.4 mil­lion in ren­o­va­tions of aging and sub­par facilities.

Bond C for Higher Edu­ca­tion will allo­cate $24.5 mil­lion to UNM for a vari­ety of sorely needed ren­o­va­tions and repairs includ­ing $19 mil­lion at UNM’s main cam­pus includ­ing $16 mil­lion for the UNM’s Chem­istry and Chem­i­cal Biol­ogy Depart­ment and Clark/Reibsomer Hall, and $3 mil­lion for Castet­ter Hall, which houses UNM’s Depart­ment of Biol­ogy. An addi­tional $5.5 mil­lion will go to the branch cam­puses at Gallup, Los Alamos, Taos and Valencia.

Ren­o­va­tions have been needed for more than 20 years at Clark/Reibsomer Hall. Cur­rently, many areas in the build­ing, includ­ing labs, do not meet state and fed­eral safety stan­dards for HVAC, air qual­ity, power and envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns. Fund­ing from the pas­sage of Bond C for Higher Edu­ca­tion will alle­vi­ate these major safety con­cerns and pro­vide a greatly improved envi­ron­ment for New Mexico’s future chemists.

“These ren­o­va­tions will trans­form the edu­ca­tional expe­ri­ence for our chem­istry majors and grad­u­ate stu­dents by pro­vid­ing mod­ern lab facil­i­ties,” said Steve Cabaniss, chair and pro­fes­sor, UNM Depart­ment of Chem­istry and Chem­i­cal Biol­ogy. ““Mod­ern research lab­o­ra­to­ries will also help us to recruit new fac­ulty and improve the com­pet­i­tive­ness of our research pro­pos­als on a national level. They allow us to pro­vide our under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate stu­dents with the top-quality research expe­ri­ences which will make them com­pet­i­tive in the job market.”

The Depart­ment of Biol­ogy is the largest depart­ment in the Col­lege of Arts and Sci­ences serv­ing more than 2,000 stu­dents, includ­ing 90 per­cent of whom are New Mex­i­cans. Majors within the depart­ment have soared more than 275 per­cent over the past 10 years. Addi­tion­ally, the biol­ogy depart­ment gen­er­ates UNM’s high­est annual research fund­ing of more than $15 mil­lion in grants per year.

“The Depart­ment of Biol­ogy is very grate­ful for the sup­port that the vot­ers of New Mex­ico have invested in us,” said Richard Cripps, chair and pro­fes­sor, UNM Biol­ogy Depart­ment. “The con­struc­tion pro­vided by Bond C will enable us to com­plete our state-of-the-art new facil­i­ties in Castet­ter Hall. These facil­i­ties will be used by stu­dents and fac­ulty to gen­er­ate new knowl­edge about the liv­ing world and will help train the next gen­er­a­tion of biologists.”

Media Con­tact: Steve Carr (505) 277‑1821; email: scarr@unm.edu