The UNM 2012 Holiday Ornament Features Hodgin Hall

The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico col­lectible hol­i­day orna­ment has become a cam­pus tra­di­tion, one with ben­e­fits. Not only do the orna­ments beau­tify ever­greens and wreaths, all pro­ceeds go the UNM Par­ent Asso­ci­a­tion Schol­ar­ship Fund.

For the past four years, Jana Fothergill, senior graphic designer with Uni­ver­sity Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Mar­ket­ing, has cre­ated the pop­u­lar orna­ments that depict iconic cam­pus build­ings and locales.  She has more than 30 years expe­ri­ence in illus­tra­tion and design, first in Wis­con­sin, where she earned her master’s in fine art, and then in New Mex­ico, where she has resided since 1995.

“I look for­ward to cre­at­ing a new orna­ment every year,” Fothergill said. “I love the process. I love to think about peo­ple pulling them out of stor­age and dec­o­rat­ing with them for the hol­i­days and, best of all, I love that the money they gen­er­ate helps stu­dents. It’s grat­i­fy­ing all around.”

The UNM Par­ent Asso­ci­a­tion Schol­ar­ship Com­mit­tee recently awarded $40,000 in schol­ar­ships to stu­dents for the 2012–13 aca­d­e­mic year. Forty Stu­dents were the recip­i­ents of var­i­ous $1,000 schol­ar­ships includ­ing eight grad­u­ate stu­dents and 32 undergrads.

Bernadette Jaramillo-Peck, admin­is­tra­tive offi­cer for the Par­ent Asso­ci­a­tion, said, “Being able to offer stu­dent schol­ar­ships makes my job so reward­ing. I think it is incum­bent upon us to pro­vide any assis­tance we can to pro­mote stu­dent suc­cess, espe­cially when the econ­omy is tough.”

The UNM Par­ent Asso­ci­a­tion has a short his­tory, but it has made giant strides since that time. In 2006, a Par­ent Rela­tions office was founded. In 2007, the UNM Par­ent Asso­ci­a­tion began as a Par­ent Advi­sory Board. In April 2008, under the lead­er­ship and sup­port of then UNM Pres­i­dent David Schmidly and his wife, Janet, and with approval from the UNM Board of Regents, it offi­cially became the UNM Par­ent Association.

The fifth orna­ment in the series depicts his­toric Hod­gin Hall. When Hod­gin opened in Sept. 1892, it was the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico. Orig­i­nally built in Richard­son Romanesque style: red brick with a pitched roof and arched win­dows, the build­ing was sched­uled for destruc­tion in the early 1970s, but UNM archi­tect Joe McK­in­ney suc­ceeded in get­ting the build­ing listed on the New Mex­ico Reg­is­ter of Cul­tural Prop­er­ties in 1974 and the National Reg­is­ter of His­toric Places in 1978. A new Alumni restora­tion and Preser­va­tion Com­mit­tee, in con­junc­tion with the Uni­ver­sity, raised money to ren­o­vate the build­ing. Hod­gin under­went another incar­na­tion in 2010.

Pre­vi­ous orna­ments, “Uni­ver­sity House” (2008), The Duck Pond” (2009), “UNM Alumni Memo­r­ial Chapel” (2010) and “Zim­mer­man Library” (2011) are avail­able at the UNM Book­store on main cam­pus and the Medical/Legal Book­store on north cam­pus for $18.89, in honor of UNM’s found­ing year.

To pur­chase yours, visit: UNM Hol­i­day Orna­ments.