President Frank’s Weekly Perspective — 12.10.2012

President’s Weekly Per­spec­tive — 12.10.2012

Good morn­ing.

Let me start by wish­ing all our stu­dents good luck on finals. I know this is an intense week for you, the cul­mi­na­tion of this semester’s hard work. Just think how good it will feel to have them behind you.

Los Alamos Visit
Last week I vis­ited Los Alamos National Lab­o­ra­tory (LANL) with Provost Chaouki Abdal­lah and Dr. John McGraw, interim vice pres­i­dent for Research and Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment. We were there to meet with Direc­tor Char­lie McMil­lan and con­tinue our explo­ration of ways to increase our part­ner­ship with the lab. LANL runs an aston­ish­ing num­ber of pro­grams and we had the oppor­tu­nity to visit sev­eral while we there. The Cen­ter for Inte­grated Nan­otech­nolo­gies (CINT), jointly man­aged by Los Alamos and San­dia National Lab­o­ra­to­ries with facil­i­ties at both sites, is a sci­en­tific user facil­ity, which means that sci­en­tists and engi­neers can access exper­tise and capa­bil­i­ties through a peer-reviewed pro­posal process.

CINT pro­vides a set of resources in nanoscience and nan­otech­nol­ogy at the local national labs that UNM stu­dents and fac­ulty can access through the pro­posal process. UNM cur­rently has many fac­ulty and stu­dents who work with CINT on nano­ma­te­ri­als syn­the­sis, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and mod­el­ing. This kind of col­lab­o­ra­tion with our national labs is very impor­tant and ben­e­fi­cial for UNM and the kind of engage­ment we hope to expand. CINT, along with other like pro­grams, could be bet­ter incor­po­rated into our long-range vision for UNM. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit: CINT.

LCF and Lobos for Leg­is­la­tion
We are prepar­ing for the upcom­ing 60 day leg­isla­tive ses­sion. Last week Dr. Paul Roth and I both tes­ti­fied at the Leg­isla­tive Finance Com­mit­tee meet­ing. Col­lege of Edu­ca­tion Dean Dick How­ell also tes­ti­fied on teacher eval­u­a­tions. In the evening, we attended an Alumni Asso­ci­a­tion Lobos for Leg­is­la­tion recep­tion. UNM Alumni Asso­ci­a­tion Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Karen Abra­ham and her team did a ter­rific job orga­niz­ing the event, which was well attended. Alumni are impor­tant in help­ing us make our case to the leg­is­la­ture, and Karen and her team do an excel­lent job in help­ing make those connections.

Go Lobos
Our sports teams are doing us proud this year. I’ve spo­ken in the past about the pos­i­tive changes tak­ing place in foot­ball. Now our men’s and women’s bas­ket­ball teams are tak­ing the stage and giv­ing us rea­son for Lobo pride. But they are not the only sports teams that are car­ry­ing the UNM charge this year. We have a num­ber of All-Americans, includ­ing Josephine Moul­trie in women’s cross coun­try, and Luke Cald­well in men’s cross-country. We have two men’s soc­cer All-Americans in Devon San­doval and Kyle Ven­ter, and a fresh­man All-American in Ben McK­endry. In Golf, the Lobo men’s team is ranked fourth in Golfweek, while our women’s team has the conference’s top ranked golfer in Manon de Roey. Even sports that aren’t fully in sea­son yet have had ter­rific results, such as ski­ing, swim­ming and div­ing, and ten­nis and we are dom­i­nat­ing the Rio Grande Rivalry with New Mex­ico State.

As you all know, I was a Lobo ath­lete, so the ath­letic achieve­ment is some­thing that res­onates for me per­son­ally. It takes dis­ci­pline to be a stu­dent and pur­sue a com­pet­i­tive sport, and I sin­cerely applaud that effort.

Have a good week, good luck on finals, and GO LOBOS!

Bob