The University of New Mexico

Category Archives: Staff

Staff Council Award Nominations Due

May 23, 2013 | By Mara Kerkez

The Staff Coun­cil is accept­ing nom­i­na­tions for the Jim Davis Staff Coun­cil Award for Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice. The award rec­og­nizes the sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions of an indi­vid­ual to the UNM Staff Council.

In 1999, the UNM Staff Coun­cil estab­lished the award in mem­ory of Jim Davis, long time UNM employee who exem­pli­fied ser­vice to the coun­cil and the UNM com­mu­nity at large.

Nom­i­na­tions are now being accepted for cur­rent UNM staff coun­cilors, coun­cilors with prior years of ser­vice or coun­cil com­mit­tee mem­bers who are not elected. Nominations are due by Wednes­day, June 19 at 5 p.m.

The award cer­e­mony will be held Tues­day, July 16 from 1–3 p.m. in the Stu­dent Union Build­ing, Lobo rooms A&B.

Nom­i­na­tion forms are avail­able online at Staff Coun­cil.

For more details call the Staff Coun­cil office at 277‑1532.

Posted in Staff | |

Paramo Creates e-Book with Daughter

May 9, 2013 | By Mara Kerkez

Alex Paramo and his six-year-old daugh­ter Marisol love to cre­ate sto­ries together and retell them at bed­time. Now they are shar­ing one of their sto­ries, “Princess Marisol & the Moon Thieves,” recently launched as an elec­tronic book that acquaints chil­dren with basic geog­ra­phy, ecol­ogy, col­lab­o­ra­tion, per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity and ulti­mately, self-discovery.

“Princess Marisol & The Moon Thieves” is a bilin­gual, mul­ti­me­dia children’s adven­ture about a lit­tle princess and her otter side­kick, Alessa, who attempt to recover the stolen moon from a cou­ple of mis­chie­vous musi­cians. The reader is led through a whim­si­cal jour­ney cre­ated through charm­ing illus­tra­tions, nar­ra­tion and hip music.

Paramo said a pho­to­graph sparked the story. “A cou­ple of my musi­cian friends were in town from L.A. to per­form with Keith Sanchez and the Moon Thieves and stayed with Marisol and me,” he said. “On the day we drove them to the air­port my daugh­ter decided to dress up like a princess. I took a pic­ture of the three of them and hence the title: Princess Marisol & The Moon Thieves. The play­ful inter­ac­tions between the three of them gave me the idea for the story.”

Audrey McNa­mara Gar­cia cre­ated the illus­tra­tions for the book. She held her first art exhi­bi­tion in 2003, with sub­se­quent show­ings all over the country.

“When I was work­ing on the illus­tra­tions for Princess Marisol, I con­cen­trated on the sin­cer­ity of the char­ac­ters and the beauty and charm of the land­scapes,” Gar­cia said.  “I always kept in mind sweet lit­tle Marisol, and tried to think about how she would like to see her­self rep­re­sented in her first book.”

Princess Marisol & The Moon Thieves fea­tures a vari­ety of edu­ca­tional com­po­nents begin­ning with the choice of read­ing and lis­ten­ing in either Eng­lish or Span­ish. Mou­s­ing over words dis­play its mean­ing, and there is a “where in the world are we?” guess­ing game that high­lights world geog­ra­phy and cul­tural terms that are linked to exter­nal web sources for more information.

Paramo said that the book empha­sizes an appre­ci­a­tion for mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism. “I know I sound like a cliché, but the world is get­ting smaller,” he said. “Migra­tion has become the norm, and the ear­lier chil­dren learn to accept and appre­ci­ate peo­ple from other coun­tries and those with dif­fer­ing cus­toms from our own, the more har­mo­nious our world will become.”

The Moon Thieve char­ac­ters are based on real-life musi­cians, Matias Pizarro and Juan Car­los Ramirez, who cre­ated the music and sound effects for Paramo’s book. Founders of the L.A. based band, Diplo­macy of Mad Sci­ence, their sound is a blend of elec­tron­ica, Latin, Reg­gae rock and “dub,” music that con­sists mostly of instru­men­tal re-mixes of exist­ing recordings.

Paramo’s career at UNM includes work­ing for the office of Engi­neer­ing Stu­dent Pro­grams, the Office of Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent, David Har­ris, the Provost’s Office and most recently at Phys­i­cal Plant Utilities.

“I always dreamed of being a writer and work­ing in the pub­lish­ing indus­try,” Paramo said, “and now just seemed like the right time to make that dream a reality.”

Paramo and his part­ner Yvette San­doval founded Com­mu­nity Pub­lish­ing LLC, which works with all kinds of artists on col­lab­o­ra­tive projects for ePublishing.

“The pub­lish­ing indus­try, much like the record­ing indus­try, has changed with the advent of new mobile tech­nol­ogy,” Paramo said. “Writ­ers no longer have to rely on big pub­lish­ing com­pa­nies to get their work pub­lished. We offer fair profit shares, a true col­lab­o­ra­tive process and the writer reserves his/her artistic/intellectual prop­erty rights.”

Princess Marisol & The Moon Thieves mul­ti­me­dia children’s eBook is bilin­gual and is avail­able for Win­dows, Mac, Kin­dle, Nook, Android, iOS and tablet platforms.

For a pre­view and to pur­chase the eBook, visit Princess Marisol.

More infor­ma­tion about Com­mu­nity Pub­lish­ing is avail­able at http://communitypublishingabq.wordpress.com/

Posted in Staff, University News | |

Employee Spotlight: Carter Steers UNM’s Web and Social Media Presence

May 6, 2013 | By Benson Hendrix

Matt Carter. Photo by John Sumrow.

As April comes to a close, UNM Web Admin­is­tra­tor Matt Carter was return­ing and recov­er­ing from his annual trip to Indio, Calif., where he spent three days watch­ing back-toback con­certs at the Coachella Val­ley Music and Arts Festival.

A quick perusal of Carter on Face­book dur­ing the Coachella fes­ti­val shows hun­dreds of pic­tures of well-known artists on stage, next to pic­tures of the next gen­er­a­tion of bands, still up-and-coming, as well as those look­ing for an oppor­tu­nity to shine. The fes­ti­val is chaotic and ener­getic, and dur­ing this intense musi­cal extrav­a­ganza there is nowhere else he would rather be.

“Unfor­tu­nately, I don’t think Albu­querque pulls in a lot of acts, they tend to skip over us. They go from Ari­zona to Texas or Col­orado to Ari­zona, but they tend not to stop in New Mex­ico,” he said. “That means that a lot of the bands that I really want to see I have to travel to see.”

One way around too much travel is to wait until many of these bands get together to per­form at a fes­ti­val, which is how Carter started his yearly trips to California.

“If I’m see­ing 30 bands at Coachella that’s like 30 nights out to see bands,” he said. “If I’m see­ing a show every cou­ple of weeks it takes me almost a year to do that. I can’t travel to see that many shows it’s going to be cost pro­hib­i­tive. I tend to be in the higher age range of an event like (Coachella), but I still have a good time.”

But every show must have an end, and at the end of Coachella, Carter is back to his duties with Uni­ver­sity Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Mar­ket­ing. As UCAM’s web admin­is­tra­tor, Carter is also in charge of the university’s online pres­ence. From the main uni­ver­sity web page to the president’s and regents’ web­sites, Carter and his team are respon­si­ble for main­tain­ing and updat­ing these sites, and mon­i­tor­ing the university’s over­all online reputation.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs per­form at Coachella.

Prior to his time with UCAM, Carter worked with UNM’s IT depart­ment, pro­vid­ing web­site sup­port to depart­ments, cre­at­ing web­sites and appli­ca­tions, and before that, he worked on their help desk. He also had many ideas for where the uni­ver­sity needed to go in the future, and social media was a big com­po­nent of that.

Before join­ing UCAM, Carter worked with UCAM designer and pho­tog­ra­pher John Sum­row to cre­ate a site show­cas­ing UNM’s Flickr Photo Gallery.

“It got a lot of atten­tion from other schools and peo­ple speak­ing at con­fer­ences as a good exam­ple of how to use Flickr in a uni­ver­sity envi­ron­ment,” Carter said.

After mov­ing to UCAM, Carter was deter­mined to improve the university’s social media pres­ence. He devel­oped a plan to get UNM more involved on Face­book, Twit­ter and even (at the time still an impor­tant social net­work) MySpace. He taught rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the uni­ver­sity to respond to peo­ple online in a more strate­gic fash­ion, even bring­ing in stu­dents to work on the department’s social media accounts to pro­vide an impor­tant and often over­looked voice to many social media endeavors.

But work­ing on social media is only part of what Carter does for the uni­ver­sity. He cre­ated a web ser­vices team for UNM, where depart­ments can go if they don’t have the staff to develop or main­tain their own sites. He’s also pushed for UNM’s new con­tent man­age­ment sys­tem, designed to make it eas­ier for depart­ments to update and cre­ate their own web­sites, and teaches a monthly class on how to use the system.

Speak­ing of teach­ing, Carter is also an adjunct fac­ulty mem­ber in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Jour­nal­ism, teach­ing web design and web stan­dards. Carter was asked to teach the class at the last minute when another instruc­tor left the C&J department.

“It’s been a good expe­ri­ence, and I’ve been asked to teach the class again this fall,” he said.

Story by Ben­son Hendrix

Posted in Campus Community, Staff, University News | |

Louie Award Winners Announced

April 23, 2013 | By Carolyn Gonzales

Laura Mon­toya received the Lobo Louie Fel­low of the Year Award.

The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Office of Stu­dent Affairs recently hosted the Louie Awards, an annual event that allows the cam­pus com­mu­nity to nom­i­nate indi­vid­u­als for var­i­ous awards: stu­dent ser­vice employee of the year, fel­low of the year, ser­vice provider and stu­dent employee.

Eliseo “Cheo” Tor­res, vice pres­i­dent of Stu­dent Affairs, said, “The Louies are part of the Stu­dent Affairs com­pre­hen­sive recog­ni­tion pro­gram and are an excel­lent oppor­tu­nity to rec­og­nize the out­stand­ing con­trib­u­tors from within our division.”

The 2013 theme, “All Roads Lead to UNM,” was designed with a “Wiz­ard of Oz” motif. The Stu­dent Affairs fel­lows took charge of orga­niz­ing the event and cre­at­ing dec­o­ra­tions. Win­ners, the diploma reads, “Dis­play the qual­i­ties of Courage, Heart and Intellect.”

Award Win­ners

Com­mu­nity Ser­vice Award: Jason Fuller and Denise Long

Employee of the Year: Caitlin Henke

Fel­low of the Year: Laura Montoya

Ser­vice Provider Award: Mar­jori Krebs, Sue MacEachen and Kim Halsten-Mora

Stu­dent Employee Award: Miquela Ortiz

All win­ners received a Lobo Louie stat­uette, and each received either $500 or gift cer­tifi­cates to the UNM Book­store.

Slideshow: Pho­tos by Karen Wentworth

Posted in Campus Community, Staff, University News | |

Staff as Students Set for Tuesday, April 9

April 4, 2013 | By UCAM

The UNM Staff Coun­cil Stu­dent Suc­cess Com­mit­tee hosts Staff as Stu­dents on Tues­day, April 9 from 11:30 a.m. — 1 p.m. in the UNM Stu­dent Union Build­ing, Ball­room B. The event pro­vides staff an oppor­tu­nity to learn about the Edu­ca­tion Ben­e­fit Pro­gram and how to take advan­tage of it to develop both aca­d­e­m­i­cally and professionally.

Are you inter­ested in pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment to fur­ther your career or improve your work per­for­mance? Employee Orga­ni­za­tional Devel­op­ment and the Divi­sion of Con­tin­u­ing Edu­ca­tion have sev­eral options for you to choose from, includ­ing many on-line classes.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from admis­sions, bur­sar, reg­is­trar, EOD, Con­tin­u­ing Edu­ca­tion and many aca­d­e­mic advi­sors from the var­i­ous col­leges, schools and depart­ments will be on hand to talk to staff one on one.

For com­plete infor­ma­tion, visit: Staff as Stu­dents.

Posted in Events, Staff | |

UNM Receives Grant to Staff Three AmeriCorp Members for a Year

December 21, 2012 | By Mara Kerkez

(l. to r.): Joaquin Barela‎, Mariah Madrid, Brenda Reyes, Veron­ica Yzeta, Lee St. Pierre‎ and Mar­i­lyn Dyk­man, direc­tor, VRC.

Three Ameri­Corp mem­bers will be work­ing at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Vet­er­ans Resource Cen­ter (VRC) in 2013, and a fourth at CNM, thanks to a grant recently awarded to the New Mex­ico Col­lege Access Net­work (CAN). 

A first-year pilot pro­gram, UNM and CNM are the first enti­ties in New Mex­ico to receive Ameri­Corps mem­bers, which accord­ing to the National Col­lege Advis­ing Corps, is the first pro­gram of its kind: a near-peer advise­ment pro­gram for col­lege grad­u­ates to men­tor and advise cur­rent vet­eran col­lege students.

Ameri­Corp mem­bers com­mit to 1,700 hours of ser­vice. They pro­vide one-on-one advise­ment, includ­ing refer­rals to cam­pus and com­mu­nity resources; help nav­i­gate GI Bill ben­e­fits; sup­port work with UNM enroll­ment, finan­cial aid and advise­ment cen­ters, and any addi­tional resources to sup­port stu­dent aca­d­e­mic success.

Direc­tor of UNM Vet­er­ans Resource Cen­ter Mar­i­lyn Dyk­man said, “We hope this is just the first step in increas­ing the sup­port our stu­dent vet­er­ans receive. Our num­bers have grown rapidly over the years.”

In the 2012 fall semes­ter, UNM main cam­pus had 1,262 iden­ti­fied vet­er­ans and mil­i­tary fam­ily mem­bers uti­liz­ing some form of the GI Bill or other mil­i­tary ben­e­fits, bring­ing over $8 mil­lion in rev­enue to UNM.   

More vet­er­ans are expected to enroll at UNM in the next three years as troops return home and make use of their GI Bill and mil­i­tary edu­ca­tion ben­e­fits. Dyk­man said, “Grants received through CAN to sup­port UNM and other edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tions, help the Vet­er­ans Resource Cen­ter bet­ter serve vet­er­ans, mil­i­tary ser­vice mem­bers, spouses and other fam­ily mem­bers, and that’s the goal.”   

For more infor­ma­tion on the Veteran’s CAN pro­gram, con­tact Kather­ine Old­berg at (505) 345‑3344 ext. 13 or email to: katherine@collegenm.org

Posted in Staff, University News | |

Endowments Celebrate UNM Staff and Faculty Members

December 11, 2012 | By Mara Kerkez

A beau­ti­ful vista of tree­tops, col­or­ful skies and sounds of birds form the back­drop of the video David Northrop’s col­leagues cre­ated to memo­ri­al­ize him. Friends, co-workers and stu­dents Northrop knew as asso­ciate direc­tor for Infor­ma­tion Tech­nolo­gies at UNM describe him as an exu­ber­ant, tech­ni­cally savvy and man­age­ri­ally skilled individual.

In 2008, UNM IT staff cre­ated the David J. Northrop Endowed Intern­ship. In line with Northrop’s phi­los­o­phy of work and life, the pro­gram will, in a prac­ti­cal way, men­tor stu­dents and bridge the gap between for­mal edu­ca­tion and indus­try expec­ta­tions. Northrop’s friends and cowork­ers endeavor to grow the fund to $100,000.

More than 50 endow­ments are cre­ated on aver­age at UNM each year, with a wide vari­ety of pur­poses. Many are cre­ated to insure that the peo­ple who work, teach and inspire oth­ers at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico are remembered.

Tim­o­thy Moy was an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of his­tory at UNM who spe­cial­ized in 20th-century sci­ence and cul­ture. A superb instruc­tor, he was noted for his skill com­bined with avid curios­ity, an extra­or­di­nar­ily even tem­pera­ment and a superb sense of humor.  The endow­ment estab­lished in his honor in 2009 sup­ports his­tory depart­ment grad­u­ate teach­ing assis­tants within the Col­lege of Arts and Sciences.

Another endow­ment hon­ors a “mag­netic per­son who inspired all who knew her”: The Deb­o­rah K. LaPointe Orga­ni­za­tional Learn­ing and Instruc­tional Tech­nol­ogy (OLIT) Endowed Schol­ar­ship Fund. LaPointe earned a Ph.D. at UNM and was an assis­tant pro­fes­sor and assis­tant direc­tor of Edu­ca­tion Devel­op­ment at UNM’s Health Sci­ence Library, and held a sec­ondary appoint­ment as an assis­tant pro­fes­sor in the OLIT Pro­gram. The 2009 endow­ment estab­lished in her name pro­vides schol­ar­ships for OLIT students.

Hun­dreds of sim­i­lar endow­ments allow the per­son­al­i­ties, philoso­phies and legacy of val­ued col­leagues, teach­ers, men­tors and friends to live on at UNM.

To learn more about the David J. Northrop Memo­r­ial Intern­ship Pro­gram or give online, visit djnintern.unm.edu. To donate to any fund at UNM through United Way, name the fund in your online or print­able pledge form.

Story by Wendy Antonio

Posted in Academics & Faculty, Staff | |

Provost’s Committee for Staff Offers Three $350 Scholarships

December 3, 2012 | By Mara Kerkez

The Provost’s Com­mit­tee for Staff is offer­ing three $350 schol­ar­ships to UNM staff who par­tic­i­pate in the Tuition Remis­sion Pro­gram for the spring 2013 semes­ter. The money will help cover the cost of aca­d­e­mic books, course fees and supplies.

To be eli­gi­ble, staff must be par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Tuition Remis­sion Pro­gram and meet the fol­low­ing requirements:

• Be enrolled in a degree, cer­tifi­cate com­ple­tion, pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment or per­sonal enrich­ment course
• Have passed their UNM employ­ment pro­ba­tion­ary period
• Be at least a .50 FTE UNM employee
• Have a “meets expec­ta­tion” or bet­ter on most recent per­for­mance review (do not send per­for­mance review)

Visit Provost’s Com­mit­tee for Staff to apply. Note that only com­pleted forms will be con­sid­ered. The dead­line to apply is Mon­day, Dec. 17, at 5 p.m.  Schol­ar­ship recip­i­ents will be noti­fied the week of Jan. 7.

For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact Dorene DiNaro at (505) 277‑5299.

Posted in Administration, Staff, University News | |

Staff Council Addresses Chick-fil-A Controversy

August 22, 2012 | By Sari Krosinsky

UNM Staff Coun­cil passed a res­o­lu­tion today reaf­firm­ing the university’s com­mit­ment to diver­sity and equal­ity, but stopped short of tak­ing aim at Chick-fil-A. Staff Coun­cilor Elisha Allen ini­ti­ated the res­o­lu­tion in response to national cov­er­age of the fast food chain, its dona­tions to orga­ni­za­tions oppos­ing same-sex mar­riage and recent state­ments by Chick-fil-A Pres­i­dent Dan Cathy.

Before it was brought to the floor, the res­o­lu­tion was amended to remove lan­guage request­ing that “an alter­nate ven­dor to Chick-fil-A be found to occupy the chain’s loca­tion” at the UNM Stu­dent Union Build­ing. The final ver­sion states:

“The Staff Coun­cil rejects dis­crim­i­na­tion and reaf­firms UNM’s com­mit­ment to diver­sity and equal­ity for all of its fac­ulty, staff and stu­dents regard­less of race, color, reli­gion, national ori­gin, phys­i­cal or men­tal dis­abil­ity, age, sex, sex­ual pref­er­ence, gen­der iden­tity, ances­try, med­ical con­di­tion or spousal affiliation.”

Two main argu­ments dom­i­nated debate on the Staff Coun­cil res­o­lu­tion. Sup­port­ers of the res­o­lu­tion argued that the pres­ence of Chick-fil-A may cre­ate a hos­tile envi­ron­ment for les­bian, gay, bisex­ual and trans­gen­der mem­bers of the UNM com­mu­nity. Oppo­nents and sup­port­ers of an amend­ment to remove lan­guage spec­i­fy­ing Chick-fil-A argued that the res­o­lu­tion amounts to an infringe­ment on free­dom of speech.

Ulti­mately, the res­o­lu­tion passed with amend­ments remov­ing explicit ref­er­ences to Chick-fil-A and adding, “Whereas the uni­ver­sity has engaged with busi­nesses that have been in the national media for their sup­port of poli­cies that impose a form of struc­tural dis­crim­i­na­tion and are incon­sis­tent with UNM’s com­mit­ment to a diverse work­force and diverse stu­dent body.”

Chartwells, the sup­plier of UNM’s cam­pus din­ing ser­vices, released a state­ment respond­ing to con­cerns about Chick-fil-A. “Chartwells has a zero tol­er­ance dis­crim­i­na­tion and harass­ment pol­icy, which enforces com­pli­ance with fed­eral, state and local laws that pro­hibit dis­crim­i­na­tion or harass­ment based on sex, sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion, race, reli­gion, color, dis­abil­ity, age, preg­nancy, national ori­gin, vet­eran sta­tus or any other unlaw­ful factor.”

A state­ment from Chick-fil-A reads: “The Chick-fil-A cul­ture and ser­vice tra­di­tion in our restau­rants is to treat every per­son with honor, dig­nity and respect – regard­less of their belief, race, creed, sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion or gen­der… Going for­ward, our intent is to leave the pol­icy debate over same-sex mar­riage to the gov­ern­ment and polit­i­cal arena.”

Posted in Campus Community, Staff, UNM Talk | |

UNM Faculty/Staff Club Annual Cookout Set for Aug. 24

August 17, 2012 | By Mara Kerkez

The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Faculty/Staff Club’s annual cook­out is set for Fri­day, Aug. 24 from 5 — 7 p.m. Clas­sic rock and coun­try from the ‘60s to the ‘80s will be pro­vided by Vin­tage Sounds.

The cost is $6.95, which includes choice of cheese­burger, veg­gie burger or grilled chicken, and potato salad. Bev­er­ages will be avail­able at an addi­tional cost. Atten­dees are wel­come to bring fam­ily and friends.

To reserve a spot at the cook­out, visit New Semes­ter Cel­e­bra­tion.   

For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact the UNM Faculty/Staff Club at (505) 277‑0045 or fsca@unm.edu.

Posted in Academics & Faculty, Events, Staff | |