Author Archives: Linda Brown

When Violeta “Blanca” Jaure (BA ’06) was pregnant with her first child while living in Albuquerque twenty-two years ago, she knew she had to return to Silver City, where she had grown up and where her family lived. What she did not foresee was how that choice would be pivotal in her educational journey. “I didn’t even go to high school,” said Jaure, “I kind of was a high school drop-out here in Silver City. I didn’t feel like I really belonged in the high school, so I ended up getting my GED.” When her daughter was born, however, Jaure decided to continue her education to provide her daughter with a role model and greater opportunities. “I had to do it for her,” she said of her decision to enroll at WNMU. Her decision was made easier by the presence of the Child Development Center (CDC) on campus, which provides its infant/toddler program and preschool at a reduced cost for WNMU students. Jaure described how she and a friend who also had a young infant...

 When Linda Skerritt (now Avery) was looking to attend college over sixty years ago, academics were not the only thing on her mind. “I came for my health,” Avery explained, “I had very bad asthma as a child growing up in New Jersey, and I had a doctor who suggested the dry climate might help.” After looking at schools in Arizona and New Mexico, Avery decided to attend Western New Mexico University (then College), where she majored in English and minored in drama and Spanish. “I came out , and I just felt right at home right away,” she said, “I had never been to the southwest before, but it just felt like this was the right place.” Apparently, the New Mexican climate agreed with her because Avery immediately became involved in numerous activities on campus. “Because I could breathe more comfortably,” she said, “I was excited to do as much as I could . . . I just had the best time exploring different things and being in an entirely new...

The students in Assistant Professor Erin Wheary’s Appreciation of Sculpture class could recently be found on a sunny Tuesday morning on the Graham Gym patio, arranging their latest creations for a photography opportunity. “Let’s try the Ball jar toward the center,” called the photographer, Jay Hemphill, as the students moved their sculptures, “The Apple watch can go on the bottom step.” The students were arranging oversized sculptures of everyday objects, all painted the same purple hue and ranging in size from large to massive. The sculptures, made of chicken wire and cardboard and covered with a skin of papier-mâché, were the result of an assignment given by Wheary early in the semester. “I like to ground my teaching in contemporary art,” Wheary explained, “And so this piece is inspired by the work of Claes Oldenberg. just went over elements of art and principles of design, and the idea is to transform the scale of an everyday object.” Oldenberg is...

Two WNMU faculty members, Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice Damon Bullock and Associate Professor of Management David Scarborough, spent part of the summer on a faculty exchange with La Universidad del Valle de Atemaja (UNIVA) in La Piedad, Michoacán, Mexico. The purpose of the exchange is multifold, said Bullock. It is partly an extension of the university’s educational mission, and it also helps to spread awareness of WNMU. In addition, faculty themselves are enriched by the experience. For Scarborough, who is learning Spanish, the immersive experience was invaluable for its effect on his Spanish language listening skills. “If you really want to be conversant you have to be there and listen, so that you are getting context as well as the auditory input,” he said. For Bullock, the experience connected directly to his academic specialization. “Being a sociologist,” he said, “I have always been interested in diversity and culture, so it feels...

  “An inspirational showcase of our professors’ artwork” is how Expressive Arts major Charlee Alexander described the new exhibition of work by WNMU faculty on display at the McCray Gallery of Contemporary Art. “It is fantastic to see all of the faculty collaborating on something,” she said, “The community of the Arts Department is a really tight-knit, loving community, and all the professors are there to support each other’s work, as they do their students.” The exhibition, which opened with a reception on October 19, features the work of seven members of the Department of Expressive Arts. Professor of Sculpture and Department Chair Michael Metcalf exhibited cast bronze sculptures as well as a slyly humorous performance piece designed specifically for the opening reception of the exhibition. This piece, titled “Melting Head,” featured a head carved of wax that was previously used to create the mold for a cast bronze self-portrait. The head was...

When the State of Texas passed Senate Bill 17 in the spring of 2023, banning offices of diversity, equity and inclusion on public college campuses, it was a career-defining moment for WNMU Miller Library Director Samantha Johnson. Johnson, who was working at a community college library in Baytown, TX, at the time, was concerned about the legislation broadly, but on a professional level she was concerned that it was going to make it difficult to do her job. “I wasn’t going to be able to do any equity programming,” she said, “We had a very active equity office, and I had done a lot of work with them.” When the legislation passed, Johnson knew she was making the right move by leaving behind her longtime home state of Texas. Even before this most recent round of legislation in Texas, Johnson was hoping to relocate. “My husband and I have wanted to move out of Houston for a long time because it is very polluted, the traffic is awful, and the weather is horrible,” she...

Oscar Arteaga expected to spend recent years working on his MBA in Kansas, but when his husband found a job in Silver City, Arteaga saw a new opportunity at WNMU, and he quickly decided to expand his educational experience beyond business. While business administration remains one of his concentration areas in the WNMU MA in Interdisciplinary Studies program, he has added two others: sociology and kinesiology. “I like sociology because it has to do with human behavior,” Arteaga, who is originally from Venezuela, explained. Similarly, kinesiology has given him “an opportunity to learn about the human body, body movement, physical activity,” he said. Currently in his second year of the program, Arteaga appreciates how his unusual combination of concentrations allows him to explore “human life in its different facets.” He gets to study human behavior and relationships, social interactions, the decision-making process, leadership, management, physical activity, and...

The New Mexico Center of Excellence for Early Childhood Education Symposium was held on the Western New Mexico University campus on October 19, 2023.  The symposium was created to share with policy makers, educational leaders and other interested stakeholders what it means for WNMU to be designated by the State Legislature as the NM Center of Excellence for Early Childhood Education. The university received this legislative distinction in 2022 for having developed a full-service center that has been providing early childhood and family services for decades. WNMU provides the highest quality child care, an active research site, a family counseling center, professional development and numerous teacher preparation programs, and it integrates these early childhood services, which is what makes the center’s model unique. The symposium also provided a forum for discussing child wellbeing in New Mexico and how the various parts of the center put this integrative model of early...

From John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” to Anne Sexton’s “The Starry Night,” writers have often taken their inspiration from other works of art. This kind of writing—called ekphrasis—is at the heart of a recent assignment that Associate Professor Roberta Brown gave to students in her English composition class. Brown said the assignment was not originally one she had planned for the semester, but rather one that emerged on the opening night of the recent McCray Gallery of Contemporary Art retrospective of the art of former WNMU art professor Cecil Howard. One of Brown’s students, Brandy Lynn, was also at the opening reception, and Lynn told Brown that she wished the class could write about Howard’s art. Brown agreed that the exhibit would serve as an excellent subject for the students in her English composition class, and she quickly amended her course plans to include the new writing assignment. Ekphrasis, explained Brown, “is a form handed down to us from...

The WNMU School of Education is in its second year of offering a Teacher Residency program that allows students finishing their coursework to earn $35,000 for a two-semester guided apprenticeship in which they work alongside mentor educators. The program was created following the passage of House Bill 13, the Teacher Residency Act, which in 2022 established funding and guidelines for offering teacher residencies across the state. According to Assistant Professor of Secondary Education Stephanie Fanselow, who directs the program at WNMU, lawmakers created the program as a measure to grow and diversify the teaching workforce. “They want teachers who look like the kids in the classroom,” she said. What that means can vary in different parts of the state, depending on the local population, said Fanselow. The residency is a two-semester program that pairs each teacher resident with a mentor teacher who works in a New Mexican public or tribal school. Students planning to teach at...