Last fall, Mariachi Plata de WNMU had an opportunity to travel to Jalisco to be featured at De Tecalitlán Los Sones, the world’s most prestigious festival of mariachi. The group attended the festival by invitation of its organizers. “They heard of us through the mariachi that we work with from Guadalajara, Mariachi Estrella de Mexico,” said Director of Mariachi Plata de WNMU Bryant Chaffino. For the past two years, WNMU has partnered with Estrella de Mexico for El Son de la Gila, the annual mariachi conference held on campus in June. The festival is eleven days long, according to Chaffino, and each day several mariachi groups perform on a stage in the town square. All of the other performers were professional mariachis; Mariachi Plata de WNMU was the only university group to perform at the prestigious festival. The setting of the festival was itself inspiring, said Chaffino. While Tecalitlán is a small town in terms of population, it has had an outsized influence on...

Toward the end of fall semester, WNMU Nursing students and faculty had a chance to learn more about the legislative process and professional advocacy at the New Mexico Nurses Association Student Day at the New Mexico Legislature. “The purpose is to teach the students to advocate,” explained Associate Professor of Nursing Margaret Fran Driver. “They had students from every university in the state come to Santa Fe.” Driver led the trip along with Assistant Professor of Nursing Angela Cox. Joining them were two Level 3 nursing students, Ariana Medina and Catherine Fierro. The experience was a full-day affair, said Driver. “They had a morning session where they talked about the legislation that would be coming up in the next legislative session,” she noted. “And then we walked over to the Roundhouse and watched the Legislative Health Committee.” At the Roundhouse, the students and faculty then had a chance to talk with several legislators, as well as with the...

Western New Mexico University will be closed Monday, January 20, 2025 in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr....

A longtime member of the WNMU community is stepping down following a distinguished career of service to the university. Barbara Flores’ most recent position has been as Program Manager, Library Operations/Special Events. She has also worked in Academic Affairs, the Registrar’s Office, Athletics, the Western Institute of Lifelong Learning and the President’s Office. A number of Flores’ significant memories of her time at the university stem from her service on Staff Senate. Flores, who was one of original senators when Staff Senate was created in the 1980s, was instrumental in changing the pay structure for staff. “Staff used to get paid once a month,” explained Flores. “I did some research and called all the other universities to find out how they were paying their staff, and everyone was getting paid twice a month. So I contacted the university president, and he agreed to move to twice a month.” Flores also played an important role in encouraging the...

The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) has informed Western New Mexico University that the university has been reaccredited for the next 10 years. The accreditation decision was made following a rigorous peer review, evaluation and site visit, according to WNMU Accreditation Liaison Officer Connie Rooks. HLC is a private, nonprofit institutional accrediting agency. HLC Accreditation validates the quality of the institution and is essential for the university to continue offering federal financial aid. Rooks said that the site visit, which occurred in October 2024, went smoothly. “We were really excited about the type of feedback we were getting,” she said. At this visit, a delegation of individuals with extensive experience in higher education came to the campus to speak with students, faculty, staff and administrators. The path leading to the site visit was rigorous, said Rooks. While the accreditation process is always ongoing during the ten-year cycle, she said,...

Every day, students in Puerto Palomas, Chihuahua, and Columbus and Deming, New Mexico, navigate two countries, two languages, and two distinct educational systems. For these young U.S. citizens living in Mexico, crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to attend school is just another part of the routine. But for the faculty members from the WNMU College of Education, a recent visit to this border community was an eye-opening experience—one that revealed both the challenges and importance of bilingual education in the borderlands. The day trip to Deming, Columbus and Palomas was organized by Professor of Education and Associate Dean of the College of Education Alexandra Neves. It was prompted by a desire to better understand the students that the university is educating and to better understand the students that education majors will have in their classrooms. Many WNMU education students come to the university from Deming, said Neves, and the university also has dual enrollment...

Welcome to spring semester 2025! Enrollment is still open for spring courses, which begin Monday, January 13, 2025. Students interested in enrolling should contact their...

Western New Mexico University held a dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony in honor of the university’s newest and largest public sculpture, Dec. 12, 2024. The event celebrated Professor Emeritus Michael Metcalf’s newly installed work, Collaboration: The Student’s Journey. WNMU President Joseph Shepard opened the dedication by addressing why public art is so important to the university. “The arts,” said Shepard, “are what make us human. … The arts are about moving beyond your current generation.” Shepard noted that Metcalf had made a profound difference to WNMU intellectually, artistically, and as a colleague. “Today,” he said, Metcalf “gets to make an indelible difference for generations to come with his artwork.” After thanking all the people that helped bring about the sculpture, Metcalf spoke about his inspiration for creating it, the university’s Applied Liberal Arts and Sciences program. “I was curriculum chair at the beginning of it, so I...

Students in the WNMU School of Business are outpacing their peers at other institutions according to the results of standardized testing. Students in the bachelor’s degree program in Business Administration are given an examination administered by Peregrine Global Services that assesses their understanding of a variety of business subjects, including economics, marketing, human resource management and business ethics. Their knowledge of these topics is tested first when they begin their academic study and again when they complete the program. In recent years, WNMU students have consistently outperformed students at other universities both nationally and regionally. On the most recent outbound exam, WNMU students averaged 77.96% on the subject matter tests, while their peers at other southwestern universities averaged 64.03%. WNMU students scored especially highly in economics, marketing, human resource management and the global dimensions of business, and they outperformed...

When Western New Mexico University graduates Megan Custer and Itzela Darkenwald walked across the Commencement stage in December, their journeys were already part of a larger story. The two were among ten students featured on The College Tour this year, a nationally broadcast program that showcased the unique experiences of WNMU students. Now, as they embark on new chapters, their stories are a testament to the vibrant campus community that helped shape their paths to success. Custer, who played volleyball for WNMU and earned a BAS in Kinesiology in 2022, received her BSN this fall with plans to enter the nursing field in her hometown of El Paso. Her immediate goal is to pass the NCLEX, the licensure test required of all nurses, and then she will seek work close to family and friends in Texas. While Custer has been interested in health care for a long time, she credits the WNMU School of Nursing and Kinesiology for helping her to better identify and hone her interests....