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Like many student organizations, the Native American Student Alliance (NASA) lost momentum during the COVID-19 pandemic. A new group of students, however, have re-chartered the organization and are already knee-deep in coordinating this year’s activities, according to NASA President and graduate student in Early Childhood Education, Rebekah Stevens (Choctaw). The signature event for the fall semester was Native American Day, held on November 15. NASA worked with dining hall staff to coordinate a lunch of traditional indigenous foods based on recipes provided by NASA students. The day also included a screening of the award-winning film “Smoke Signals.” The highlight of Native American Day was a forum on “Navigating Native American Culture Today.” The panelists for the forum included Dr. Perry James (Navajo), WNMU Adjunct Faculty; Bill Bradford, Chiricahua Apache Nation Attorney General; and Joe Saenz, Chiricahua Apache Nation President. The forum was moderated by NASA...

Brooke Rodgers started her college career in San Francisco, California, but when WNMU Head Women’s Basketball Coach Josh Pace reached out to her, she was ready to make a change. She was anxious to leave the big city, to be closer to her family in Phoenix and to find a university that would allow her to better balance her academic life with the demands of playing collegiate basketball. “I knew Coach Pace would get me to where I wanted to be as a player,” she said. The one wrinkle in her plan was not about basketball but about academics and career preparation. “I want to become a screenwriter after I graduate,” said Rodgers. At her previous university, her major was Writing for Film and TV, a program not offered at WNMU. Luckily, she was able to design her own degree program through the WNMU Interdisciplinary Studies program with concentrations in English and Psychology that will allow her to continue developing as a screenwriter. “I was always told that I was a good...

WNMU is closed for Fall Break, Nov. 20-24. Please enjoy the late fall color on...

WNMU Museum Director Danielle Romero has a chapter in the forthcoming book “Mogollon Communal Spaces and Places in the Greater American Southwest,” published by the University of Utah Press. The chapter, titled “Pipes, Palettes, and Projectile Points: Great Kiva Rituals and Ritual Paraphernalia at the Harris Site,” was coauthored with Professor Barbara Harris of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and archeologist Ashley Lauzon. Romero explains that “Our chapter focuses on specific artifacts that were found in kivas and domestic pithouses at the Harris Site, a Late Pithouse period (AD 550-1000) village in the Mimbres Valley. Using our excavation data and ethnographic information from the modern pueblos we discuss the links between ritual performance, household sponsorship, and community integration.” The chapter, and indeed the entire volume that includes it, began as a presentation for a conference that was cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. One...

A production team from the hit Amazon Prime TV show “The College Tour” wrapped up a week of filming on the campus of Western New Mexico University on Friday, November 10, 2023. The show was in town to film ten WNMU students telling their Mustang stories. The series introduces its audience to colleges and universities across the country. Each episode of “The College Tour” focuses on a single college or university and is hosted by Alex Boylan, who won CBS’s “The Amazing Race” at age 23 and has gone on to have a highly successful career both in front of and behind the camera. The concept for the “The College Tour” was inspired by Boylan’s niece, who, several years ago, was deciding where to attend college but could not afford to take numerous trips around the country to find the right match. “So few students . . . have the resources to travel wherever they want and check out campuses,” said Boylan. He noted that it is ideal if a student can physically...

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...