News

Students at the WNMU Silver City campus are likely to be well familiar with the Juan Chacón Building. Housing the Offices of the Registrar, Student Success, Admissions and Recruitment, and Academic Advising, among other offices, the building is well used by students and staff alike. While the building itself does not have the long history of many other buildings on campus, it does have its own tie to an important chapter in American history, a tie that is relevant to the university’s status as an Hispanic-Serving Institution. Dedicated on September 14, 1985, on the eve of what was then known as Hispanic Heritage Week (now Month), the newly constructed building at WNMU was named for Juan Chacón, a Chicano labor leader and social activist. Chacón is best known for his role in the 1950-1952 strike against the Empire Zinc Company in Grant County, NM, and for starring in “Salt of the Earth,” an iconic film based on the strike. The 1954 film was blacklisted at the height of...

As the Hispanic population in the United States continues to grow, the role of higher educational institutions in educating this population becomes even more important. There is no time this is more apparent than this week, September 11-17, 2023, which is Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) Week. HSIs are defined as having 25% or more undergraduate Hispanic student full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment. The percentage of FTE undergraduate Hispanic students at WNMU is 55%. The HSI designation was recognized by the United States Congress in 1992, following a push by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), an organization that advocates on behalf of Hispanic students. “In 1992, HACU led the effort to convince Congress to formally recognize campuses with high Hispanic enrollment as federally designated Hispanic-Serving Institutions and to begin targeting federal appropriations to those campuses,” wrote Felipe de Ortego y Gasca in 2015. Ortego was Scholar in...

Most people would not think that being a pastry chef and being a ceramic artist have a lot in common, but WNMU post-baccalaureate student Hugh Remar knows otherwise. After living in New York City for the past thirteen years, eight of which were spent as a pastry chef in fine dining venues, Remar decided he wanted to focus on his art practice. “Working as a pastry chef, there’s a very technical and tactile aspect to that is directly related to clay,” said Remar, “So many of the sculptural things I have been working on like wedding cake construction, working with very delicate and sensitive materials.” Now in his second year of the post-baccalaureate program in Ceramics, Remar also takes inspiration from the color and whimsy of pastry in the pieces he creates. Remar, who was an art history major as an undergraduate, explained, “Fine dessert really emerged out of 18th-century France, and I am quite influenced by the visual and material culture of that point in...

Western New Mexico University has created a new, prestigious award to recognize the staff member who best represents remarkable achievement, unwavering dedication and leadership, and a commitment to excellence. This Presidential Leadership Award will be given annually, and recipients will receive their awards at the Welcome Back Convocation in January. The impetus for the award came from a desire to create an award for staff that parallels the prestigious awards given to faculty each year, said Staff Senate President Adele Springer. While the university already has awards for Employee of the Month and Employee of the Year, these awards are not available to employees who are currently part of a bargaining unit. The new award will be open to any employee of WNMU with at least three years of service who works in a regular, benefits-eligible position, except faculty and senior leadership. The Presidential Leadership Award is intended to not only honor individual achievements but also...

 It is not every day that a professional film crew makes its way to Silver City. This fall, though, Western New Mexico University will be in front of the lens on the TV series “The College Tour.” The first college or university in New Mexico to be on the show, WNMU will be the sole focus of the half-hour episode, scheduled to be available for streaming next spring. Now in its 10th season, “The College Tour” is a TV series created by Emmy-nominated and multi-award-winning producers. The series tells the story of colleges and universities across the country. Each episode of “The College Tour” focuses on a single college or university. Hosted by Alex Boylan, who won CBS’s “Amazing Race” at age 23 and has gone on to have a highly successful career both in front of and behind the camera, the show features college students telling their own stories. The series can be watched on Amazon Prime and other streaming services. “The idea for ‘The College Tour’ came to...

The recent proliferation of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies poses many questions about the appropriate use of AI in academic environments. At WNMU those questions have prompted the formation of the AI Work Group, which includes faculty, staff, and students and began meeting in the Spring of 2023. WNMU Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Jack Crocker formed the AI Work Group after hearing a presentation by WNMU Professor of Biology Manda Jost at the spring semester Welcome Back Convocation. Jost explained that the timing of her presentation was because spring “was the first semester we had to really seriously start thinking about students using AI, both from the point of view of a tool that helps them and as something that might compromise their learning.” Jost is committed to considering AI in its full complexity—not just as a dangerous temptation to cheat but also as a potentially useful resource. “AI are very powerful tools,” she said,...

Four WNMU students—Soozy Wollard, Itzela Darkenwald, Devin Larsen (BS ’23) and Abel Lazzell—led teams of high school students on outdoor expeditions in the northeastern United States this summer. The opportunity was organized by WNMU Outdoor Program Manager Will Tracy in a partnership with the Oliverian School, a private, alternative boarding school in the White Mountains of northern New Hampshire. The expeditions were part of a series of three, two-week long learning modules with both experiential and academic components. Students in the program went hiking in the White Mountains, caving in New York and Vermont and paddling in northern Maine. As an example of how the experiential and academic components fused, Tracy said that in the caving module, students learned about geology and then were in “this amazing, novel environment that they would never be in—caving—and that . . . crystallized the learning from the classroom.” The WNMU students on the expeditions were...

“In order for to be successful,” said Elizabet Woche, “we have to set them up to be successful.” Woche started at Western New Mexico University as a recruiter in the Office of Admissions and Recruitment and now also serves as the compliance official for students attending WNMU on student visas. The position has given her insight on what international students need to succeed and she is now implementing her ideas through an orientation program and by advising a new student organization. This year, Woche planned and led the university’s first orientation program dedicated to international students. The need for the orientation became apparent to Woche as she observed the complex processes that international students had to navigate. “Students would come to WNMU and figure out everything by themselves,” said Woche, “Transportation from El Paso or Tucson, classes, laws, immigration, visas—all those responsibilities were on the students.” The complexity of...

Valerie DeLaCruz’s tightly knit ranching family thought that they could fend for themselves. That all changed about two years ago when both of DeLaCruz’s grandfathers approached the end of their lives within a few months of each other. Suddenly, DeLaCruz and her formerly independent family found themselves welcoming hospice workers into their homes. “Hospice was just great to us,” said DeLaCruz, “They were amazing. They helped us mentally, physically. They helped with everything.” It was this experience that made DeLaCruz realize she wanted to be a social worker. “It was seeing that people do make a difference in families,” she explained. The experience made such an impression on her that she wrote an essay about it, “Rock Bottom,” that is soon to be printed in “The Maverick,” published by Mimbres Press of Western New Mexico University. Now in her second year in the WNMU BSW program, DeLaCruz is already making a difference in the world. This year, she was...