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During a virtual meeting Wednesday morning, the Western New Mexico University Board of Regents approved a fiscal year 2020-2021 budget to present to the New Mexico Higher Education Department by the Friday deadline but expects it will be necessary to change the budget once the legislature meets in special session to determine the overall state finances. WNMU President Dr. Joseph Shepard announced that WNMU will move commencement to a virtual live ceremony on Friday, May 29. “We’re going to Zoom all 300 plus participants,” President Shepard said. President Shepard also reported that the university is making plans for the return of employees and students this fall or when the state’s stay at home recommendations are lifted. “I suspect we’ll have to manage our class sizes. I expect the faculty might continue a hybrid method. We’re sensitive to maximizing the health and minimizing the risk of our faculty, staff, students and community as well,” he said. Regent Dr....

Justyce Millan will graduate with her bachelor’s this spring and go on to the forensic psychology master’s program at Arizona State University. Millan majored in both psychology and sociology, playing Mustang softball for three years of her university career and being involved on campus through the National Society of Leadership and Success, Psi Chi: The International Honor Society in Psychology, and Mustang Cares. She also worked in the WNMU Center for Student Success. “I chose Western New Mexico University because I wanted to get away from home yet stay close. I knew they had good programs in psychology and sociology, which I was interested in,” she said. The senior said her WNMU professors advised her to double major and guided her through the graduate school selection and application process. “I’ve learned a lot from everybody there. It’s definitely been an amazing experience,” she said. When applying to graduate schools, Millan was looking for...

The Western New Mexico University Board of Regents unanimously agreed to raise tuition and also approved the fiscal year 2020-21 student fees during a meeting held over Zoom on Tuesday. The members also approved the final Budget Adjustment Request and the 2019-20 Quarter 3 Financial Actions Report, tabling a vote on the fiscal year 2020-21 budget until the next meeting, which they scheduled for Wednesday, May 13. In his report, WNMU President Dr. Joseph Shepard discussed oil prices’ influence on the state and university budget, which he recommended the board delay determining until the mid-May deadline. Projecting about a 20% decrease, he said this summer’s state legislative special session would determine what cuts WNMU should actually expect. “We’re in for a very, very difficult time. Higher education is 12.8% of the state budget. We can expect substantial cuts no matter what happens.” The president reported that while summer session applications are tracking about...

Diana Velez Cartaya is a master's of business administration student from the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez (UPRM). She is taking an online business statistics course this spring and was the first student who enrolled in a WNMU course since our universities entered a memorandum of understanding last fall. The past biology student had begun a bioengineering program at UPRM but soon realized it was not for her. “Thinking about other options, I figured having a degree as flexible as an MBA would still allow me to work in the health field but taking a more administrative role,” she says. “With science it’s black and white but business offers you the gray part of the spectrum.” In her third semester, she’s hoping to graduate in spring 2021, but due to having started in a different field, she’s behind her classmates. Courses are offered only every other semester at UPRM, so the option to take statistics online through WNMU helps Diana catch up. “This works with...

Online graduate student Mike Olson worked as a WNMU Student Research and Professional Development Research Assistant studying equity in online education. He developed a literature database and designed and distributed a survey in collaboration with WNMU psychology professor Dr. Jenny Coleman. From his home office in Clarksville, Tennessee, Mike works for a small distance education career school based in Arizona. “I’m pursing my Master of Arts in interdisciplinary studies with focuses on instructional design and technology and psychology,” he says. His bachelor’s in instructional design taught him that the field is comprised of both theory and technological application. “What I got into was the theory and specifically those theories that are rooted in science. All the titans happened to be psychologists. I saw the relationships between these two disciplines and searched for a program combining them,” he says. “Turns out, that combo doesn’t exist but am able to...

Elizabeth Davila is who WNMU students in Deming lean on for support through their degree programs — and through life. “Having positive caring people in our lives helps carry us to the next opportunity,” she said. Having worked for WNMU Extended University and other offices around campus in the past, Elizabeth started out in Deming as an advisor then began helping students complete financial aid paperwork. “I basically see the students through their general ed requirements until they declare their majors,” she said. For the past two years, she has worked in partnership with Deming public schools to process and advise dual-credit students, many of whom complete associate degrees during their high school years. Elizabeth also spearheaded a college fair at Bataan Elementary, bringing in WNMU academic departments, alumni, and current students to showcase opportunities the university offers. Her social work background lends itself well to the role she plays at WNMU...

Dr. Kathy Whiteman was hired in 2012 to create a university outdoor program and share her GIS expertise as a professor. Since, she has grown the outdoor program from recreational club status to an academic program that includes an on-campus gear rental shop and a field-certified Mustang Search and Rescue Team and also offers regular Wilderness First Aid certification classes plus a minor in outdoor leadership studies. As of fall 2019, Dr. Whiteman is heading up the university’s Center for a Sustainable Future, serves on the New Mexico Outdoor Recreation Division advisory board, and was chairing the committee hosting the Association for Experiential Education 2020 Rocky Mountain Regional Conference, which was to be held at WNMU in April but is now canceled. “The outdoors is a huge part of our regional identity. I’m actively working to foster relationships and collaborations with entities that play roles in the outdoor economy,” she said. Western New Mexico...

Adele M. Springer has held six job titles at Western New Mexico University over the past two dozen years. From Oklahoma, Springer arrived in Silver City with an associate degree in data and began her career at WNMU while working toward a bachelor’s. Most recently, she worked as the administrative and executive secretary for Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. Jack Crocker. As of fall 2019, she makes up the Office of WNMU Institutional Research and Outcomes Assessment. “The only person who wasn’t happy about the switch was my husband, who complained that I was already staying up until eleven o’clock at night playing with data anyway,” she says. Adele is fixing past errors and staying on top of what’s being input now so the university has accurate, reliable, and, ultimately, useful data. She hopes her work helps WNMU operate more efficiently and cohesively. “I want a data warehouse that everyone contributes to and pulls from when reporting. I want be...

“I really wanted to just get out there,” says WNMU transfer student Yen Chu, who was born in Taiwan and raised in America, where she graduated from Silver High School at age 16. “I applied to UNM. I didn’t know what I was going to do yet so I spent a couple of semesters taking classes left and right — until I took a ceramics class.” Yen had a blast in the studio and decided to major in art, returning to her hometown to finish her degree. “WNMU costs less, the art department is great, and I can chill out and take all the classes I want,” she says. With a multitude of interests, there’s no subject Yen hates. “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always really loved science, and I actually love math too. Art lets me explore all of that because you have to worry about chemistry in ceramics too. It’s like acrobatics in my mind,” she says. At WNMU, she’s experimenting with styles and honing her technique. “It takes a while to let your hands catch up with what...

“I love languages — learning languages, listening to, reading, and speaking them — so I majored in Spanish and minored in French. My goal for my undergraduate degree was to study in as many countries as possible. This paved the way for my studies in cross-cultural education and learning and second language development,” says Associate Professor of Education Dr. Margarita P. Wulftange, who teaches people who want to be elementary and bilingual teachers. She studied in Mexico, Spain, Canada, France, Ireland, Ecuador, and Costa Rica and has since traveled around the globe to research more ways about how children learn. Dr. Wulftange says offering bilingual education fully enforces the New Mexico constitution. “All the decisions you make as a teacher impact your students’ futures and their families, so valuing the languages students come to school with is important.” Also the assessment coordinator for the WNMU School of Education, Dr. Wulftange is dedicated to...