Stacie Armijo, Staff Reporter
President of Fellow of Innovation David Valdes said he is holding focus group sessions to invite students to give their ideas for the next big accomplishment at CNM.
Focus group sessions will be held on Wednesday Sept. 18 and Friday Sept. 20 at Main Campus, and all students are welcome to participate, Valdes said.
Two sessions will be offered both days starting at 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., with Valdes cautioning that limited space will be available for students to voice their opinions. For more information or to sign up for the focus group meetings students can email Valdes at dvaldes1@cnm.edu.
Valdes said he has a number of ideas to improve the quality of what CNM has to offer by getting the perspective of students and faculty, and by making the campuses better overall.
“I would like to emphasize that I want students to be part of what I am doing. I have jotted down a million ideas for innovations at CNM, a lot of them revolve around parking,” he said.
Many students, staff and faculty have voiced their concerns regarding problems with parking, he said.
“Something I would like to explore and look into as what we could possibly do about all of the parking issues,” he said.
Students can voice their opinions on what needs to be developed upon and how those ideas can be implemented into school programs, he said.
“It’s important to me to generate and narrow ideas for topics of innovation,” and that is where these focus groups come in, Valdes said.
There are 30 participants of CNM faculty that have signed up to be a part of this new group idea, with faculty being a separate entity from the student groups, Valdes said.
“The program of innovation is to try to find a way to accomplish something tangible. I can generate a decent amount of ideas on my own but I want more brains involved,” Valdes said.
New ideas for the school are welcomed and are to be shared at one of these mentioned sessions, he said.
“There are several types of innovation; cultural, technological, academic and economic,” he said.
Valdes hopes these focus groups help students become more involved in volunteer programs where students can learn to help the community through the school.
“I would like to see every graduate of CNM having been involved in a charitable organization before they leave. It sounds like a great cultural shift that I would like to see for the future of our state, and our nation. I hope that students focus on how they can help the people next to them,” Valdes said.
Valdes said that after the focus groups he will continue with applying what ideas are really going to help students and faculty and how these new innovations can be incorporated into the school.
“I am trying to build research, then implementation and evaluation groups as well.” he said.
There are currently three fellowships here at CNM and Valdes said that each one hopes to better the school for the students in new ways.
“There is also a fellow of distance learning and there are two people working on curriculum. There are several areas to look at; talking about technological innovation in particular I know that the fellowship of distance learning is really looking on how they can ramp up technical help for students,” he said.
Students need to be able to voice their opinions of what can be improved at the school and focus groups will be the first of many new ideas that will help the school to become better with the benefit of many perspectives, Valdes said.
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