Day: February 11, 2014

Romance on a budget; Spend less this Valentines Day

By Dan Chavez, Staff Reporter

Valentine’s Day is a special day to treat loved ones to a fine dinner, and Albuquerque has many restaurants that would surely make this day one to remember.

The Chronicle has high­lighted four restaurants that might make this Valentine’s Day truly spectacular that offer Valentine’s Day specials and treats for couples looking to get out on the town this holiday.

Seasons Rotisserie and Grill in Old Town at 2031 Mountain Rd. NW special­izes in cuisine rooted in the American classics, serves simple dishes created with the freshest ingredi­ents and features an open kitchen where guests can see the restaurant kitchen in action, which creates a very memorable dining experience, according to the restaurant’s website.

According to the web­site, guests of Seasons can choose to sit in a dining room that features natural wood, terra cotta, and hand wrought light fixtures.

According to Season’s website this restaurant is located at 2031 Mountain Rd. NW and is open for lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and dinner from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Manager, Keith Roessler said that for their Valentine’s Day special, Seasons will be serving a special four-course dinner, which includes a bottle of Feuillatte Brut Rose from France with the first course, for $55 per person.

The main course entrées include Crispy Duck Breast, Pan Seared Sea Bass, and Fresh Lobster Tail and Filet.

“The Brut Rosé is valued at about $50, so this dinner is a really good deal,” Roessler said.

Roessler said that res­ervations are required and can be made through the website or by phone.

According to the website, Seasons purchases locally or regionally whenever possible and they have been able to find an amazing variety of ingredi­ents from local sources.

For those who would like to dine in the Nob Hill area this Valentine’s Day, there is Scalo Northern Italian Grill located at 3500 Central Avenue SE and this restaurant is open for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and then opens for dinner at 5:30 p.m. daily, according to the restaurant’s website.

Manager, Sarah Williams said that they will be running their regular menu and will add a special Valentine’s Day dinner, which will be an appe­tizer and two course dinner and can been seen at the res­taurant’s online menu at scalo­nobhill.com/file/Valentines_ Day_2014.pdf.

Williams said that pasta will run from $13 to $18 and dinner entrées will be from $24 to $32.

Reservations are recom­mended and can be requested by visiting the website or giving them a call, she said.

“Nothing says love like a glass of wine coupled with great Italian cuisine. Pair that with the backdrop of Historic Nob Hill, and you are sure to have a memorable Valentine’s Day,” a passage from the web­site reads.

El Pinto is the largest New Mexican restaurant in the state, with three indoor dining rooms, a cantina, and five patios that are enclosed during the colder months so that visitors can dine by a warm fire, according to the restaurant’s website.

According to El Pinto’s website, this restaurant is located at 10500 Fourth St. NW and is open Monday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

According to El Pinto’s menu, which can be seen online at elpinto.com/menus, most large dinners are from $18 to $20 per plate and there are many varieties of healthy and vegetarian plates ranging from $13 to $20.

Manager, Doug Evilsizor said he believes El Pinto would be a fine place for a romantic dinner because it has an old world feel with fireplaces and a romantic atmosphere.

El Pinto has tasty guaca­mole, delicious steak, and tra­ditional enchiladas, he said.

Evilsizor said that they have a wide variety of dishes, including healthy and vegetar­ian dinners that are delicious.

“There’s no better place to be for Valentine’s. We have good salads, great New Mexican food, and the best margaritas around,” he said.

Evilsizor said that there are a limited number of reserved tables, but reserva­tions are not necessary because there are lots of tables for walk-in visitors.

Registration change proves fruitful for students success

By Dan Chavez, Staff Reporter

The school’s updated registration policy that prohibits students from registering after the first day has not affected many students’ schedules since its inception at the beginning of the semes­ter, and Brad Moore, Director of Marketing and Communications said that the strategy has been going as smooth as expected, also that there is a definite plan to continue the new rule into future semesters.

Moore said he believes the spring 2015 semester will start with much fewer difficulties because CNM’s offices will be open January 5, but classes will not start until January 20, which gives students two weeks to register for classes.

Moore said the new registration policy was a result of studies con­ducted by CNM, which showed that students who started a class later would tend to struggle a great deal in their coursework because they had fallen behind from the very start.

“CNM has known this for a while, that grades did drop off for students who started late,” he said.

Late starting students would have lower success rates and were more likely to drop out, and those who stuck with the course would still end the term with lower grades than those who were present from the first day of class, he said.

CNM felt that the pre­vious way of registering was basically a disservice that the school was letting students start late, and that these students were already falling behind in their coursework from the very beginning of the class, Moore said.

“That’s the main reason behind it,” Moore said.

The large issue delaying the implementation of this new policy had to do with the short window between the date CNM offices were opened over the break and regular class start times, he said.

CNM plans to continue the policy barring late registra­tion and administration will monitor any effects it may have, he said.

Moore said that CNM will continue to communicate to students regarding the registration policy before the next term begins so that they will remember to sign up for their classes before the start­ing date, and so that registra­tion can go along smoother in upcoming semesters.

CNM did offer a signifi­cant number of late starting classes in anticipation of stu­dent need during this transi­tion phase, but these classes are shorter and are also more condensed, so the curriculum is equivalent to regular classes, he said.

Moore said that there will be several late starting classes offered during the summer semester that are 8 weeks in duration, rather than the standard 12 week course, and that the fall schedule will also start to offer more 8 week courses as well.

“We know a lot of stu­dents need those classes due to work issues and family obligations and so forth. We try to accommodate all dif­ferent types of students, so we’ll definitely continue to offer late starting courses,” Moore said.

Alexandra Fowler, Chemistry major, said she has been a CNM student for quite a while and she would advise any new stu­dent to meet with an aca­demic advisor as early as possible to find out what classes should be taken and when to do so for each semester, or to find out if more classes are avail­able to take during certain semesters.

Fowler said she felt that CNM spread the word about the new registration policy adequately enough.

“Teachers really drilled it in last semester and it was all over the website, so I think we did know ahead of time,” she said.

Dereck Swain, Engineering major, said he gets to pick his classes early, so he registers for the courses he needs way before the next term begins.

Swain said he had no major problems registering for the spring term and the new policy locking classes from registration after their beginning date did not affect him at all.

Swain said he was not aware that late starting regis­tration was possible in previ­ous semesters, and he advises newer students to go to the CNM catalog and write down the Course Reference Numbers (CRN) of the classes that are needed, as well as to register instead of doing a class search online, and to get it all done early.

“Don’t procrastinate. Try to get it done as early as you can,” he said.

Moore said that CNM will evaluate student per­formance at the end of the spring term to determine if final grades improve or not under the new registra­tion guidelines.

Workshops offered to help transfer students

By Nick Stern, Senior Reporter

Transferring from a two-year college to a four-year college can be intimidating for some stu­dents, and CNM has taken that into consideration by making transfer work­shops located at the Student Services Center in room 203, where students can come at their leisure and do not need to register for these events.

These workshops will be at 1 p.m. from Monday, Feb 10 until Thursday, Feb 14 and again from April 7 until April 10 for CNM students to learn just how easy it can be to transfer over.

The CNM website advises that students inter­ested in transferring to a different degree-granting institution should begin by meeting with an academic advisor at CNM to figure out which courses can be completed for a transfer degree, and it also encour­ages students to look into academic programs at col­leges by attending these transfer workshops. UNM Advisor, Sarah Kieltyka said CNM Academic Advisement and UNM intend to co-host these four CNM to UNM transfer workshops.

Kieltyka said that the workshops will teach students how to learn the necessary steps to properly exit CNM, the transfer process to UNM, how to determine which courses transfer to UNM as well as how they transfer.

If students are unable to make it to the workshops, Kieltyka said she would be more than willing to meet with students at scheduled appointments to give advice.

“If you cannot make it to the workshop but you are still interested in transferring from CNM to UNM, please contact me so that we can set up a one-on-one advisement appoint­ment,” she said.

To contact Kieltyka, call 659-6488 or email skieltyk@unm.edu. for more information on how to get started on transferring to a four year college.

Ariel Tyson, Psychology major and former CNM stu­dent said she has had much experience with transferring between colleges, and trans­ferring from CNM is actu­ally easier than some students might think, so students just need to know the right steps needed to do so.

Tyson said she is a former CNM student who transferred to UNM quite successfully and said that the process of transferring from CNM to UNM was surprisingly pain­less and simple.

“It was the easiest school to transfer from. Other schools usually involve running all over campus tracking down different people and getting totally lost in the ridiculous bureaucracy that is a university system,” Tyson said.

She was very fond of the way that everything she needed was all in one building, which was Main Campus’ Student Services Center, she said.

The best time for stu­dents in their undergraduate career to start applying and to transfer is definitely prior to the junior year, she said.

“Lots of classes may turn out to not transfer to your new school and it is a real pain to have to take prerequisites as an upperclassman. Furthermore, because many classes may not transfer, the less you have taken the better, because you are less likely to have to retake a bunch of classes,” she said.

Ordering transcripts, which she had been told was hard to do, was easy at CNM, because all she had to do was pick up the form or print it online without waiting a long time, she said.

The first thing students should do after applying and being accepted into their desired institute is to make sure to have their official tran­scripts from every previous college attended, and sent to the school the student is trans­ferring to before doing any­thing else, she said.

Students can have their previous schools either mail transcripts to them directly or transcripts can go directly to the school they are transfer­ring to after community col­lege, she said.

Tyson said it is also very important to prepare for the transfer as early as possible because it is good to have a great deal of time to take care of anything and everything that may come up like websites crashing and mail getting lost.

Other than that, the CNM transferring process is very streamlined and the courses are basic enough that most classes will usually trans­fer, she said.

The CNM website also has tips and advice for stu­dents who wish to trans­fer, along with some very helpful resources, which can be found at cnm.edu/ students-resources/transfer/ transferring-from-cnm.

The transfer process, according to the CNM web­site, says that students should first review all the transfer agreements between CNM and other colleges, which also includes a link allowing stu­dents to review those agree­ments for many different pro­grams within New Mexico.

According to the CNM site students should research their college of choice and then begin requesting their official transcripts and also includes the link that leads to the form for requesting official transcripts.

The final step in the transfer process is to meet with an academic advisor from the intended insti­tution a student wishes to transfer to in the near

Commercialism at its best

By The Chronicle Editorial Board

Valentine’s Day is one of those holidays that makes one wonder why does this holiday exist, is it to make singles feel miserable, or is it there to force couples into some ridiculous tradi­tion of buying each other insignificant crap on a specific day; either way Valentine’s Day is one of the most useless holidays throughout the year.

Flowers, candy, and jewelry companies make a killing every year off of the guilt of well off men deal­ing with demanding women, and sets the scene of how people in our culture are inf lu­enced by advertise­ments and social appe­tites of normality.

Instead of worrying about what dead flowers or overly priced choco­late boxes to get, maybe make something from the heart without spend­ing ludicrous amounts of money, or better yet buy a living plant that will grow as the relationship does with time. Useless love trinkets are just that, useless.

Also, maybe this year take the time to show sig­nificant others love by turning off all devices and giving them undi­vided attention.

Everyone wants to be loved and have emotional intimacy, but it should not matter if a person pro­fesses their love with gifts one measly day of the year, and what should matter is how couples treat one another all year round.

This holiday’s com­mercialism not only obligates couples to spend, but parents are also obligated to buy their children cards to give at school, and can make single people feel badly for not having someone to spend money on.

This year, instead of giving into the hype of Valentine’s Day, close the wallets and open your hearts on this fake holiday to show love by actions and not

Letter to the Editor: Disability Resource Center Not Much Help

Dear Editor,

I have been a CNM student since the fall 2011 semester. I hope to graduate at the end of summer, with my Elementary Education degree. I am on the Dean’s list, with a 4.0, so I definitely work hard to do well in my studies.

Since April of 2010, I have been listed on the UNOS trans­plant list for a kidney. While I have had some impact from my inher­ited disease, it was not getting in the way of my studies. However, towards the end of 2013, I found myself getting a few phone calls with kidney offers. While these first few didn’t pan out, I knew my time was near. In anticipation, I vis­ited the disability resource office at Main in early January. I first had to be scheduled for an orientation to even determine if I would qualify. This appointment was set for the 24th, three weeks after my initial contact. I attended the orientation and it was determined that yes, I just might qualify.

Mind you, I knew I would really only need a few weeks of leeway in my courses, as I had mostly chosen online classes this semester, in anticipation of this surgery occurring sometime in the semester. My appointment to meet with a counselor was scheduled for the 30th. I was nervous, but hoped to make that appointment.

As luck would have it, I got ‘the call’ on the 28th at 5 pm, and had my kidney transplant surgery on the 29th at 2 pm. The surgery was a success and I am on the road to recovery. This is the good part. The next is not.

I called the disability office, to let them know I would not be able to make the scheduled appoint­ment and why. The first person I spoke with on Tuesday could not think with what to do, how to handle my call or assist me in any way. In frustration, I hung up. On Wed, prior to surgery, I called again, in an attempt to do some­thing. Again, no help. The office will not do phone interviews, and I was told to schedule myself once I recovered. However I am on immunosuppressant drugs, and heavy doses right now, so cannot be on the germ-filled campus that is CNM. I tried to tell the person this, but again, no understanding. I asked to have my husband attend the appointment and fill in for me. No go.

So, in spite of the promise of assistance, I have had to work on my own, with my instructors, to make any concessions. Fortunately, all but one has been very amenable to assisting me and I should be able to make up any missed course work.

It is time of the disability office to look at its policies and procedures. Not everyone has a learning disability, which they seem to be able to handle well. Some of us have temporary medi­cal disability, and need to be able to have the assistance of the office in order to make our time at CNM productive. A simple phone inter­view would have made all the dif­ference. I ask the administration to relook at their policies to see what can be done to truly service the students of CNM.

Kim Wagner

A brief history of love; The Chronicle looks at the evolution of Valentine’s Day

By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor

We all know that Feb. 14 is a day for sending out Valentine’s Day cards, whis­pering sweet nothings, or buying flowers and boxes of candies and giving them to our sweethearts, but it was not always this way.

The Chronicle spoke to Mark Love-Williamson, Instructor of Religion and Humanities, to tell readers a little bit more about the his­tory of Valentine’s Day.

The modern holiday that is loved by couples and dreaded by singles today seems to be a commercial creation, but ancient, pagan celebrations of fertility had been cele­brated on Feb. 14 long before sugar hearts and bouquets of roses were given, Love- Williamson said.

In the early Christian church there were many martyrs named St. Valentine, and it seems that they were all lumped together and the church celebrated the feast day for this new creation on Feb. 14, Love- Williamson said.

But St. Valentine was never associated with the roman­tic love that is celebrated today, at least not initially, he said.

“No one really knows why St. Valentine’s feast day got associ­ated with roman­tic love,” Love- Williamson said.

One story that was created was that St. Valentine liked to send little love let­ters to people in his church or people he had converted, where he would use romantic lan­guage and sign the let­ters “from, your Valentine,” Love-Williamson said.

But during this same time and long before it, a different celebration existed that was much more erotic in nature, he said.

In ancient Rome, a pagan fertility festival called Lupercalia was conducted from Feb. 13 to 15.

During this festival, aris­tocratic families would travel to a nearby cave and make a sacrifice. After this, the men would s t r ip naked and run t h r o u g h the streets of the city carry­ing whips.

The women would hold out their hands, arms, and even their bare breasts, and the men would run by and whip them, in order to ensure their future fertility, Love- Williamson said.

Lupercalia was cel­ebrated well into the 600’s, after Rome had officially become a Christian city, because, Love-Williamson said, many of the older fami­lies still identified with it as part of their past culture.

There may have been an effort by the Church to try and stamp out Lupercalia and replace it with St. Valentine’s feast day, he said.

“The Christian bish­ops, particularly in Rome, were always saying ‘why are you guys calling yourselves Christians and you’re still having these ancient festivals?’ So having a feast day could have been a way of kind of taking the wind away from the pagan festival,” Love- Williamson said.

Even after this, Valentine’s Day was just like any other feast day, and for a period of hundreds of years, there was no connection to romance associated with it at all, he said.

Then, in 1382, the English poet Chaucer wrote what most scholars consider to be the very first Valentine poem, “The Parliament of Foules,” in which he wrote the lines:

“For this was on St. Valentine’s Day; when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.”

The poem described Valentine’s Day as a special day of love, when all the birds chose their mates, and this was the first known ref­erence to Valentine’s Day as a romantic occasion, Love- Williamson said.

The next major refer­ence in literature came in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, when Hamlet’s lover Ophelia speaks of the day as being a special day for love and for lovers:

Shakespeare was one of the earliest and best known of the roman­tic poets, who Love- Williamson said helped to create the ideal of roman­tic love, and many of his sonnets are among the western world’s most pop­ular love poems.

L o v e -Wi l l i ams o n pointed out that Hamlet, however, was not particu­larly romantic; in the play Hamlet seduces Ophelia and then dumps her.

“Of course Ophelia and Hamlet didn’t get along, and in the end they both die,” Love- Williamson said.

The modern version of Valentine’s Day didn’t really begin until the 1700’s in England, when people began giving out the first printed cards to their loved ones, he said.

But the craze of printed Valentine’s Day cards really began in the early nineteenth century, when they also became very popular in America.

“It took two things; cheap printing and a good, cheap postal service,” Love- Williamson said.

In 1847, Esther Howland received an English Valentine’s card from a friend. Her father was the owner of a book and stationary store, and Howland seemed to love the card, and saw it as a lucra­tive commercial opportunity, Love-Williamson said.

“She thought, ‘I could make money off of this.’ And it was wildly successful,” Love-Williamson said.

Since then, the greeting card industry has become big business in America, and Valentine’s Day would forever be a celebration of romance and love, created as a commercial holiday and marketed by businesses like flower shops and candy makers, he said.

Although the holiday has caught on in some other parts of the world like Taiwan and Japan, there are some parts of the world that do not recognize it, and some cultures who do not even really appreciate the idea of romance, he said.

“Marriage in so many other cultures has nothing to do with romantic love. It is very much an economic rela­tionship between two fami­lies. You’re supposed to make kids, you’re supposed to support the older generation, you’re supposed to carry on the family traditions,” Love- Williamson said.

So next time you buy a box of chocolates, eat a candy heart or receive a bouquet of roses; stop for a moment and remember the long and strange his­tory of Valentine’s Day.

Chit Chat: What is your best and worst Valentine’s Day

By Nick Stern, Senior Reporter | Photos by Nick Stern, and courtesy of facebook.com

Angela Perez, Testing Technician “My worst was when I was getting everything prepared for Valentine’s and my boyfriend at the time came home drunk from the strip club.”
Angela Perez, Testing Technician
“My worst was when I was
getting everything prepared
for Valentine’s and my boyfriend
at the time came home
drunk from the strip club.”
Erik Neumann, Computer Technician major “Me and my girlfriend jumped out of an airplane on Valentine’s Day.”
Erik Neumann, Computer
Technician major
“Me and my girlfriend
jumped out of an airplane
on Valentine’s Day.”
Deedee Velazquez, Biology major “The worst Valentine’s Day ever was when I got ditched because my boyfriend at the time wanted to go out with his friends and watch a football game.”
Deedee Velazquez, Biology major
“The worst Valentine’s Day ever
was when I got ditched because
my boyfriend at the time wanted
to go out with his friends and
watch a football game.”
Andrew Strenger, Food Services Supervisor at Westside Campus “Actually my best Valentine’s Day was when I was single. My worst was when I had a girlfriend.”
Andrew Strenger, Food
Services Supervisor at
Westside Campus
“Actually my best Valentine’s
Day was when I was
single. My worst was when
I had a girlfriend.”
Patti Haaland, Registered Nurse at the Student Health Center “Feb. 14, 2005, me and my husband got married on Valentine’s Day and that was the best Valentine’s Day ever.”
Patti Haaland, Registered Nurse
at the Student Health Center
“Feb. 14, 2005, me and my
husband got married on
Valentine’s Day and that was
the best Valentine’s Day ever.”

Instructors get students out of the classroom

By Angela Le Quieu, Staff Reporter | Photo courtesy of Carmine Russo

8

Students are getting out of the classroom and going on field trips around New Mexico thanks to many of the CNM instructors initiating outside classroom activities and learn­ing tools for a variety of the classes offered in the Spring 2014 term.

Presidential Fellow of Innovation, David Valdés’ said teachers who partici­pated in the Fall 2013 Focus Groups of faculty, admin­istration, community, and students suggested field trips as a way to improve academics, and accord­ing to the report “Focus Groups Report: Part 1 Ideas Generated by the groups from Fall 2013.

The program of innova­tion and the report’s public access are ways in which ideas from the focus groups find implementation at CNM, Valdés said.

These focus groups, how­ever, do not represent the entire population of CNM, Valdés said.

Larry Bob Phillips, Fine Arts instructor, will be meet­ing with his Art History of the Southwest class at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the UNM campus on Feb. 13, and he said that this trip is an opportunity for his students to see the artifacts that they have been studying in his class.

“I think being in the actual environment, like a museum setting for a his­tory class, students get a feel for the subtleties that cannot be gotten any other way,” Phillips said.

Ideally he would take at least one field trip for every section he teaches in art history and studio arts, Phillips said.

In class guest lectures are also important tools used to enhance the learning experience of their students, Phillips said.

Every Spring term Anthropology Instructor, Shepard Jenks Jr., Ph.D. holds an unofficial trip to Chaco Canyon as well as other events on campus, he said.

On Feb. 20, 2014 former CNM Instructor and Navajo linguist, Jay Williams who is working with the Bureau of Indian affairs, will be speak­ing with living anthropology students at CNM about Navajo langue and culture, Jenks said.

“I offer it to anthropology students as a tourist thing; it’s a wonderful place for students to see.” Jenks said.

Students that go on the Chaco Canyon trip arrange their own transportation and meet up with Jenks who acts as a tour guide where he shows students Pueblo Bonito and other historical structures, he said.

Though most students stay only for one day, the trip offers a camping opportunity that sometimes allows them to look at the night sky as Chaco is a Night Sky Heritage site, Jenks said.

The Albuquerque Astronomical Society has tele­scopes in the area that scien­tists and park rangers can set up for students, Jenks said.

“Chaco feels like you are on another planet. You really feel like you’re just in a completely different place and I like it because it gets students out of their urban mindset,” Jenks said.

Jenks said he lets students know the weekend he will be going up to Chaco and invites them to join him.

The trip is an oppor­tunity for students to com­plete a paper in which they visit a site or an event and write a response on the trip, Jenks said.

Anthropology instruc­tor, Sue Ruth works with the CNM Anthropology club who also goes on field trips, such as, going to Petroglyph National Monument to do voluntary cleanup of construction and other debris dumbed at the site, she said.

She also takes classes on field trips to Petroglyph National Monument when she can, Ruth said.

“It’s great for people to see archeological sites first hand rather than just reading about them,” Ruth said.

Theater Arts Instructor, Joseph Damour said that instead of students going all at once to a play, they are required to go to a play on their own and write a paper on their experience.

Students chose one of three showings during a given weekend, which is then discussed in class, and in that way they still get a field trip experience that would oth­erwise be difficult to arrange, Damour said.

“It’s almost impos­sible to get 15 to 16 people together to go to a play outside of class time and at night.” Damour said.

Jenks said that he thinks field trips are just a wonder­ful opportunity for students in terms of organization and the real world where people are working around town.

“CNM should be bending over backwards to accom­modate this process so that we have legitimate field trips,” Jenks said.

Culinary arts instructor, Chef Carmine Russo has taken his classes on field trips regu­larly over the years, he said.

Due to budget and time constraints he is unable to take his first term class on any field trips, but in the past he has taken classes to restaurants, food suppliers and warehouses, and to see renown Chefs such as Rick Bayless, Russo said.

“I believe students can learn more out of the class­room then if they spend all their educational experience in lecture and lab,” Russo said.