By The Chroncle Editoral Board
Students and employees of the bookstore are feeling the pinch after relocating to the new building named after Robert P. Matteucci or RPM, as mentioned in the front page story “Shrinking Pains.”
During the last few semesters, it seemed the bookstore employees were developing a decent system to deal with the overflow of students on certain days, but since being moved, the bookstore is trying to get back on track. For now, students will have to be patient until they work out the kinks.
Since the beginning of the fall semester, students were forced to wait hours to get inside the bookstore, just to wait again in the checkout line to get school supplies.
Bookstore employees are trying their best to get everyone through in a timely manner, but with system shutdowns and never ending lines, it is hard for employees to even assess how to deal with the issues faced by the new move.
Students have also had concerns about the new outdoor buyback window, because if students hope to sell their book back, he or she has to be prepared to wait in the elements for almost the same amount of time as buying books. This is not only an inconvenience to students outside, but also to people going inside because the line is right in front of the entrance to the building.
The bookstore is not a place for children, but some students are forced to bring their children with them if they do not have proper childcare. Standing in line with children adds a new level to the inconvenience, as children typically do not do well waiting in line for hours. This can cause a problem for the parent, and those around them. If the bookstore had more room and the lines went quicker, the parents at CNM would not have to worry about bringing their children along on what should be a quick errand.
The bookstore is not the only area of the RPM building that is way too small for incoming students, as even the culinary arts side of the building has cut corners. Culinary students need to have as much space as possible in order to be able to move around and maneuver quickly, which is not the case in the new building. Instead, students have to constantly tell each other the “right behind you” rule, or they would bump into one another with hot plates and knives in hand.
Hopefully, culinary art majors will not have to deal with an increase of on the job accidents, because no one wants to be burned or cut when going to class.
Administration needs to fix these issues over the semester so students coming back in the spring do not have to go through the absolute nightmare that happened this fall when attempting to get supplies from the bookstore.
Letter to the editor
Dear Editor,
While going to pick up my wife’s Pharmacology book that she had ordered about a month and a half ago in used condition, I was perturbed that it had never been delivered. I then made the decision to pick up a new copy.
After making my way to what I thought was the back of the line, some disgruntled people were glaring at me from behind some merchandise and it became clear that I was standing right at the front of the line. I thought it was funny that a bookstore employee was standing right there and said nothing.
When waiting in line for twenty five minutes and watching two different employees standing behind a cash register and not taking any customers, I began to grow extremely irritated that there were only a total of two cashiers helping people with about twelve or fifteen registers closed down with nobody behind them.
Halfway through my transaction, I asked to speak to a manager. The manager came over and I remarked that I had been standing in line for forty minutes and that there only seemed to be three cashiers working the registers with other employees milling about not helping customers get on their way a week before the semester was about to begin. Taking an attitude with me instead of owning up, she reported that she had two or three cashiers call in absent this morning.Upon leaving the building and realizing that I had left my sunglasses in the car, I was also highly annoyed that the exterior of the building is white, which blinded me momentarily as my eyes adjusted to the tremendous amounts of light being reflected off of the building. It drove me nuts that they spent loads of money on a new building but couldn’t afford to pay cashiers to operate the registers. Their prices are gouging and the service has mostly been terrible.
I can factually say that I will NEVER use Follett again for ANY of my or my wife’s educational needs. Follett needs to get a clue and smarten up. Half.com and Amazon have my family’s business from this point forward.
Student, Scott Gagnon
Letter to the Editor
A trip to the ‘new and improved’ Main Campus bookstore proved disastrous this past Tuesday. I would not have imagined beforehand that the move would be such a dismal failure. In fact, I was looking forward to seeing some improvements. Unfortunately, that was not the case. First of all, the location of the bookstore itself could not have been more inconveniently placed; tucked away in an obscure nook between the R.P.M. building, the parking lots adjacent, the constantly flowing traffic of University Boulevard, as well as a number of inexplicably placed tracts of loose, shifty, landscaping stone that seems purposefully positioned to dare one to haphazardly stumble over them for a more direct route. However, on the list of things wrong with the new CNM Main Campus Bookstore those minor flaws are way down near the bottom in terms of significance.
The line for returns, refunds and buy-backs, which is not very clearly marked, as evidenced by the number of people I observed standing in line for several minutes before finally realizing their mistake upon reading a piece of copier paper labeling the line, that had been clumsily taped to the wall. Also, said line is outside and seeing as this is Albuquerque, with its a 278 days of sunshine annually, means that students are now being forced to stand out in the constantly blazing sun, or conversely as it does happen here as well, the bitter cold. Finally, after sweating profusely for 20 minutes, we, by which I mean the other poor souls in line with me, at last got around to the windows where employees were obviously overtaxed by the volume of students due to the start of the semester, which I may remind you has been a problem at the Main Campus Bookstore for years.
That being said, one would have thought that this problem and others like it would have been addressed with the relocation of the bookstore. Sadly, it seems that is not the case. I even overheard one of the employees at the windows complain to another, as he excavated her from underneath a mounting stack of returned books, that there hadn’t even been a phone installed for them to call for backup, and that they don’t have a phone to call for assistance at a cashier’s station is simply unacceptable. Finally, it was my turn, and I noticed a posted assertion that it is common for the bookstore to buyback books from students for as much as 50% of their original price, which seems to imply that it will at least be in that neighborhood,
Would it be that difficult to have posted a brief summary of the average rates? Seeing as it is too much to put up a sign that clearly denotes the line in which one actually needs to stand, I suppose that is the case. As is, they seem hard-pressed even to send an employee outside with a piece of paper, tape, and a sharpie. Anyway, I sold my Dugopolski 5th edition College Algebra book to them for $17 and on the CNM Bookstore website, used, it is $145. Now, if the Bookstore is able to flip my book for $145, a full 89% more than what they gave me for it, I would at least expect that such an enormous profit margin would provide for making a better bookstore, one that is not cluttered, chaotic, inefficient, and physically uncomfortable to go to.
The sheer number of glaring problems are enough to encourage the discontinuation of my patronage unless I see some evidence of change for the better.
Student, Joseph Wagner
Cool classes: African American Studies; Bringing African American history to the forefront of higher education
By Deborah Cooper, Staff Reporter
Introduction to African American Studies is designed to outline the evolution, the goals, the philosophy and the method of African American studies or Africana studies, said Ph.D. Charles Becknell, Cultural Studies Instructor.
“It’s really situated not to discuss African American history from a beginning to an end period,” he said.
Becknell said there is a certain period of African American history that is discussed as one of the areas of focus in his class, while looking at the studies as a discipline, and that it important to understand the evolution, social, and political climate that has fostered African American studies into higher education.
“The core areas that we examine are important, which allow for a conversation on history, so it’s kind of imbedded in all of this,” he said.
Becknell starts with early African history as the start of human history in which history is examined in the context of oppression and white supremacy, he said.
“When we talk about early African American history we start with the 1400s, the beginning of the journey to America and move on up to the twentieth century while discussing the spirit of resistance, so we look at individuals who resisted colonization and who tried to eliminate enslavement in Africa,” he said.
The areas of African American history that are covered are sociology, religion, politics, also cultural production in the arts, and is really an overview of everything including economics, he said.
“So we look at all of the areas that would encompass a discipline,” Becknell said.
With fall of 2013 being Becknell’s fourth semester teaching the class, he said that enrollment has been strong every semester since he has been instructing the course.
Zachary Shank, Associate Dean of the School of Communication, Humanities and Social Sciences said, because the course is offered as an elective, students may be overlooking the class.
“The course has been taught since 2006 and has had its ups and downs, however, Mr. Becknell has brought stability to the course,” he said.
Shank said that word of mouth and student surveys conducted by the Cultural Studies Department are ways that the school is able to find out what classes peak students interest.
“These are great classes for understanding what it is to be human and for students to experience the voices that aren’t usually heard,” shank said.
Fitness Tech major, Santana Johns said he did not think about taking the class because he was focused on what classes are a part of his degree, also that he believes hip-hop relates to the class very much because artists rap about African American history and heritage.
“Hip-hop is major because it ties into African American culture, so if a student has already taken the Intro to African American studies, they won’t see hip-hop as some commercial product, it would be seen as being tied to a long historical experience of African Americans,” he said.
Becknell said that this is the appropriate course to introduce AA studies because it builds foundation for students to keep on learning.
“There’s room for so much more because when you look at it, you could have one class on black economics, one class on black politics, as well as one class on black cultural production and expression,” he said.
Becknell said that his father was the first Director of Afro-Studies at UNM 20-years-ago.
“I’ve always been immersed in Black studies,” Becknell said.
Becknell is an Albuquerque native and graduate of UNM, who also teaches African American history I and II at UNM.
Technology: Time saver or time waster?
By Nick Stern, Staff Reporter
A plethora of gadgets and electronics seem to now dominate in today’s society especially with students, and when students come to class, there is most likely to be an electronic device in hand, said Liberal Arts major Erik Neumann.
Devices such as smartphones, MP3 players and laptops are especially prevalent among students attending college, Neumann said.
“It is next to impossible to be on campus and not see someone on an electronic device of some sort. Even though students can benefit greatly from much of the information and technology at their disposal, it is important for them to recognize the potential these devices have for being a complete distraction and waste of time,” Neumann said.
In the majority of his courses, Neumann notices increasing numbers of students using electronic devices in the classroom from the moment class begins until it ends, he said.
Neumann said he notices many students appear to be taking and organizing notes with their devices such as tablets, laptops and even smartphones which he believes is a great idea. The problem is that while professors tend to be more lenient toward the use of electronics in their courses, students are taking advantage of such leniency and wasting class time on distractions such as social networks, games and movies, right in the middle of class, Neumann said.
“I have lost count of how many times I have seen students watching Netflix, checking Facebook or surfing the internet for just about anything that has absolutely nothing to do with the class they are in,” Neumann said.
Dr. Felecia Caton-Garcia, CHSS instructor, teaches a class in pop culture, in which technology and the use of technology is a part of what is taught in that class, she said.
Garcia recognizes that some students will abuse the option to use devices in her classroom by looking at things that have nothing to do with the class she is teaching, she said.
However, she is reluctant to ban laptops in her classroom because she recognizes how convenient and useful they can make classroom lectures go and how, for some students, the devices actually act as a learning aid, Caton-Garcia said.
She also has a strict “do not be on your phone” policy in class with very reasonable exceptions that require the student to communicate with her and let her know what is going on in advance, she said.
“I give my students a chance to liberate themselves from their cell phones for two and a half hours a week. In class, it is very important to me that my student speak to one another and small group discussions are a huge part of all my classes and in order to be fully engaged and fully present they cannot be dividing their attention,” Garcia said.
Caton-Garcia believes that one of the functions of college is to make people come into contact with others who have completely different experiences and beliefs and get different perspectives from communication with each other, she said.
“Social networking allows you to screen out all the people who do not agree with you and I think it gives people a really narcissistic and solipsistic idea that the world is just how they imagine it, when it is not,” Caton-Garcia said.
Psychology major, Carly Barnes said that she likes to go on Pinterest three to four hours a week, but can be a problem since she does not ever pin anything school related.
Pinterest is addicting for her because it is a social network where people basically put up just about anything they find interesting for other people to look at online, Barnes said. Pinterest is a pinboard-style photo-sharing site that creates theme-based image collections according to the Pinterest site.
“I do not recommend it for students because you will get so distracted from school and waste so much time that you will never get anything accomplished,” she said.
Despite the warning to other students, Barnes believes Pinterest is definitely worth the time she spends on there because she does find some of the information useful, she said.
She has even gotten school tips from Pinterest, but unfortunately the vast majority of her time is spent looking at “stupid stuff,” she said.
Criminology major McKinley Smith said Tumblr and Netflix are her biggest distractions and tend to come before her responsibilities, because the very first things she said she does whenever she gets home from work or school is to get on these sites.
Tumblr is a short-form blog that lets users post and share blogs according to the Tumblr site.
“They certainly can take stress off if you are trying to get through school stuff, as long as they are used in moderation, which is not that hard. It is easy to wean yourself off, but when you go back you get sucked in again,” she said.
Local events; September 3 through September 10
Tuesday: Dynamics of flight
The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History is hosting a special exhibit that explores the advances of aircraft design and technology beginning with the Wright brothers and following all the way through to the space shuttle. Strap into the computer simulator and experience flight for yourself!
601 Eubank Blvd SE, 245-2137
Open daily from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
$8 at the door
Wednesday: Poetry n’Beer
Even if you are not a fan of slam poetry, the beer will make the words seem that much better. On the first Wednesday of every month, Blackbird Buvette hosts an open mic slam poetry night organized by Albuquerque’s own live poetry organization: ABQSlams.
509 Central Ave SW, 243-0878
Starts at 7 p.m.
FREE!
Thursday: Titanic — the artifact exhibition
The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science is taking visitors on a journey to the depths of the North Atlantic through 100 years of the history of The Titanic. The exhibit features hundreds of authentic artifacts recovered from the luxury liner and detailed recreations of the ship’s interior.
1801 Mountain Road NW, 841-2802
Open daily until Oct. 27 from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
$11 – $18
Friday: Murder on the Rail Runner!
Nob hill’s Aux Dog theater presents Agatha Christie’s classic “Murder on the Orient Express” with a New Mexico twist. Kenneth Ansloan’s all original script is full of laughs, and the stage is full of Burque’s favorite drag troupe — the dolls. Opens Friday Sept. 6 and runs through Sept. 22
3011 Monte Vista Blvd NE, 254-7716
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m.
$15
Saturday: TEDxABQ
Albuquerque’s independently organized TED talks event will include 18 of New Mexico’s biggest ideas and brightest minds. Local doctors, authors, artists, engineers and more will seek to inspire education and motivation while discussing some of the most pertinent issues of our day.
Popejoy Hall, 203 Cornell Dr. NE, 925-5858
8 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
$25 – $65
Sunday: “We art the people!” folk art festival
Music, handmade local art and a puppet parade, what more could you want from a new age folk art festival? Local musicians David Neil Kinkead, Elena Higgins and the dance party band Goddess of Arno will provide the music while event goers can participate in a giant coloring book project, peruse the for sale kiosks and watch the giant puppet parade.
Robinson Park, Eighth Street and Central Avenue
Starts at 10 a.m.
FREE!
Fire Science program heats up student training
By Martin Montoya, Staff Reporter
Teachers and students are fighting blazing fires side by side all thanks to the CNM Fire Science program that offers an array of program concentrations, said Mike Kavanaugh, Fire Science Instructor.
Recent graduate Noelle Gabaldon, said she got her associates in two concentrations through the fire science program at CNM, with one in wildland firefighting and the other in structural firefighting.
“I owe it to CNM, because I think it is the only school in the state that has this fire science program,” Gabaldon said.
With eighteen years of experience fighting wild fires, Brian Henington, Fire Science Instructor, said this will be his fourteenth fall semester teaching at CNM.
Henington first got into wildland firefighting for summer employment, as many CNM students in the Fire Science program do, he said.
“It’s a very competitive field; the training that CNM provides gives them the advantage over the student that doesn’t try to get an associate’s degree,” said Henington.
Kavanaugh said that the Fire Science curriculum has three different associate concentration programs, and these concentrations show employers that students are ready for a higher or supervisory position.
The concentrations students can choose from are wildland and structural firefighting, as well as emergency medical service that is a newly offered focus, added about a year ago, as these three core programs are amongst the most popular fields in fire services, Kavanaugh said.
“I think what is good about our program is that our students after one semester with Brian (Henington) are certified wildland firefighters,” Kavanaugh said.
All over the country fire fighters have been battling wild fires since May and many are tiring and slowing down, as well as fire crews becoming affected by a common sickness called “Camp Crud,” Henington said.
“If one person gets the sickness, the whole crew gets it,” he said.
“Camp Crud” is the result of people from all over the country assembling together and working their bodies into the ground for 14 days straight at 16 hours a day, he said.
The crew’s immune systems get weak and everyone catches horrendous colds, he said.
“To do this you got to be tough, as you can imagine,” he said.
Throughout the fire season, Henington said most of his work was with a fire crew made up of military veterans, two of which are CNM students.
Henington’s fire crew was assigned to attack the Tres Lagunas fire that burned near the Pecos River in the Santa Fe national forest, he said.
According to nmfireinfo.com the Tres Lagunas fire was caused by a downed power line that burned 10,219 acres from the end of May to early June of 2013.
Having been there within hours of the fire starting, the crew’s first objective was to protect the nearby communities, with the biggest community being Holy Ghost, and had an estimated 100 to 140 summer homes, which some were occupied by residents, he said.
Henington said that there was a little over a month of fire activity, with fires getting big very quickly driven by the wind and the impact of the drought.
“If we didn’t get the moisture we did in July, we would probably be burning like Idaho is right now, they are in pretty bad shape,” he said.
The fire science program has had many students throughout its time at CNM and Henington said he ran into many of his students on the fire line or at chow during a fire, yet he was still able to recruit from the fire line future CNM students.
“Several students coming this semester that were not students that I talked to on the fire line are now enrolled in our program,” he said.
With the Fire Science program on the rise and getting CNM students trained and into the work force, Henington said that with any one of the big fires that there was anywhere from 30 to 50 current or graduated CNM students.
Throughout his career Henington said he has worked for both the State Forestry and the State Land Office.
Having several certifications and years of experience, Henington as Incident Commander would primarily be placed on the fire line, but also worked on operations and safety for the veterans crew known as, “VPP1.”
“I was the youngest IC in State Forestry’s history at one time, a long, long time ago,” said Henington.
For more information on the Fire Science associates program go to http://www.cnm.edu/programs-of-study/all-programs-a-z/fire, or call the program director at (505) 224-4207.
Welcome Back Suncats
There’s an App for that; Blackboard available on iPhones and Android
By Martin Montoya, Staff Reporter
Just in time for the beginning of the semester, a free CNM guide will be available for students and faculty that will identify Applications for both Android and Apple devices for learning, reading, creating and studying, said Audrey Gramstad, Administrative Director, Distance Learning and Instructional Support.
Prior to now there has not been a college wide distance learning effort to give this information to students and the burden is on Gramstad and her staff to get the faculty to use the APPs, so students can effectively use these tools in learning here at school, Gramstad said.
“My staff who are all distance learning specialists, student employees who all take online courses or faculty that have identified a plethora of Apps that students and faculty can use to engage in their learning at CNM; they are all free Apps that won’t cost anything,” she said.
With the help of mobile analytics the staff in the distance learning community can tell that 90 percent of CNM students use Tablet devices for school, she said.
Educating the staff in making course content more mobile enabled is what the distance learning staff is attempting to do and Gramstad said it starts with simple things the faculty could do, such as making a syllabus in a PDF file instead of a Word document.
“There are lots of different Applications that you can use in conjunction with your distance learning classes you take, or face to face classes,” Gramstad said.
Blackboard does have a mobile App that students can use, and with its debut two years ago it was difficult to navigate but it has become much more efficient, she said.
The Blackboard mobile App is free, however you do have to pay to get access to the college site to get your courses. It costs $5 for a lifetime subscription and $1.99 for a year, she said.
“Most people that we have surveyed and talked to didn’t have a problem paying a couple bucks a year,” she said.
Gramstad explained it is the same price as what she pays for Angry Birds: Starwars and that it is only a small one-time fee just like any other mobile app.
Blackboard is a learning management system and there are two ways to get onto it, first is through the web by logging onto CNM and clicking the link, and the second by downloading the Blackboard mobile App, she said.
Every course offered at CNM each term has its own Blackboard page; it just depends on whether the faculty chooses to use it, she said.
There are between 7200 and 7500 online students each term, Gramstad said. Each term the week before school starts, and during the first two weeks there is drop in computer labs on all of the campuses at different times, and students can get actual hands-on help with Blackboard courses, distance learning courses, and information that can be found on the distance learning website.
“We thought since the explosion of tablets in learning, we are going to give our students a step up and say, ‘Hey, use these things,’” because knowing what application resources there are for students and how to use these tools can help everyone to succeed more in online classrooms, Gramstad said.
Veterans Services available at CNM
Deborah Cooper, Staff Reporter
The Vet Success on Campus (VSOC) program for the anticipated 1,250 veterans attending CNM this fall is full of multiple support programs, according to Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor Esmerejildo Romero.
Romero is a retired Senior Chief of the U.S. Navy, and during his 27 years of service, he served three tours in the Persian Gulf, but has now settled down to be of service to the veterans at CNM campuses.
“VSOC helps not only those who have served in the military with their transition into higher education, but also helps retired veterans wanting to return to school,” Romero said.
Kimberly Hayes, Computer Information Systems major and United States Coast Guard veteran said she has utilized the housing programs offered by VSOC.
“It took away the uncertainty of not having a place to stay. The combination of the staff and the facility were very helpful and made me more confident in continuing my education,” Hayes said.
With offices on Main campus and Montoya campus, the program gives veterans access to all potential resources, Romero said.
“Connecting veterans to medical and social services at the VA hospital are just part of our services,” Romero said.
The program assists homeless veterans by connecting them to obtain housing through various outlets such as the Young Woman’s Christian Association (YWCA), The Veteran Integration Center (VIC), The Henderson House (homeless shelter for women) and Goodwill, he said. Honorably discharged veterans can get help with their rent and receive assistance concerning housing, he said.
“Peer-to-peer counseling and referral services are also provided to veterans,” Romero said.
VetSuccess counselors help resolve any problems that could potentially interfere with a veteran’s educational program, which includes assisting with disability requirements, he said.
“I still do Disability Transition Assistance, (DTAP) over at the Air Force Base where service men and women are also CNM students,” Romero said.
The new DTAP program, which started about three months ago, is a week long program that includes writing resumes and creating a transition plan to connect service personnel with the civilian community, he said.
According to Romero’s office, the Chapter 31 program is a counseling program that helps veterans in assessing their careers and this program includes active duty members, the National Guard and all other veterans.
“The Chapters programs are from Chapter 30 through 35. There are also Chapters 1606 and 1607, a Fry Scholarship and Vietnam Veterans Scholarship program to help veterans, which are all non-taxable,” he said.
Romero also mentioned the importance of the Veteran’s Club on campus, run by President Gerald Maytea, and said the club is always looking for new members.
“We had a recent meeting and we’re looking for veterans to join this fall as we’re trying to present something for November 11(Veteran’s Day) for veterans and the CNM community,” Romero said.
For more information about VSOC programs or the Veteran’s Club contact Romero at 224-3265, or e-mail him at t-eromero@cnm.edu.