Jonathan Baca

That’s Amore

By Jonathan Baca, Guest Writer

Amore Neapolitan Pizzeria, located in Nob Hill at 2929 Monte Vista Boulevard NE, is a temple to thin crust, savory sauces, and globs of gooey mozza­rella, and as New Mexico’s only certified, sanctioned Neapolitan restaurant, they take pride in getting the little things right.

In order to be certified as an official Neapolitan pizzeria, pizza chefs must train with the Associazione Pizzaiuoli Napoletani, the official governing body of thin-crust, Italian style pizza, at one of their training centers in Naples or New York City.

Owners Gabriel and Kimberly Amador trained with APN president Roberto Caporuscio at his num­ber-one and number-two ranked pizza joints in the Big Apple, and came home to start the state’s first officially recognized parlor.

Neapolitan pizza differs from the average pie in sev­eral key ways.

First and most importantly is the wood-burning oven, which is Amore’s red-brick, fire breathing behe­moth, and was imported straight from Italy.

Pizzas start off no more than three millimeters thick, and are thrown into the oven at a staggering 905 degrees for only 60-90 seconds, in an attempt to get that perfectly thin, crispy crust.

Several of Amore’s key ingredients must be sourced directly from Italy, and their mozzarella, sauces, dough and bread are all handmade in-house, something that was hard to believe, but makes a big difference once it is eaten.

All other ingredients are sourced from as close to home as possible, and Amore has partnerships with sev­eral local farms for veggies and produce.

Amore also has a very extensive wine list, along with a decent selection of local and imported beers. They also serve some unique Italian sodas and other Italian inspired drinks.

So first things first: the pizza.

All pizzas are thin crust of course, and are about nine inches. They are suggested as personal sized, but along with an appetizer, salad or dessert, are really big enough to feed two. There are three different sauces: tomato, white cream, or “rose,” which is a mixture of the two.

Prices for pizza range from $7.15 for the absolute bare-bones to $10.95 for the carnivore special.

There are several vegetarian selections, like the Vegetariano “Trophies of the Garden” pizza, which fea­tured house-made mozzarella, basil, roasted red pep­pers, artichokes, roasted mushrooms, olio and a choice of sauce.

The crust was surprisingly floppy and blonde on the bottom, suggesting that it may have been slightly undercooked.

But when cooking time is 60-90 seconds, it follows that the lines between undercooked, perfectly crispy and completely burned are very thin ones.

Although it was not as crispy as one would hope, the crust had a pleasant texture and was fresh.

The house-made mozzarella was superb, with a bright, tangy flavor and perfect consistency. Instead of being shredded and evenly distributed as cheese typi­cally is on a pizza, Amore uses one or two big globs of cheese per slice that are plopped down and allowed to melt naturally in the oven, which was a surprising and welcome twist.

The vegetables were obviously fresh and tasty.

The mushrooms were clearly roasted to perfection, with a not-too-soft texture and earthy flavor.

The peppers were bright and sweet, and the arti­chokes were not overcooked.

Amore also has an impressive selection of desserts, including Tiramisu and “dessert calzones,” which are actually more like dessert pizzas, as they are flat and not folded.

Along with pizzas, Amore also has a decent selec­tion of salads and pastas, along with a dish they call Pizza Sushi, which consists of Mahi Mahi rolled up in pizza dough, and topped with fresh papaya slaw.

The ambiance at Amore is warm and hip, with modern lighting, warm colors and lots of seating for such a small space. And with warmer weather on the way, it is worth waiting to visit on a warm evening to take advantage of their rooftop patio, which offers abso­lutely beautiful views of Albuquerque.

Best of all, students get 10 percent off any purchase with their IDs so do not forget to bring those along.

All in all, Amore is a fun, affordable and delicious taste of authentic Italy, great for a date night or just a fun time out with friends.

Student Allocation Board combines with Executive Council of Students

By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor
The Student Allocation Board has now been combined with the Executive Council of Students this semester, and some participants are having mixed feelings about how this occurred, especially since a new Event Coordinator administrative position has been created that will be paid for with student organization funding.
James Roach, Liberal Arts major and former head of the Student Allocations Board said he has resigned as SAB President, in protest of the creation of a new Events Coordinator position that will be paid for using funds set aside for student clubs and organizations.
The new position was approved for 5 years, and will cost between $235,000 and $305,900 total, after benefits are added, according to the official request for the position.
This could drain the entire surplus that has accumulated in the Student Allocations fund, which was created by the Governing Board in order to pay for trips, events and other expenses of student clubs and organizations, Roach said.
“This was a very big decision and we were given absolutely no time whatsoever to really discuss it and go over the full details of it,” Roach said.
Criminal Justice major and new ECOS President, Carrie Ratkevich said that in her judgment, approving the position was the best thing for the student body, and she believes that the way the vote to create this events coordinator position was conducted in a completely valid way.
“It was not pushed through, it was not overly fast. It was time sensitive and we needed to get this done and submitted before these timelines. We were not coaxed into making a decision, we were each told to make our own decision. We are adults, we are not children,” Ratkevich said.
On March 20, during spring break, Kristofer Gaussoin, Director of Student Conduct and Responsibilities as well as advisor to ECOS and the Allocation Board, sent everyone in both groups an email describing the proposal, telling them that they had 48 hours to make up their minds and vote yes or no on the proposal, according to email exchanges provided by ECOS.
ECOS’ three members voted yes and Roach voted no, and the position was approved for five years, but both Roach and Ratkevich were under the impression that the new position was going to be for three years, they said.
Gaussoin said that everyone involved was given enough time and information to make an informed decision, and that the reason the vote needed to be done so quickly was that the Office of the Dean of Students wanted to begin advertising the position over the summer and have someone hired by the fall.
“It was a ‘strike while the iron was hot’ moment. There was an opportunity to do something great, and it’s unfortunate that it was spring break, but everybody responded to their emails. It’s unfortunate that it had to be quick, but I don’t think the quality of the decision making was harmed by that,” Gaussoin said.
The primary duties of the new event coordinator position would be to “design and implement community engagement projects through which students at CNM can participate to improve their academic learning, job skill development, leadership and civic engagement,” with a primary focus on student clubs and organizations, according to the request.
The request was made by the Office of the Dean of Students, and the employee hired to fill the position will report directly to them, according to the official request for the position.
The Allocation Board was created to oversee and distribute student funds, which come from fees that every CNM student pays as part of tuition. Roach has been the only member of the Board for some time, despite efforts to recruit new members, he said.
Normally, Roach would have been the only person with the power to approve or reject the proposal, but because the Allocation Board was so short-staffed, he had agreed to fuse the Board with student government, the ECOS, he said.
“I was against it, mainly because I don’t feel that student funds should be used to hire faculty or administration,” Roach said.
Roach said he suggested postponing the vote until April 4, when ECOS and the Allocation Board would be officially combined, giving him time to bring the ECOS members up to speed on the details of how the Allocation Board operated.
Roach said he feels that the groups should have had much more time, so they could meet in person and discuss the details of the proposal without the pressure to make a quick decision.
He said that he was never told why this particular vote had to be done so fast, or why it could not wait until after spring break, when the groups could have an official quorum.
“I was told we only have 48 hours to make a decision, which seems really fishy to me because in the past there have been provisions that took months upon months to get done,” Roach said.
According to the official proposal, the Event Coordinator will report directly to the Dean of Students, even though the salary is paid out of the Allocation fund.
This greatly limits the amount of oversight the student government would have over that student money, Roach said.
The Allocation Board will now be run by ECOS, as a separate process of their regular meetings, and to avoid a conflict of interest, ECOS will not be in charge of allocating their own funds, Ratkevich said.
He also pointed out that this was the first time the ECOS members had ever been involved in the Allocation Board process, and that the amount of money being considered was enormous compared to most proposals.
Roach resigned shortly after the vote, because he felt that the way in which the decision was reached was unethical, he said.
Another concern is that part of the job of the Allocation Board is to make sure that the money they give out is being spent in the appropriate manner, Roach said.
Now that ECOS has full control over the Allocation process, there could be concerns about possible conflicts of interest when deciding how much funding other student organizations will receive, but Gaussoin said there are measures in place to keep the group accountable.
If any member has a possible conflict of interest when dealing with a certain group or proposal, they are expected to let the other members know, and to remove themselves from the vote in question, he said.
Gaussoin said he will also be working with ECOS over the summer to revise the rules and guidelines of the Allocation process, to better address the specifics of how ECOS does business.
Gaussoin said he is confident that the new Event Coordinator will help to increase student involvement outside the classroom, which has been shown to improve GPAs and graduation rates.
Gaussoin said that after the five years is up, the administration will see how valuable the position is, and will decide to continue paying for it with general funds, he said.
“I would hope at that point it would never go away again, because I think it will only do great things for CNM,” Gaussoin said.

SWOP raises APD awareness

By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor | Photo by Moises Gonzales

swop

On April 9, the Department of Justice released their report on the use of excessive force by officers of the Albuquerque Police Department from 2009 to 2013, finding that APD has shown a pattern of regularly violating citizen’s Constitutional rights due to “insufficient oversight, inadequate training, and ineffective policies.”

The report also found that officers used non-lethal force too frequently, that poor training and reckless actions by police actually created the need for force in many instances, and that a sig­nificant number of incidents involved people with mental illnesses.

Former student Rodrigo Rodriguez, who works as an organizer for the Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP), said that his and many other community groups have been working to support efforts to raise awareness of the realities of police violence, and to hold the APD and the city accountable.

“Community organizations like SWOP recog­nize the passion and the energy around this issue, and are more willing and able to make themselves available as resources through the community,” Rodriguez said.

SWOP is a grassroots organization working to fight social injustice through different campaigns, and they have been helping to organize protests, support the families of victims, and encouraging members of the community to get involved in the issue of police brutality, Rodriguez said.

The DOJ report contained a lengthy list of recommendations, including major changes to APD’s policies regarding the use of force, dealing with mentally ill people, de-escalation training, less emphasis on weapons and tac­tical training and more focus on community outreach and building partnerships with out­side groups.

George Lujan, Communications Organizer for SWOP, said that while the report’s recommenda­tions are a step in the right direction, the real solu­tions have to come from the citizens of Albuquerque.

“We don’t expect any federal entity or anyone else to show up in Albuquerque and clean up our mess. I think we all have to figure out what those solutions are, and it starts with the community,” Lujan said.

SWOP has been hosting an ongoing storyteller series about different issues like food justice and women’s issues, and their next event is scheduled for April 25 at the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice, where they will be discussing the city’s history of police violence, and the legacy of activism and resistance against it, Rodriguez said.

Lujan said that the issue is about a lot more than an out of control police force— the problems extend to every part of our community, and the solution will require that everyone looks at how the community treats some of its most vulnerable members.

“It’s about the entire community: eradicat­ing poverty and giving people proper healthcare, making sure that we have mental and behavioral health services, making sure people know their rights, and getting away from the culture of milita­rization that our police is so wrapped up in. It’s not just the DOJ and APD, it’s much more complex,” Lujan said.

Mayor Richard Berry said in a press release that he acknowledges the problems in the APD, and that he is willing to continue working with the DOJ in implementing the changes that they sug­gested in their report.

“I’m of the opinion that when the city is bang­ing at your doorstep and you’re the highest elected official, you need to show up, even if it’s just to save face. It was really disappointing to see that he didn’t show up to what was probably the most important council meeting of his tenure,” Rodriguez said.

Whatever happens, Lujan said that SWOP will keep working with community mem­bers and other groups to make sure that changes are made, and that Albuquerque residents stay engaged and active.

No one can truly fix these problems but the people, he said, and the solutions will involve much more than Federal oversight and police reforms.

“I do believe that it’s going to be New Mexicans that are going to create the change here, not any outside groups. We need to really figure out how we’re taking care of people and at—risk communities in our society, and I think that when we start answering those questions we’re going to see positive outcomes,” Lujan said.

Suncat Chit Chat : What are your plans for this summer?

By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor

Robert Encinio, Nursing major “My plans for the summer is to spend a lot of time travelling the rodeo circuit, as well as do summer curriculum. I’ve been bull riding since I was about six. Luckily my rodeos are all on the weekend.”
Robert Encinio, Nursing major
“My plans for the summer is to spend a lot of time travelling the rodeo circuit, as well as do summer
curriculum. I’ve been bull riding since I was about six. Luckily my rodeos are all on the weekend.”
Chris James,Construction Management major “Probably spend time with the family, go fishing, spend some time on the boat drinking beer and catching trout. Just taking it easy, having a good time with the family.”
Chris James, Construction Management major
“Probably spend time with the family, go fishing, spend some time on the boat drinking
beer and catching trout. Just taking it easy, having a good time with the family.”
Dawn Abbot, Veterinary Technician major “I’m going to Sydney, Australia, for two weeks to be able to check out the facility where I’m doing my residency in marine biolog y. I’m doing scuba diving to study the coral reefs.”
Dawn Abbot, Veterinary Technician major
“I’m going to Sydney, Australia, for two weeks to be able to check out the facility where
I’m doing my residency in marine biolog y. I’m doing scuba diving to study the coral reefs.”
Chonour Varyani, undeclared major “I’m taking English 950, Math 750 and an IT class. I’m also working for my dad, he owns a restaurant and it’s very stressful. It sucks because you should be out in the sunshine instead of stuck in school.”
Chonour Varyani, undeclared major
“I’m taking English 950, Math 750 and
an IT class. I’m also working for my dad,
he owns a restaurant and it’s very stressful.
It sucks because you should be out in
the sunshine instead of stuck in school.”
Brennon Michael Nevels, Criminal Justice major “This summer I plan to go water skiing with Nessie, maybe kick it around the campfire with Bigfoot, and possibly ride a dragon out to the East Coast with a bad ass sound system.”
Brennon Michael Nevels,
Criminal Justice major
“This summer I plan to go water skiing
with Nessie, maybe kick it around the campfire
with Bigfoot, and possibly ride a dragon out
to the East Coast with a bad ass sound system.”

More nursing program spots available in fall

By Jonathan Baca , Copy Editor
Nursing major, Aliishea Flook has been working to get into the competitive Nursing program at CNM for four years now, she said.
And because of the recent changes to curriculum, eligibility requirements and the coordinated entry process, Flook said she has struggled to pass many classes that are no longer required, and although she originally intended to just get an associate degree, she has ended up taking a lot of classes that are only required for a bachelor’s.
She said she only has enough financial aid to pay for 25 more credit hours, and worries she won’t be able to afford school much longer, that is if she manages to get into the program at all.
Flook said there are many other students like her, who have been caught in the middle of a Nursing program that changes from year to year dramatically, and who are all competing for a very limited number of coveted spots.
“I do appreciate the fact that I do have all those classes under my belt, but at the same time I feel like I’ve kind of wasted my time and I’m not really where I want to be. And now my financial aid is almost drained, so I’m sitting back and thinking, what am I going to do?” Flook said.
Diane Evans-Prior, Director of the Nursing Program said that CNM, along with every nursing program in the state, has been transitioning as part of the New Mexico Nursing Education Consortium (NMNEC), which was created to standardize curriculum and eligibility requirements and to make it easier for students to transfer to other schools.
“It will ultimately result in the increase in the number with of nurses, especially those bachelor’s degrees. This is not just good for students at CNM, it is important to the entire state. CNM is proud to be a first implementer,” Evans-Prior said.
For the last few semesters, both the old and new pro¬grams were running simultaneously at CNM, and the number of open slots for new Nursing students was drastically reduced, leaving students like Flook in a kind of limbo.
Amanda Lopez, Program Coordinator for the Office of Coordinated Entry said the process of getting into the program has changed dramatically as well, in an attempt to help with some of the challenges that students like Flook have been dealing with since the changes have been made.
But beginning this fall, the new program will be fully implemented, and will go from 24 back up to 64 slots for new students, with the goal of increasing by eight slots each semester as new instructors are hired, Lopez said.
Instead of the old petition process, where students with the highest GPAs and exam scores had a better chance of getting in, there will now be a pre-registration screening process, where all students who meet the minimum requirements and fill out the pre-registration form will be cleared and given the chance to register, Lopez said.
Students have from May 23 to June 23 to fill out the form on the school’s Coordinated Entry website, and will be told within two weeks if they meet the requirements, and will then be given a registration date, she said.
“All students who meet the minimum requirements will have an equal opportunity to register for the program,” Evans-Prior said.
There are still a limited number of open slots, how¬ever, and they will be given out on a first-come-first-served basis, so there is still no guarantee that a qualified student will get in on their first try, she said.
There is also a new option for what Evans- Prior called the “highly, highly qualified students.”
CNM is teaming up with UNM to offer a Bachelor of Nursing degree, where students will take many of their Nursing classes at CNM and pay cheaper tuition before transferring to UNM to finish their degrees, and these slots will be reserved for students with the highest GPAs and test scores, Lopez said.
Another issue they are trying to fix is that in order to get the earliest registration dates, students used to have to be currently enrolled, which meant that many students were stuck taking classes they did not really need in order to get the best registration time.
Flook said this was the reason she had continued to take classes and use up her financial aid.
Now, once students meet the minimum requirements and fill out the pre-registration form, they will be able to get an early registration date and time, regardless of whether they are currently enrolled, allowing students like Flook to save their money for the actual Nursing pro¬gram classes, Evans-Prior said.
Flook said in response to the efforts made by the Nursing department that “It sounds like they’re trying, responding to all the complaints. I think that would probably be beneficial and could give people that little glimmer of hope to continue to try.”
Evans-Prior said she empathizes with students who have not been able to get in because of limited space and the transition, and she hopes that they will keep trying.
“My overall message to these students is one of per¬severance. Tenacity is a noble trait in a nurse—one we cannot teach. Look at options. Make informed decisions. Stick it out. The profession is worth the pursuit,” Evans- Prior said.
Although Flook said she has become very frustrated with this process and has considered switching majors, she still dreams of becoming a nurse, and hopes that these changes will give her the chance to fulfill her goals.
“I do hope and pray that someday I will get that opportunity to just be where I want to be, which is helping people and being a caregiver in a career that I enjoy. I just wish so much that I was working by now,” Flook said.

Employment freeze affects work-study

By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor

CNM has initiated a hiring freeze for all work-study employment positions, and all departments will be unable to hire any new stu­dent employees until July 1, when the new fiscal year begins, said Lee Carrillo, Director of Financial Aid and Scholarship Services.

The hiring freeze should not affect any current work-study employees, but any departments who lose any employees will not be able to replace them, and will have to make do until they can hire new employees in July, Carrillo said.

“It all comes down to one thing; we have limited fund­ing,” Carrillo said.

The school currently hires about 300 to 350 work-study employees per year, he said.

One change that will affect current employees is that pay periods will not go up from 20 to 30 weekly hours this summer as it has in the past, because there are no extra funds this year, Carrillo said.

This increase had been done in summers past, because there had been a sur­plus at the end of those years, and the school is required to spend the entire allocation before the end of the fiscal year. If there is any money left over at the start of the new year, the amount of money the State and Federal governments give would likely be adjusted, and the school would receive less the next year, he said.

This is the second year in a row that a hiring freeze has had to be implemented in order to ensure that enough money was left to continue paying existing student employees, he said.

Although the school could cut student employ­ees’ hours in order to keep from running out of funds, Carrillo said that the school has looked at the affect this would have, and would only do this as a last option.

“We look at all those things, and we hope it doesn’t come to that, which I don’t think it will,” Carrillo said.

The funds that go toward paychecks for all work-study employees come from a collective fund from Federal and State allocations, and from CNM itself, he said.

Director of Marketing and Communications, Brad Moore said that $600,000 comes from the Federal government, $1.2 million is given by the State, and the school kicks in an addi­tional $650,000, which is more than the 25 percent the school is required by law to contribute.

“We want to be able to hire and employ as many work-study students as pos­sible. The administration feels it is important for stu­dents to get an opportunity to have employment here, so the decision is made to add money to that fund,” Moore said.

At the start of each fiscal year, the school must esti­mate how many work-study employees it can hire based on the amount of money in the fund, the number of hours in a typical pay period, and the hourly wage, Carrillo said.

Although it was not legally required of them, the school did raise the hourly wage to $8.50 when Albuquerque voters raised the city’s minimum wage at the start of 2013. The school then gave work-study employees an additional ten cent raise in January, Carrillo said.

Carrillo said that the recent increases have changed the math significantly and con­tributed to the recent freezes, but that the school is still dedi­cated to hiring as many stu­dent employees as it can.

“Once we hit that pla­teau, we’ve got to freeze. And everybody who has a job can keep that job, but we just have to make sure that we make it to the end of the funding year with the allocations we have,” Carrillo said.

Carrillo said that budget­ing for the work-study fund can become a delicate balanc­ing act, since some employees work less than others, some quit or are fired, and some vacant positions stay open for long periods of time.

The Financial Aid depart­ment has to keep a constant eye on these ever-changing factors in an attempt to pre­dict how much money will be needed to last the entire year. This hiring freeze is the final tool in the toolbox that ensures the money will not run out, Carrillo said.

Moore said that the work-study program is very important to the school and to the employees them­selves, because the work they do is valuable to so many departments, and because the students get experience and important references for their future.

“It’s great to have stu­dent employees in the work environment because it helps keep us in tune with students and how their day to day lives really are. It’s highly valuable for regular CNM employees to have work-study employees around, to stay in touch with student life,” Moore said.

With talk in Washington about the possibility of raising the Federal minimum wage to $10 an hour or more, Carrillo said that the school would most likely be forced to hire significantly less work-study employees if the raise were to pass, unless they could secure more funding.

 

Tutor and poet has book release reading

By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor | Photos Courtesy of Jessica Lopez and Facebook.com

8.1 8.2

Award winning slam poet, activist, former student, and ACE tutor, Jessica Helen Lopez brings a passion for language to everything she does, painting vivid pictures with words, and bringing wit and attitude to her many causes.

Lopez is scheduled to read from her second published book of poems, “C*nt. Bomb,” at Bookworks on 4022 Rio Grande Blvd NW, April 15 at 7 p.m.

C*nt Bomb is a follow-up to her highly acclaimed collection “Always Messing with Them Boys,” and is a provocative exploration of gender, sexuality, power, and the realities of being a woman and Mexican American in the modern world, Lopez said.

As for the controversial title that the Chronicle has cen­sored, Lopez said it is an attempt to take the power of the word “c*nt” back from people who use it to abuse women, and instead use it to empower them.

“It used to be a fertile word. It’s only been taken and misappropriated over the centu­ries, abused just like women have been abused: raped, pillaged and oppressed to this day,” Lopez said.

The book features femi­nist poems about the violence against women in Juarez, the beauty of the female body, reproductive rights, the process of transitioning from girlhood to womanhood, and Chicana pride, she said.

Lopez has been involved in the Albuquerque slam poetry scene since 2005, when she took a creative writing class at CNM, she said.

One of her assignments was to attend a poetry read­ing, where she met instruc­tor and local poet Don McIver, who convinced her to perform for the first time, she said.

“That was it— man, I was hooked,” Lopez said.

She has since been on five poetry slam teams, and has com­peted in eight national events, she said.

“Then I found my place in this community. And I’ve been writing, performing, publish­ing, and been an educator of spoken and written word ever since,” Lopez said.

In 2012, she was the Women of the World slam poetry cham­pion for Albuquerque, and she repeated this feat just two weeks ago, and will once again go on to represent the Duke City in the national competition.

Her first collection of poems, “Always Messing with Them Boys,” was published in 2011 on West End Press, and has won the Zia Book Award and was featured on the Southwest Book of the Year readers list.

The book has since been part of the curriculum for several literature classes at UNM, where Lopez also teaches poetry, she said.

“I found a lot of success with that book. It really opened my eyes to the publishing world, and the ability to tour with a book that was published by a press,” Lopez said.

Lopez was also featured at TEDxABQ in 2012 where she spoke about the power of poetry to tell personal stories, which can be found on youtube.com.

She said that without the help of mentors like McIver and support from a tight-knit com­munity of local writers and per­formers, her teammates in the Albuquerque Slam Team, and the rest of the poetry community, she would never have gotten to where she is today.

“I really had to model myself after my teammates, who were more experienced than I, and I learned a lot from them. It’s like that within Albuquerque, it’s a mentorship model,” Lopez said.

Lopez said that her advice for anyone who wants to break into the world of the written and spoken word is to read and write as much as possible, to find a community that can support you, and most of all, to never be afraid of failure.

“Allow yourself to be sur­prised, allow yourself to be disap­pointed, but don’t allow yourself to be stagnant. If you want to be a writer, writing will find you; it won’t leave you alone, it will gnaw on you like a bone, and you just have to meet it in the middle,” Lopez said.

The following is an excerpt from the poem “C*nt. Bomb.” by Jessica Helen Lopez. C*nt. Bomb. the c is as insidious as a paper cut as pleasurable as a paper boat — if you happen to know how to fold one and let it ride the u of it lies between your legs look down lovingly lucky you if you happen to have one pet it if you will pet it as if it is the pet rabbit your mother never let you have the c*nt is absolutely not a bomb it will not hand-grenade explode your skull open like a cantaloupe brain matter writhing against the wall behind your head it will not shred your hands to lace if you happen to finger the trigger every now and now the c*nt is most definitely a bomb
The following is an excerpt from
the poem “C*nt. Bomb.” by Jessica
Helen Lopez.
C*nt. Bomb.
the c is as insidious
as a paper cut
as pleasurable as a paper boat —
if you happen to know how to fold
one and let it ride
the u of it lies between your legs
look down lovingly
lucky you if you happen
to have one
pet it if you will
pet it as if it is the pet
rabbit your mother
never let you have
the c*nt is absolutely
not a bomb
it will not hand-grenade explode
your skull open like a cantaloupe
brain matter writhing against
the wall behind your head
it will not shred your hands
to lace if you happen to finger
the trigger every now and now
the c*nt is
most definitely
a bomb

To find Lopez’s book C*nt Bomb online CLICK HERE.

 

Arts shindig supports scholarship fund

By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor | Photos by Jonathan Baca

1.2

On Saturday, April 5, the Art department and the CNM Employee’s Union will be put­ting on the second annual Arts Fandango, where dozens of artworks donated by students, instructors, and alumni will be auctioned off to raise money for the Ernest Garcia Emerging Artist Scholarship, said Union President and SAGE instructor, Andrew Tibble.

The event is scheduled to be held at SCA Contemporary gallery at 524 Haines Avenue NW. Doors open at 6 p.m., with tickets at $5 for students and $10 for the general public, which will include free food, drinks and music by instructor Patrick Houlihan’s classic rock band The Great Blue Whales.

“We’re really excited to be doing this event again, it’s a lot of fun and it’s for a great cause. You get to see a lot of really cool art. Most of the artists are there for you to talk to and the guys in the band are great,” Tibble said.

All the art will be sold the night of the event through a silent auction, and Tibble said there will be some great deals on lots of professional quality paintings, prints and ceramics, so he suggested that attendees bring cash or checks and bid on some pieces.

The matting, framing and setup is being done by volun­teers from the Art department, and the food and music is being provided by the Employee’s Union, so all of the proceeds will be donated to the scholar­ship fund, Tibble said.

“If you come to the event, you can be sure that if you bid on some art, your ticket cost, every penny goes into the scholarship fund,” Tibble said.

The scholarship, which was created by the Art department and the CNM Foundation, is in its second year, and was named after Ernest Garcia, the school’s very first studio art instructor, and a founding member of the Employee’s Union, who died in 2012, only a few years after retiring, Tibble said. suddenly of prostate cancer

Full-time Art instruc­tor Lynn Johnson, who was the school’s second studio instructor and helped to create the scholarship, said that the Art department as it is today was created by Garcia, who started as an Art History instructor and went on to create nearly all the curriculum for the studio art program.

“He was just instrumen­tal in starting the studio side of the department. He really started a legacy, and I feel like without him we wouldn’t have the Art department. We really miss him dearly,” Johnson said.

Garcia, Johnson, and several others in the Art department had been trying to create a scholarship for art students for years, and when Garcia passed away, the school, with the help of the Employee’s Union, saw fit to name the new scholarship after him, Johnson said.

The scholarship has awarded around $400 a year to an art major, and with another successful fundraising event, they hope to increase that amount significantly and possibly begin giving out schol­arships to several different stu­dents a year, Tibble said.

Full-time Art instructor Harley McDaniel said that in addition to raising money for the scholarship, the event is also the largest group show­case for the Art department, and helps to shine a bright spotlight on the work of the students and instructors.

“It allows people in the community to come and see the work that we make, that our students and faculty are making, and also to see the syn­ergy between faculty, students and community. Everybody is coming together, and it just brings a great amount of exposure to the department,” McDaniel said.

Johnson agreed that the event was an important opportunity for the Art department to show off the quality of work that is being produced, and hopefully will lead to increasing the respect, profile, and even­tually the funding of the Art department.

Johnson said that several pieces have been donated by alumni who have gone on to have successful art careers after graduating, and that last year collectors came out to the event, knowing that they could get some great deals on high quality works from up-and-coming artists.

“We really have incredible students coming out of the pro­gram. There is kind of a new respect that CNM is benefit­ting from based on the quality of the students’ art, and I really appreciate that,” Johnson said.

In addition to all the good that it does in raising money for the scholarship and showcasing the Art department, Johnson said the most important thing is that the event is a chance for everyone to get together and have a lot of fun.

“It was so much work, but it was also so much fun. We were all dancing and doing things we shouldn’t, I’m sure, but it was just a really great time. Everybody was really excited to be there, it was a blast,” Johnson said.

Suncat Chit Chat : What's your best April Fools' Day story

By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor

Chris Barrios, Nursing Major and Desiree Garcia, GED certificate “We’re going to tell everybody that my girlfriend here is two months pregnant. We’ll tell everyone the truth at the end of the day.”
Chris Barrios, Nursing Major and
Desiree Garcia, GED certificate
“We’re going to tell everybody that my
girlfriend here is two months pregnant.
We’ll tell everyone the truth at the end of
the day.”
that was actually meat loaf, frosted with mashed potatoes.” William Walker, Veterinary Tech major “To my friend Josh, I unscrewed the cap on the shower head and then I put blue hair dye in it, and then when he took a shower in the morning it dyed his skin blue. I turned him into a smurf.”
William Walker,
Veterinary Tech major
“To my friend Josh, I
unscrewed the cap on
the shower head and
then I put blue hair dye
in it, and then when he
took a shower in the
morning it dyed his
skin blue. I turned him
into a smurf.”
Thomas Richardson, Engineering major “In grade school my mom switched our alarm clocks to say it was the time for the bus and woke us up at 2 o’clock in the morning, and we got up frantically to catch the bus. And we stood there waiting for it until she said ‘April Fools’ Day!’”
Thomas Richardson, Engineering major
“In grade school my mom switched our
alarm clocks to say it was the time for the
bus and woke us up at 2 o’clock in the
morning, and we got up frantically to catch
the bus. And we stood there waiting for it
until she said ‘April Fools’ Day!’”
1 3/24/14 3:19 PM Michelle Abbott, Veterinary Tech major “My aunt Cathie’s doctors April Fooled her and made her think that she had two baby girls, and wrapped her newborn son into a pink blanket, and didn’t tell her until she changed him. It was a good joke.
Michelle Abbott, Veterinary Tech major
“My aunt Cathie’s doctors April Fooled her
and made her think that she had two baby
girls, and wrapped her newborn son into a
pink blanket, and didn’t tell her until she
changed him. It was a good joke.
Katie Thompson, Undecided major “We served our kids a dinner that looked like dessert and a dessert that looked like dinner. So we got some ice cream and made it look like a baked potato, with sour cream that was actually whipped cream and coconut akes that looked like chives. And then for dinner we had a cake that was actually meat loaf, frosted with mashed potatoes.”
Katie Thompson,
Undecided major
“We served our kids a
dinner that looked like
dessert and a dessert that
looked like dinner. So
we got some ice cream
and made it look like
a baked potato, with
sour cream that was
actually whipped cream
and coconut akes that
looked like chives. And
then for dinner we had
a cake that was actually
meat loaf, frosted with
mashed potatoes.”

Smoking in the rain; Welding students build new smoking shelters

By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor

weld

Planning and designs for the cov­ered shelters for CNM’s smoking sections have been submitted, and they will be fabricated and constructed by none other than the school’s own welding students, Welding instructor, Ron Hackney said.

The “smoking shacks” will be built by students of the Project Fabrication class, one of the final courses before Welding students test for their certificates, and they plan to build one to two shelters each semester the class is offered, Hackney said.

“These are folks who are already ready to graduate. Over three quarters of them are already certified welders, by industry standards, so they are pretty advanced students,” Hackney said.

Hackney said the proj­ect will be a great oppor­tunity for his students to get real world experience, being responsible for every aspect of a project, from planning and materials to fabrication and installation.

Executive Director of Multi-campus Operations Jennifer Cornish said that the idea for the project came from dis­cussions about the best way to create the smoking shel­ters they had promised to install after the new smok­ing policy was implemented.

“Since the inception of the new smoking policy, we knew that we needed to provide some shelter, if not all, than at least most of the smoking sections,” Cornish said.

A team was assembled to design and make the specifications for the shel­ters, and Cornish said the school’s architect had the idea to ask if the Welding department would be inter­ested in creating them.

Thomas “Hass” Saunders, Welding major and work study lab assistant, was the stu­dent who actually created the designs for the shelters as part of his class work, he said.

“It is essentially a bus stop with a couple of modifications made to it,” Saunders said.

Saunders took mea­surements of existing bus stop designs and CNM locations, designed the “smoking shack” on a CAD (computer aided drafting) program and made physi­cal blueprints, created a list of materials, and then got quotes for material costs, he said.

Saunders, who helps stu­dents with their class work as part of his work study job, said he feels the project will be a lot more valuable and fun for the students than their normal projects.

“It takes a whole dif­ferent meaning to welding. Instead of just doing differ­ent positions all day, now we can actually build some­thing, and it makes the stu­dents feel good at the same time,” Saunders said.

In addition to benches and a covered awning to protect smokers from the elements, the shel­ters will have perforated walls for ventilation, and so Security can easily see inside, Cornish said.

Another important feature will be solar panels on the roofs of each shel­ter, to power lights that will shine in the evenings, she said.

“We can’t run electric­ity out to all the shelters; that would have made it too expensive. But we want to make sure that they are safely lit,” Cornish said.

They would also like the openings of the shel­ters to be facing toward the south, so that in the summer the sun will gen­erally be at the back and the smokers will have more shade, she said.

Cornish said that the school’s Sustainability Team will be meeting with members of the Welding department sometime this week to go over the final details of the project, and to see if any of the loca­tions around the school’s many campuses will require any alterations to the original designs.

“I think it’s a really wonderful opportunity for our students to participate as a learning project, and it meets the needs of the students who want to use the smoking areas, and it is a sustainability project,” Cornish said.

Hackney said that since the plan is for the Welding program to eventually build a shelter for every smoking section on every campus, the project will likely become a major part of the curriculum for the Project Fabrication class for some time.

He said that while the instructors will act as quality control, set­ting specifications and inspecting each shelter on completion, the stu­dents will essentially be in charge of the project from start to finish.

“We have to make sure as an educational institu­tion that the students actu­ally use it as a learning out­come. It’s not like we’re trying to get free labor, we want to make sure that they can actually learn from it,” Hackney said.

In addition to the expe­rience for students, this project will also help the Welding department save some money, because the materials will be paid for out of a special budget created for the smoking sections.

Normally project costs come out of the Welding program’s budget, which is strained as it is, so Hackney said it is nice to be able to save a little money while giving his students a great project.

“It certainly helps, because every department gets billed for its metal, and it’s pretty expensive. But in the end, somebody’s got to pay for it, so we have to make sure that we don’t waste metal and things like that,” Hackney said.

Saunders said that as a student, he agrees that none of the students feel they are being taken advantage of, and that they are happy to be building something of value that will be used by people on campus for years to come.

“This is not free labor, this is essentially a great learning experience. In a nutshell, it’s kind of the students’ way of giving back to their school,” Saunders said.