Tag: Jonathan Baca

Battle of the bots

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By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor | Photo by Jonathan Baca

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In a crowded, noisy high school gym, the sounds of arena music, cheering fans, and a play-by-play announcer bounced around the walls as a timer ticked down on the score­board. But this was not a sporting event; it was a battle of scientific wits.

On Saturday, February 1 at Albuquerque Academy, the New Mexico FIRST LEGO League Tournament was held, where 57 teams of grade-schoolers used custom made robots built with LEGO parts to com­plete a series of challenges, all while learning that sci­ence, technology, engi­neering and mathematics (STEM) can be a lot of fun.

Program Coordinator for the School of Health, Wellness and Public Safety at CNM, Amanda Lopez has been volunteering with FLL for three years as the Junior FLL Coordinator, and she said that watching kids discover how much fun they can have with sci­ence has kept her coming back for more.

“Seeing the kids do the work, building the robots and having a good time really drew me to continue volunteering with them. I just kind of got hooked, it was really fun,” Lopez said.

Each year, FLL, which is part of the inter­national organization FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), creates a theme for the tournament. A series of challenges is created around that theme, and in the fall FLL sends each team a series of instructions on how to build the game board they will be competing on.

Each team also gets a kit that includes all the basic building pieces for their robots, made from the LEGO Mindstorms series.

Teams have several months to build a custom robot that can be pro­grammed to perform spe­cific tasks, and they do a research project that goes along with the year’s theme.

This year’s theme was Natural Disasters, and on the day of the tournament, each team had to use their robots to achieve certain goals on the game board.

Certain tasks are harder to achieve and count for more points, so teams need to decide on different strategies and dif­ferent robot designs to try to earn as many points as they can over three two-minute rounds.

“The big thing about it is that the kids do the work. They are doing the research, they build the models, and adults are around to help them, but they are the ones doing the investigating,” Lopez said.

Morgan said that the creators of the tourna­ment realized that kids have plenty of heroes in sports, music and movies, but little to no role models in the world of science and engineering.

So the creators designed the event as a sort of “sport for the mind,” with a raucous, exciting atmosphere, announc­ers, team t-shirts and high energy, she said.

Morgan said her big­gest thrill is seeing kids getting excited about the world of science and tech­nology, when these stu­dents realize that it is not as hard as it seems, and that it can be really fun.

“There is a great deal of joy that I get when I see the kid’s faces light up. They get it, and they realize that it’s not all nerd type stuff and old white guys with pocket protectors. We want to break that ste­reotype completely,” Morgan said.

She said that robotics is really only the hook to get the kids excited; the real value and learning comes from the themes, which all relate to the world of STEM.

Many kids who compete end up coming back as volun­teers and team coaches, and FLL tries to keep them involved in a mean­ingful and creative way.

All of the workers at the events are volun­teers, and Lopez said she encourages CNM stu­dents to get involved, or if they are parents, to have their kids compete.

“Especially for any of the youth that we work with, we want them to have a meaningful volunteer experience,” Lopez said.

Morgan said that involvement with FLL can be a big advantage for students looking for scholarships, and that sponsors like Sandia Labs and Northrop Grumman see the program as a kind of early training program for future technicians and engineers.

No matter how a person is involved, Lopez said that everyone has fun and gets a lot of satisfaction out of the experience.

For more information, or to volunteer with New Mexico FIRST LEGO League, visit nmfll.org.

 

 

Old bookstore transformed into student services center

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By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor | Photos by Jonathan Baca

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The old book store on Main Campus has been trans­formed into a lush, comfort­able and more accessible area for students to access a wide range of services, said Executive Director of CNM Connect, Ann Lyn Hall said.

The new space was revealed on Monday, January 21, and combines the offices of CNM Connect, Student Activities, SAGE’s Adult Basic Education and the CNM Call Center into one open and inviting location, with the goal of making it easier for students to access all the services they need, Hall said.

“I think people are really excited about the new space. It really gives us an opportunity to collaborate and expand, and pro­vide additional services for stu­dents,” Hall said.

Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management, Eugene Padilla said the transformation has been in the works ever since the new book store was being built, and it is part of the larger initiative to expand the role and mission of CNM Connect.

“When the new book store was built, this really gave us the opportunity to renovate this area and make it CNM Connect. It is a great opportunity to bring together a lot of the support ser­vices,” Padilla said.

When students first enter, they walk into a large area where the CNM Connect offices are, with access to Achievement Coaches, a comfortable area filled with couches and chairs, and eventually, a computer lab with 29 computers, printers and a copy and fax machine, he said.

Achievement Coach Chioma Heim said achieve­ment coaches can help stu­dents with a variety of issues, including life skills and finan­cial literacy, scholarships, and access to resources in and out of the classroom.

“I think it is going to allow more students to come in here and be able to just have a place where they can feel comfortable, where they feel like this is their space. They can use the computers, or just talk to someone who actually cares about their success all around, not just with edu­cation, but with life success as well,” Heim said.

Padilla said students can also be screened for benefits like SNAP food stamps, housing benefits, and child care help.

Director of Adult Basic Education, Carol Culver said SAGE’s new Adult Basic Education office is around the corner, where GED and English second language students can get help with registration, Achievement Coaches, and help when they want to make the transition to col­lege level courses.

Culver said the new space is a big upgrade from their old office in Ken Chappy Hall, not only because of the bigger space and closer proximity to the other service offices, but because it makes it easier on their students.

“The main thing that’s important about this move for us is that our students who are ESL and GED stu­dents are now entering the campus in the same build­ing that all the other stu­dents are. They don’t have to be told to go to this other place, and then they get lost. We’re thrilled about that,” Culver said.

The new Student Activities office is in the back of the new space, where stu­dents can go to get their IDs and bus passes, and the new Call Center also has a new, high-tech office in the space, Padilla said

Another major ben­efit for staff and students is the greater ease that all the offices will have col­laborating with each other, now that they are all under the same roof, Hall said.

“I always think that when people are closer to one another, it’s easier for them to collaborate, but even more than that, I think it’s easier for stu­dents, and that’s what it’s about. How do we make things flow in a way that makes sense for students?” Hall said.

Culver said that the col­laborating has already begun, and now what used to be hard to coordinate, through phone calls and emails from across the campus, can be done simply by walking down the hall.

Students should also be able to save time because they can get everything done in the same place, and can use the new computer lab instead of having to walk all the way to the SRC, Hall said.

The other major goal of the space is to be an area where students feel welcome to just hang out, sit down and relax, Padilla said.

“One of the things we know about student suc­cess is that students look for gathering spaces, places where they can kind of sit back, relax, read a book or even do homework, and this provides them with that,” Padilla said.

Couches will be com­plete with outlets for laptops, and there will even be a collaborative learning area where stu­dents can get together to do work on group projects, Hall said.

By creating an inviting space where students feel comfortable, Padilla said he hopes more students will be encouraged to take advan­tage of CNM Connect, and all the services that have been gathered under the same roof.

“Part of the CNM Connect initiative is to provide integrative sup­port services, and provide a welcoming and nurtur­ing environment in which students feel comfortable when they come to school,” Padilla said.

Remodeled building receives sustainability award

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By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor | Photo provided by http://www.cpexecutive.com

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Sustainability has become the new standard for CNM’s building and renovation proj­ects, and those goals were achieved and even surpassed in the renovations to the school’s Advanced Technology Center, which just received the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold Certification, said Executive Director of the Physical Plant Luis Campos.

The certification, which is given out by the U.S. Green Building Council, was awarded based on a checklist of efficiency and sustainabil­ity standards, and the renova­tion scored even higher than the team thought it would, Campos said.

“We signed the President’s climate commitment in 2008, and in that we made the com­mitment that CNM would reduce its carbon footprint. And as part of that goal, we have to build more efficient buildings, and that’s why we are going after these certifica­tions to really demonstrate our commitment to sustainability,” Campos said.

As part of this larger commitment, every new building or renovation will be planned out using the same checklist, which includes lower water and power con­sumption, less dangerous waste, and recycled building materials, Campos said.

The project cost $4.5 mil­lion, but Campos said that the green initiatives did not cost much extra to implement, and will actually save the school money in the long run.

“It doesn’t really cost us any more to do this. What it really means is that we have to prioritize things a little differ­ently, but the end results are that you build a more efficient building. So over the long haul, we end up saving money,” Campos said.

Using low-flow toi­lets, motion sensing faucets, drought tolerant landscaping and smart irrigation should help the building use 38 per­cent less water than a tradi­tional building, and over 85 percent of construction waste materials were able to be recy­cled or re-purposed, which totaled over 1000 tons of material that would normally be sent to landfills, he said.

Most of the new equip­ment is Energy Star quali­fied, and many efforts were implemented to save power, by using efficient light bulbs, timers, and large windows to take advantage of natural light­ing, he said.

The building also has a two-year contract to get much of its electricity from renew­able energy sources, he said.

These and other efforts are already saving the school money, through rebates from PNM and the New Mexico Gas Company for using effi­cient equipment, he said.

The Advanced Technology Center, which used to be a Motorola factory, originally opened in 2011, and the new space is home to class­rooms and labs for many trade programs, including Aviation Maintenance, Construction, as well as Film Studio and Editing classes.

There are more plans to make every building on every campus as sustainable as pos­sible, including adding solar panels to the roofs of four buildings, Campos said.

The panels will be installed at Rio Rancho and West Side campuses, at the Workforce Training Center, and Ken Chappy Hall at Main campus, he said.

Estimates are that in nine years, the panels will pay for themselves, and then begin generating free electricity for these buildings, he said.

Campos and his team are still gathering and calculating data on the larger savings of all of the other efficiency addi­tions, he said.

Campos said that all of these efforts are part of a bigger plan for the school that puts sustainability in the forefront.

“When you talk about sustainability, you don’t really just talk about buildings and recycling. You need to talk about sustainability in the big, general picture of how you educate students on those practices,” Campos said.

Campos is working with other faculty and staff to implement new curricu­lum to many classes that will include educating students on the importance of sus­tainability at school and in their everyday lives.

Campos said he hopes to help create a culture at CNM where everything done, from the classroom to the build­ings to students’ daily lives, has sustainability at its core, where the principles of sus­tainable living have become a natural, automatic part of the way the school does business.

“Students have the great­est ability to make change in this world. When you think about community colleges and universities, with all the stu­dent populations that we have, we really have the ability to make a great impact on society. And what better way to do that than teaching a sustainable approach,” Campos said.

Campos said that the biggest challenge in creating this culture is increasing the awareness of sustainability issues among students, and he feels that the collaboration with instructors will help to teach students these values, and get them engaged and involved in making it happen.

“Students are our future workforce, so by educating them now you actually have the opportunity to change the world. They are going to own the planet at some point, so why not teach them now?” Campos said.

Cafeterias hope to extend menu in near future

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By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor

During the time of year when many students have made resolutions to eat healthier and lose weight, there may be plans to add some new, healthier options to the cafeteria’s menu, said Sodexo General Manager Vinnie Crispino.

Results from an October survey that was conducted by Sodexo, the company that buys food for and manages the CNM cafeterias, showed that students wanted some healthier options, and these requests are now being considered, Crispino said.

The top three things students wanted to see at the cafeteria were a deli with fresh hot and cold sandwiches, a full time salad bar and a grill, Crispino said.

“We’ve put this information together, and we’ve gone to CNM and said this is what we’d like to do, to do a remodel and serve the products that the students want us to serve,” Crispino said.

Sodexo, a multinational food service company, only manages the cafeterias, which are owned by CNM, and it will be up to administration whether the money will be spent to add these items and remodel the school’s cafeterias, Crispino said.

“I would love to see a salad bar. I’m trying to cut back on all the greasy, deep fried foods, and it’s really hard to do that when I’m trapped on campus during lunch. Most of the stuff they serve is the kind of thing I’m trying to cut back on,” said Nursing major Natalie Garcia.

Crispino said that Sodexo management had a meeting on Tuesday, January. 14 with the office of Student Affairs to discuss the survey results and make a presentation on the proposed changes, and that another meeting will be scheduled for Feb. 11.

Sodexo already offers some healthier options, including veggie wraps, Odwalla products, veggie burgers, and a salad bar during certain times of the year, but this is not enough for some students with special diets, said Liberal Arts major Chad Roberts.

“I don’t eat gluten, and it is pretty much impossible for me to eat a big lunch at the cafeteria. There are a few snacks I can eat, sure, but I’d really like to see them think about people with special diets more,” Roberts said.

Crispino said that because Sodexo buys their ingredients in bulk in order to get the best possible price, it can be difficult and costly to keep more specialty products like vegan, organic and gluten free foods in stock.

“Yes we could do that, and yes it would be more expensive. But I don’t know if it would sell enough to keep the items fresh and good quality,” Crispino said.

Aside from the salad bar that was the second most requested item on the survey, Crispino said that vegan, organic and gluten free options did not receive many votes.

He said that another survey will be conducted next October, and that if enough students got together and asked for these types of items, they would have a better chance of being offered by the cafeteria in the future.

Crispino also pointed out that Sodexo only manages the cafeterias, and that if the school decided it was important enough to offer these types of food options, they could change the menu and serve them, whatever the cost.

“We only manage the business. So if CNM is losing a quarter million dollars here in the food business they are going to say, ‘we need to raise the prices, we need to cut down on the portions.’ Or they could say ‘we’re going to continue to subsidize for that and let the students eat at the rate they are,’ but we’d probably go out of business soon,” Crispino said.

Another question asked in the survey was whether students would want to see name-brand foods or chain restaurants on campus, Crispino said.

The survey showed that students would like to see a Subway, Dion’s, or Blake’s Lotaburger restaurant on campus, he said.

There is no word yet whether the school has any plans to open an outside restaurant on campus, but because of the contract with Sodexo, these would have to be owned by CNM and franchised and managed by Sodexo, Crispino said.

Food trucks are not allowed to do business on any campus that has a Sodexo cafeteria for the same reason, he said.

Crispino pointed out that students or faculty with special dietary needs are always free to bring their own lunches or go off campus to eat.

“People can bring their lunch in, they don’t have to eat here,” Crispino said.

Crispino said he feels that the cafeteria is moving in the right direction, and he hopes that the changes the students have requested will be made.

As for the higher prices this might bring, he said he does not see it as a problem.

“Students are looking for a value but they don’t necessarily worry about price that much, believe it or not. They know what they want to eat and they are going to pay for it,” Crispino said.

 

 

School looks to hire 30 new full-time instructors

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By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor

CNM is hiring for 30 full-time faculty positions, 22 of which are newly created positions, and current part-time instructors who want these jobs will not have any special treatment in the hiring process, said SAGE instructor and CNM Employees Union President Andrew Tibble.

The full-time positions are open across many campuses and schools, and applications were due on Friday, January 17, and the newly hired instructors will begin in the fall, according to cnm.edu.

There has been some controversy about the high percentage of instructors at CNM who are considered part-time, but Director of Communications and Marketing Relations Brad Moore said the school has been trying to increase the number of full-time positions available.

“CNM made a commitment a couple years ago to start increasing full-time faculty rates. Since then, CNM is trying to do this in a strategic manner. So when we see a trend that says we can use more full-time faculty in a certain area, we’re moving to create more full-time positions in those areas,” Moore said.

Tibble said that in his last estimate, there were about 330 full-time instructors, and about 750 part-timers.

In a survey conducted by the Employees Union, 47 percent of the current part-time instructors polled said that they aspired to get a full-time position, and about half of those polled said they relied on CNM for a substantial part of their income, Tibble said.

Tibble also said that these results may indicate that a strong majority of those who work steadily at CNM do want full-time positions.

“There really is no preference given to part-timers. They don’t have a different process for people who are internal. It’s a very competitive process,” Tibble said.

Moore said that everyone who applies for these positions will get an equal chance of being hired, and that there is no special process for current part-timers looking for a promotion.

“CNM definitely encourages all of our part-time faculty who are interested in these positions to apply for them. Of course if they are working at CNM that will be taken into consideration. But there is an obligation on CNM that we have to hire the best candidates possible,” Moore said.

While no quota or system exists that explicitly favors part-timers already working for the school, numbers provided by Moore show that in the last several years, a higher percentage of new full-time hires came from existing part-time faculty than from outside the school.

According to Moore, 67.5 percent of the open full-time faculty positions in 2012-13 were filled by CNM part-time faculty members, and in the year before, 62.2 percent were filled by existing part-timers.

“We definitely want to provide as many full time positions as we can. We know those positions are coveted by a lot of people, they are definitely quality jobs, and we are trying to offer as many as feasibly possible within the constraints of the college,” Moore said.

Tibble said that when he has been a part of the hiring process at SAGE, he did feel that there was no hiring bias either way.

“There is the sense that everybody has got a shot at getting the job,” Tibble said.

He did say that even an exemplary teaching record at CNM may not give an instructor a leg up in an interview, and that he is aware of many instructors who feel that loyal, hard working part-timers should have a better chance of being hired for a full-time position.

“Some people do feel there should be a preference given to people who have worked as part-time for a long time and taught a lot of courses,” Tibble said.

Tibble said that if there was a clear preference for a certain group in the hiring process, there could be a danger that this bias could bring the school under criticism from the outside.

He said his opinion is that although he is not opposed to a completely fair and unbiased hiring process, he does feel that sometimes the school undervalues the advantage of hiring people who have already demonstrated their value and dependability by teaching for years as a part-timer.

“I think that if somebody has been a part-time faculty member at your institution for a few years, then you actually have a much better idea of what that person is like than somebody who comes from outside as a relatively unknown quantity,” Tibble said.

He also said that some instructors do not perform as well during the interview and teaching demonstration process, and that since these are the main factors that determine whether they will get the job, their stellar teaching record could go unnoticed.

“I think part-time faculty have to be aware of that. When they take the job here, what they’re doing as part-time faculty, no matter how many classes they teach or what contribution they make, it’s very rarely going to give them a leg up in the hiring process,” Tibble said.

Moore said that part-time faculty play a vital role at the school, and that their real world experience working in their fields is extremely important to the students they teach.

“We definitely hope they do apply if they are interested in the positions and we’d like to see them advance at CNM if they are the best candidate,” Moore said.

Poetic License; Instructor shares his words with the world

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By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor

Don McIver under­stands the power of words, and as a part-time SAGE and English instructor as well as a Learning Center Supervisor, he shares his love of language with his students.

In his free time, he has been a vital part of Albuquerque’s poetry scene, as an award winning poet, editor, host and member of the Albuquerque slam poetry team, and on top of all that he is a host and producer of KUNM’s Spoken Word Hour.

“People still need to express themselves. If it’s about recreating or process­ing your lived experience, and sharing your words and your perspective, then poetry is extremely healthy and a great thing,” McIver said.

McIver has been pub­lished in several anthologies, and has published several books of his poetry, includ­ing The Noisy Pen. He was also the editor of A Bigger Boat: The Unlikely Success of the Albuquerque Poetry Slam Scene, a book that chronicles the rise of the slam poetry scene in Burque; a scene that has given birth to a few national slam champions.

In 2005, Albuquerque hosted the National Poetry Slam, and McIver said he helped to organize the event.

Albuquerque’s team won first place that year, beating 74 other teams consisting of 350 poets, he said.

“It was a lot of fun,” McIver said.

Slam poetry is a very energetic, performance-based form of poetry that started in Chicago in the 80’s, as a response to the dull, some­times self-indulgent poetry readings that were going on at the time, McIver said.

At slam events, poets are given scores by members of the audience, and at the end of the night, a winner is declared, something that never existed in poetry before, he said.

“I think the difference is that slam poetry, or per­formance poetry, is meant to be heard. It’s designed to be listened to. Other poetry, you may read it out loud, but really it exists on the page,” McIver said.

Traditional poetry can be better suited to writing poems with multiple inter­pretations and complex meanings, and can therefore be harder to grasp when read out loud.

Slam poetry, on the other hand, is typically sim­pler, with strong messages that can be expressed more directly to an audience.

“They can certainly wres­tle with complex issues, but if the audience doesn’t walk away with something they are going to be lost,” McIver said.

When McIver arrived in Albuquerque in the late 90s, there was already a vibrant slam scene, he said. Before that, McIver said he had drifted away from reading his poetry to audiences.

“I was writing but I didn’t have any way to share it. I didn’t really know what to do with it,” he said.

McIver quickly joined the poetry community here, doing readings at Winning’s Coffee, Poetry and Beer events, and eventually host­ing regular events at the now closed Blue Dragon Coffee House, he said.

“I had never been an actor, never got up on stage or performed before, so I had to kind of learn it myself,” McIver said.

In 2002, McIver helped form that year’s ABQ Slam Team, and went on to compete at the national level, he said.

“When I started doing slams, I wanted to be the rock star poet. I wanted to read in front of really huge audiences,” McIver said.

Albuquerque’s slam teams have since gone on to place highly at several national events, and many local poets are now recognized around the country, according to dukecityfix.com.

Being part of a com­munity of writers is impor­tant, McIver said, because the inspiration, feedback and encouragement one gets as part of a community can make a big difference in whether a poet sticks with it or gives up.

“What I learned is that it is much easier to be a writer when you are part of a com­munity,” McIver said.

Since then, McIver has had his poems published in sev­eral anthologies and all over the internet, and he continues to write poetry and essays, he said.

He has also written several novels, but none were ever published, which he said was dis­couraging at the time.

“I almost wanted to give up at that point and say ‘maybe I’m just not a writer.’ But it just doesn’t go away,” McIver said.

McIver said his atti­tude about getting his work published has changed a lot since he was younger, and that today he really writes for himself and for the community of local writers that he is a part of.

Since he began teaching here in 2009, he has found a new calling, sharing his pas­sion for language with his stu­dents, he said.

“For me, I like my job here at CNM, and I like teach­ing. I like getting my work out there, but I don’t need it to pay my bills,” McIver said.

For more information about Don McIver, and to read more of his poems, visit his website at donmciver. blogspot.com, called Confessions of a Human Nerve Ending.

 

Watermelon Man

By Don McIver

Herbie Hancock said he lifted the rhythm from listening,

listening to the rick­ety wheels on the watermelon carts

on the hot summer streets of Chicago.

I’ll take his word for it

and say it became the soundtrack to a late summer morn­ing dancing session.

Coffee cup in hand, the nip, finally, of Fall in the air.

A fridge full of home­made salsa, tomatoes plucked the day before.

The one lone pepper still clings from the plant as it did back in June.

We assume it is danc­ing too–and why wouldn’t it?

Early morning Hancock makes the long, hot summer disappear,

the tomatoes ripen,

and fresh basil swing and snap.

Everything goes better with coffee and jazz,

and summer’s over in New Mexico.

Coffees flow, movies show at Fans of Film Café

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 By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor | Photos by Jonathan Baca

The mural on the south wall, painted by Corina Sugarman.
The mural on the south wall, painted by Corina Sugarman.
Owner Michael Palombo behind counter at Fans of Film Café.
Owner Michael Palombo behind counter at Fans of Film Café.

Fans of Film Café is a unique blend of good coffee, home cooked food, community spirit and a love of independent film, and it just happens to be right in CNM’s backyard, said owner and manager Michael Palombo.

Located a stone’s throw from Main campus at 504 Yale Blvd. SE, Fans of Film has a distinctive mission: to spread and support the local indepen­dent film scene, and to bring high quality coffee and food to the south Yale neighborhood, an area with a lack of local food options within walking distance, Palombo said.

“I think Fans of Film can not only add to the coffee culture, but it can hopefully add to the film culture as well. We need more small media spaces for filmmakers and art­ists to express them­selves,” Palombo said. Fans of Film serves an original blend of coffee sourced from local roaster Michael Thomas Coffee Roasters, and their grab-and-go break­fast burritos available at their drive-up window have become very pop­ular among students who are in a rush in the morning and prefer homemade food to the cafeteria fare available on campus, he said.

“The repeat clientele has been really good, and we continue to build on that customer base. Each month has gotten a little better,” Palombo said.

As part of their larger mission, Fans of Film caters to the local film scene, spreading awareness and sup­port of small filmmak­ers with their website and popular Twitter account, Twitter.com/ fansoffilm, which is approaching 40,000 followers, he said.

The café also has a six foot projec­tion screen, where Palombo said he screens indie films, documentaries and videos related to social change and activism throughout the day.

“This environ­ment allows us to dis­tribute and share con­tent. We’re very much activists around here,” Palombo said.

M o n i c a Palombo, Michael’s wife and the café’s barista, said that they take pride in offering a cozy place where cus­tomers can feel at home.

“We’re like a big family. It’s very comfort­able here, we’re not stuffy. It’s a place you can come and do your homework or hang out with your friends, come to watch a movie. You don’t feel an obligation to just get in and out, you can hang out here,” she said.

Palombo said the idea to combine coffee and film in a local café was inspired in part by the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, a chain of movie theaters that started in Austin, Texas, and serve beer and dinner along with their films.

The idea of mixing movies and beer has caught on across the country, but Palombo said he wanted to mix it up a little with his café.

A lot of people don’t like alcohol, and coffee and film go well together. No question about that,” Palombo said.

Local filmmakers are always welcome at Fans of Film, and Palombo said he encourages them to hold production meetings, screenings and even cast­ing calls at his café.

The café can also be rented out after hours by film crews to hold special events and premieres for the low price of $10 an hour, with full catering and bar service available, he said.

Other groups are welcome too, no matter what the cause or event; Palombo said he is happy to host art shows, lectures, concerts or private parties.

“We are set up to do PowerPoint presenta­tions, video demonstra­tions, anything you need,” Palombo said.

It is all about sup­porting and being a part of a community of like-minded individu­als, he said.

Fans of Film was a regular meeting spot for the Albuquerque Occupy Wall Street movement, and no matter what the cause, Palombo said he loves to support groups who are working for posi­tive social and politi­cal change.

“Everything I do is toward social change and social awareness. I feel like what I am doing here can really be a part of real change,” Palombo said.

In that spirit, Palombo said that start­ing in May, Fans of Film, in partnership with the New Mexico Farmers Association, will be hosting a farmer’s market every Sunday, with bands, poetry readings, and local arti­sans and vendors set up in the parking lot.

The farmer’s market is part of a larger effort by a group that Palombo created, A South Yale Business and Community Development Project, which aims to foster and support economic and community develop­ment in a neighborhood that was once plagued by crime and decay, he said.

“There was such a dark cloud over this neigh­borhood. It was a rough, rough corner. I believe the community has come a long way in the last year,” Palombo said.

In addition to coffee and food, Fans of Film has a used book store, PeaceWise Book Stall, in the front of the café, spe­cializing in books about film, progressive causes, and spirituality, he said.

Palombo is also a painter and glass blower, and he sells his paintings, pipes and art glass out of the café.

Part of the appeal of Fans of Film is the cozy, laid back atmosphere that Palombo has created. He said he is not interested in spending lots of money on fancy furniture and deco­rations, and he has been able to pass the savings on to his customers.

“It’s obvious I haven’t put a ton of money into it, but it’s clean, it’s homey, it’s eclectic. It doesn’t have to be perfect for us to make quality coffee and quality food at a decent price,” Palombo said.

In the future, Palombo said he hopes to eventually begin roasting his own coffee on site, and hopes to brand it and sell it to retailers, film produc­tion companies and stu­dios, carrying the Fans of Film brand to the masses.

Students frustrated with new Nursing Program entry process

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By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor

Starting in the spring 2014 semester, the Nursing program will begin implementing the newly cre­ated New Mexico Nursing Education Consortium (NMNEC) curriculum, and the switch has left many stu­dents who hope to get in to the program with nowhere to go, said Pre Health Sciences major Theresa Villanueva.

The change only affects students who are applying for the popular program for the first time starting next semes­ter, and the new rules and regulations have effectively cut the number of new stu­dents allowed to 24 students, said program director Diane Evans-Prior, and this has left many hopeful students in a kind of educational limbo.

“I’m just kind of keeping my fingers crossed that I get into these classes. I’ve been just kind of going with the flow for now to see how it goes,” Villanueva said.

Villanueva said she has been planning to get into the Nursing program for years, finishing all the prerequisites and preparing to take the required Health Education Systems, Inc. (HESI) exam, only to discover that there was no room for her in the new program.

In addition, many classes she struggled to complete are no longer required under the new curriculum, she said.

“There’s just not enough space in the program, there’s people waiting on the list, and you take all these labs, and now you don’t even need the labs. So that was kind of a waste of time for me, because it took me forever to get through those,” Villanueva said.

Under the old system, which will be phased out over the next few semesters, stu­dents had to petition to get into the program, Evans-Prior said, and all the qualified stu­dents who had already peti­tioned before the change were still able to get in and will be the last group to complete the program under the old curriculum.

But for all the new stu­dents who meet the require­ments, who are all vying for the coveted 24 positions, there are no guarantees that they will ever get in, said Pre- Health Advisor Nora Mendoza.

“The careers in the medi­cal field are very, very popu­lar. We’re the pipeline, but we’re only so wide. Slowly, our nursing program is going to be growing, but not at the rate that our demand is,” Mendoza said.

For the spring and summer semesters, entry into the program is being conducted with an open registration for Nursing 1010 and 1015, where the students with the most credit hours completed got the first shot at registering, Mendoza said.

For this spring, registra­tion opened at 6 a.m., and the two sections were com­pletely filled in two minutes, Mendoza said.

For the dozens of stu­dents like Villanueva who were not able to get in, the plans they had been making for years suddenly had to be changed at the last minute, Villanueva said.

“I’m still going to do it until I get in there, but hope­fully it will be sooner than later. Hard work pays off even­tually, but some people just give up when it’s too hard to get in,” Villanueva said.

Beginning next fall, the entry procedure will change — yet again — to a pre-reg­istration screening process, where all qualified students will be screened by the depart­ment and placed into a pool, Mendoza said.

This pool will have a spe­cially designated registration date and time, and just like the open registration method, the first students in the pool who manage to register for Nursing 1010 and 1015 will be guaranteed entry into the pro­gram, but the students who do not make it in will have to try again the next semester, Mendoza said.

“There are no guaran­tees, for any of our programs. We’re hoping with this pre-registration screening form that we make it open to every­one who meets the minimum requirements,” Mendoza said.

While this method gives more people the opportunity to get in, it also does not favor those students with the best grades and the highest HESI scores, making it difficult for those students who are the most dedicated to plan for their future, Villanueva said.

“I think they need to figure out a better way to weed out the people who aren’t really serious about the program, because the people who are serious, it turns many people away,” Villanueva said.

Another issue is the new rules surrounding the HESI exam, which has to be passed before a student is even quali­fied to register, Mendoza said.

In the past, a stu­dent’s results on the test were valid for five years, but now they will only be valid for one year, Mendoza said.

This means that if a student cannot get into the program in that year, they will have to pay the fee again to retake the exam, and they are still not guaranteed a spot, Villanueva said.

Evans-Prior said that the new program had to be so limited in size for several reasons.

First, she said, the brand new curriculum requires a totally new approach to teaching, and the smaller group of 24 students is more ideal for gathering the feedback that instructors will need to go forward.

Second, according to the new regulations created by the New Mexico State Board of Nursing, an instructor to stu­dent ratio of 1 to 8 is required while in a clinical setting.

The number of clinical sites available is also limited, Evans-Prior said.

“We know. We know that there are a lot of stu­dents out there that want seats. Our issue is that we have probably two to three qualified students for every one nursing seat,” she said.

Evans-Prior said that since the program will be operating with one group using the old curriculum alongside the new group learning the NMNEC curriculum, size of the new group had to remain small.

But as the old program is phased out, the school plans to slowly increase the number of new students accepted, she said.

“We are planning some very controlled growth, and we should be seeing those numbers increasing. Our five-year goal is to get back up to about 96 students three times a year. We can move that up as we add faculty and clini­cal sites,” Evans-Prior said.

In the meantime, Villanueva said she still plans on doing whatever she can to get into the program.

“Hopefully it gets better, because I’m almost there and I don’t want to have to give it up. But I feel bad for the people who don’t have the strength to get through,” Villanueva said.

Nob Hill festival lights up local businesses

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By Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor | Photos courtesy of Facebook.com
Mural on Astro-zombies done by Dave Briggs, located at 3100 Central Ave.
Mural on Astro-zombies done by Dave Briggs, located
at 3100 Central Ave.
Mural on Masks y Mas done by Geronimo Garcia, located at 3106 Central Ave.
Mural on Masks y Mas done by Geronimo Garcia,
located at 3106 Central Ave.

5.2

Nicole Montes at Silver Skate Shop, located at 3023 Central Ave.
Nicole Montes at Silver Skate Shop,
located at 3023 Central Ave.

After the big-box mania of Black Friday, citizens of The Duke City will have a chance to shop for some unique, afford­able gifts, right in Main Campus’s backyard, while keeping their money in the local economy, at the 2013 Nob Hill Holiday Shop and Stroll and Twinkle Light Parade on December 7, according to cabq.gov.

From noon to 10 p.m., Central will be closed to traffic from Girard Boulevard to Washington Avenue, as people shop, stroll, enjoy live music and food vendors, and watch as over a hundred floats and cars all decked out in twinkling lights head down Burque’s main drag, according to cabq.gov.

Nicole Montes, owner of Silver Skate Shop that was newly reopened on Friday, Nov. 29 after almost three years on sabbatical, said she was grateful to be welcomed back to the Nob Hill community.

“We had a lot of sup­port at the shop, and a lot of people came through for our Black Friday grand opening,” she said.

Montes said for this year’s Shop and Stroll she plans to have skat­ing ramps and rails made by local skaters set up on Central, with hopes of having a good turnout of local rollers and artists.

“I believe when we set up, we’re going to have hot cocoa and a little con­test, for everyone to join in,” she said.

Montes said that her friend and owner at Masks y Mas used to accommo­date by giving her space in front of his shop for skate ramps, but now that she is back in the neighbor­hood, she can now have the ramps in front of her shop for local skater kids to have a place to hang out at the event, she said.

“So this will be the first year we have our ramps in front of our own shop, which will be pretty cool. I’m sure it will be a great event, because all the local skater kids usually show up for it,” Montes said.

Federico “Kiko” Torres owns Masks y Mas, a store that has been in Nob Hill for 12 years, and he said he agrees that shopping locally benefits everybody.

“I think it actu­ally helped to turn the economy around, people shopping more locally. Even just a little bit, maybe a few gifts can make a huge difference,” Torres said.

Masks y Mas sells Mexican-inspired art and gifts made by over 80 dif­ferent craftspeople, most of them local, Torres said.

Torres said his store features local artists such as Brandon Maldonado, Stephanie Jamison, and David Santiago, sculptors Javier Benitez and Raymond Sandoval, and employee and recycled-object artist Kenny Chavez, among many others.

Mike D-Elia has owned the neighborhood comic shop Astro-Zombies for 15 years, and he said the Shop and Stroll is one of the store’s busiest times of year.

Aside from the extra busi­ness the event brings, D-Elia said that it creates something just as important: a sense of community.

“There’s people you don’t see any other time of year. You see old friends, you see fami­lies; it’s that one big event in this neighborhood that’s like ‘hey, it’s holiday season.’ And it’s great,” D-Elia said.

Shopping locally sup­ports small business as well as local artists and craftspeople, and the benefits trickle down and help the entire city in the end, Torres said.

“At the end of the day, when you go to the big corporations that are bringing everything in from China, ultimately you’re supporting some other country. So what better way to support your local economy than to shop locally?” Torres said.

For more info on the 2013 Twinkle Light Parade and Nob Hill Holiday Shop and Stroll, visit rt66central.com/ shopandstroll.

Admins have smokers covered; Plans made to upgrade smoking sections

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Jonathan Baca, Copy Editor

The recent school – wide policy that all t o b a c c o products may only be used in designated smok­ing areas has left many students disgruntled and at the mercy of the elements, but not all is lost for smok­ers on campus as efforts are currently under way to help make these areas a little more comfortable, said Executive Director of Multi-Campus Operations Jennifer Cornish.

Administration has sub­mitted plans to build covered canopies over smoking areas to provide shade and protect students from rain and snow, and new benches have been purchased, some of which have already been installed on Main Campus, Cornish said.

“We wanted to make sure with these designated smok­ing areas, that there be a suffi­cient number of them, and we looked at creating some con­ditions that would make them comfortable,” Cornish said.

The project has already had to go through a long, prioritized budgeting process, but Cornish said it is now on the Master Plan list of projects, and funds should be available next July.

“It’s a pretty long, involved, complex process,” Cornish said.

In the meantime, smokers have had to trek across cam­puses, endure harsh weather, and even deal with unstable and possibly dangerous seating or no seating at all in order to have a cigarette, Biology major and smoker Marisa Julian said.

“I would really like to see a little bit more consideration for the smokers,” she said.

Julian said that during one smoke break, when she and a friend sat down on the same side of a circular metal picnic table in a smoking section on Main campus, the entire table was toppled and they had to scramble out of the way to avoid being hurt.

“It’s really difficult for us as smokers, having your only cigarette for the day, and you have to freeze, or get wet, or burn in the sun. It seems a bit ridiculous,” Julian said.

Radiology major Ginese Vigil said since smokers have been asked to make the effort to remove themselves from high-traffic areas and walk to the designated sections, which are often far from their classes, the least the school can do is to offer shaded areas.

“Smokers take into con­sideration the feelings of non-smokers by going to certain sections on campus. And in order to keep that consideration it would be nice to have canopies,” Vigil said.

The full project will not begin until next s u m m e r , but in the m e a n ­t i m e , C o r n i s h said that the a dmi n i s t r a ­tion wants to hear from the students about what their needs and concerns are in different areas of the campus.

On the website cnm. edu/smoke free, students can follow a link to a forum where they can make sug­gestions on the policy and the proposed project.

“People can submit their comments, questions or what­ever, and I’ll get back to them,” Cornish said.

Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigs, have also been restricted to these sec­tions, and many students who use them disagree with the policy and do not think that they should fall into the same category as traditional cigarettes, said Vigil, who only uses e-cigs.

E-cigs do not produce the second-hand smoke of tradi­tional cigarettes, but instead vaporize a nicotine solution and emit odorless water vapor, according to Wikipedia.org.

Vigil said she thinks the restriction on e-cigs is due to misunderstand­ing, and thinks that people have not taken the time to educate themselves on the difference.

Cornish said the team that created the new policy included e-cigs in the ban because there has not been enough research on their true effects.

“We found that there is sig­nificant doubt in the scientific community around the health effects, and also whether or not the vapor includes impu­rities. We decided to include them because there is still a big question mark around them,” Cornish said.

The Food and Drug Administration has not released its official find­ings on e-cigs yet, but there have been several other studies done, many with conflicting findings.

Scientists from the University of Athens, Greece, found that “using an e-ciga­rette caused an instant increase in airway resistance that lasted for 10 minutes in the majority of the participants,” according to medicalnewstoday.com.

However, another study on e-cigs conducted by the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association found that “with generally acceptable usage levels, there were no health dangers posed by an e-ciga­rette’s vapors,” according to digitaljournal.com.

Vigil said she does not think e-cigs should be allowed during class, out of respect for the teacher and the other students.

However, Vigil said that since she does not believe that the vapor causes any harm, she does not always follow the school’s current guidelines.

“There’s a couple build­ings where it’s easier, if I have a break, to just go into a hall or a restroom,” Vigil said.

Political Science major Jonathan Swenson said that he and many others use e-cigs as a way to quit smoking traditional ciga­rettes, and that the current restriction takes away some of the incentive for many people to do the same.

“If the school policy is really to help people quit smoking, they should give every advantage to people who switch to e-cigs,” Swenson said.

Cornish said she acknowledges that people like Swenson may have a valid point.

She said that if new studies were released showing that e-cigs were safe for their users and the people around them, the school might consider changing their policy.

“I think that all our decisions and policy should be based on good solid information. So while I can’t say that we would change it, I think that that would serve as a basis for looking at that,” Cornish said.