UNM Live

George Gorospe can hardly contain his enthusiasm when he talks about working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Last spring he completed his Bachelor’s degree in Engineering and is now on his way to the NASA leadership Academy. He and other students will travel for the next 10 weeks, learning about current missions and meeting with companies that work with NASA. He then heads to the NASA Ames Research Center in San Jose, California to begin work as a research engineer. In this audio interview he talks about how he managed to turn a summer learning opportunity into a chance for his dream career.

In this dual presentation Center for Southwest Research Fellows Clare Daniel and Brianne Stein present a glimpse into “Worlds within Worlds: The Photography of Eduardo Fuss.” Daniel is the Digitization Fellow at CSWR and Special Collections. She is also a doctoral candidate in American Studies with interests in race theory, citizenship and the welfare state. She is currently working on a dissertation examining contemporary discourses of teenage pregnancy and parenthood in public policy popular culture and national and local advocacy. Stein is the Pictorial Fellow at CSWR and Special Collections. She is a first year Ph.D. student in the History Department, focusing on urban environments in modern U.S. history. Also, she is working on her graduate certificate in the Historic Preservation and Regionalism program. After completion of the program, she hopes to work in archives.

Brian Luna Lucero, the Center for Southwest Research Clinton P. Anderson Fellow, explores changes digital resources are making for scholars in his talk, “Special Collections and Digital Humanities Scholarship.” Lucero has worked in the public service area of University Libraries over the past year teaching students to use resources in the library. In this talk he speaks about digital humanities and how technology offers scholars new ways to explore age old questions such as how do we make sense of the world? or how do we handle change? Lucero is a Ph.D. candidate in history studying the U.S. West. His dissertation focuses on the memory and commemoration of the Spanish colonial past in the American Southwest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Aurore Diehl, the Thomas L. Popejoy Fellow in the Center for Southwest Research discusses “The University Occupied: An Overview of Campus Unrest at UNM in the 1960’s and 70’s.” Diehl is a graduate of UNM’s American Studies program and a second year Master’s student. Her research focus is the use of popular music as a lends through which to view issues of gender, sexuality, ethnicity and class, with a special focus on gender and sexuality in hard rock and heavy metal music. She is working on a graduate certificate in Women’s Studies.

In this talk Natalie Farrell, the Institutional Fellow in the Center for Southwest Research, reflects on her work throughout the academic year as she digitized historic versions of the student newspaper, the Daily Lobo. The title of her talk is “The Changing Political Attitude of UNM Students during the 20th Century.” The complete archives of the Daily Lobo are now available online in the archives of the Lobo Vault. Farrell is a Ph.D. student in anthropology, working in archaeology. She has been working in Southwestern archaeology and Geographic Information Systems since graduating with her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona in 2008. She is specializing in the manufacturing style of Southwestern ceramics.

Carolyn McSherry holds the Juan and Virginia Chacon Fellowship and has spent part of the year processing the papers of writer-photographer Nancy Wood. She is a Ph.D. student in the American Studies program. Her research is about the challenges posed to 1930s-era agricultural improvement projects in Puerto Rico and on Navajo lands by people who lived in and knew those landscapes, and by others. She is interested in the relationships between agricultural sciences and colonialism. In this talk, titled “Wrenching Poetry from the Nancy C. Wood Manuscript Collection” she explores the manuscripts in the Nancy C. Wood manuscript collection and talks about Wood as a writer. At the beginning of the talk she discusses this poem by Nancy C. Wood.

Hanna Thompson, Center for Southwest Research Fellow speaks on “A Scientific Endeavor: Controversy and Conflict in Apollo’s Quest for Lunar Knowledge.” Thompson is a student in the Landscape Architecture Program. For this fellowship she investigated former NASA Astronaut Harrison Schmitt’s role as the first and only scientist in the Apollo Program.

PBS Sr. Correspondent Ray Suarez talks with UNM Live about the Teacher Town Hall he moderated in Albuquerque as part of PBS’s “American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen” initiative. New Mexico’s KNME was one of only 20 PBS stations selected to participate in the initiative.

Don Randel, Ph.D. and president of the Mellon Foundations talks about the current state of education in the United States and outlines some problems in current education policy. In this talk sponsored by the UNM Office of the Provost he also gives some free advice about SAT scores, tuition decisions, research and ways to fund education.

Don Randel, Ph.D. and president of the Mellon Foundations talks about the current state of education in the United States and outlines some problems in current education policy. In this talk sponsored by the UNM Office of the Provost he also gives some free advice about SAT scores, tuition decisions, research and ways to fund education.

UNM Computer and Engineering Assistant Professor Pradeep Sen and his graduate student Soheil Darabi have found a unique way to solve an old problem in the film industry. It can take hundreds of hours of computer time to remove noise from digital images and build a graphically acceptable product. But Sen and Darabi have found a way to filer the noise much more quickly. In this conversation with Karen Wentworth, Sen describes his work.

The gaps in what anthropologists know about the Magdalenian Age in Europe are enormous. Few human bones have been found, and the information about them is limited. That’s why the discovery of a partially complete human burial at El Mirón Cave is so exciting. It is the first burial ever found from this time period. UNM Distinguished Professor of Anthropology Lawrence Strauss discusses his latest find in Spain.

University of Michigan Professor of Anthropology John Mitani talks about “Cooperation among Wild Chimpanzees” during a Sept. 19, 2011 colloquium at the University of New Mexico. He is introduced by Assist. Professor of Anthropology at UNM, Martin Muller. Mitani does extensive field research and is currently working at Ngogo, Kibale National Park, Uganda with a large group of chimpanzees. He is interested in cooperation among male chimpanzees and shares his observations in this talk.

UNM graduate student Sam Markwell explores the political, economic and cultural conditions in which the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD) was established. Markwell focuses on how it has affected pueblo and acequia communities and their claims to water rights within the larger context of change shaping the twentieth century. This lecture explores how the “Conservancy Project” became and remained the MGCSD through the long and ongoing processes of negotiation, contestation and incorporation among rural and urban communities, financial institutions, municipalities and state and federal government agencies. Markwell is a graduate of the UNM School of Anthropology and is expanding on work he did during his time as an undergraduate. Currently his studies focus on the cultural politics of water in the South Valley area of Albuquerque with a special interest in environmental justice. The lecture was cosponsored by the Office of the State Historian Scholars Program, the Historical Society of New Mexico and the Center for Southwest Research.

In this lecture 2011 History Scholar Katherine Massoth discusses ways white Americans reacted to the environment, clothing, and foodstuffs of New Mexican people between 1846 and 1866. Cuisine and couture became areas where daily practices were absorbed and traded between the colonizers and the colonized and the colonizers learned from the Mexican and Native Americans, slowly changing their own ideas of appropriate standards for food and clothing. Massoth is a Presidential Fellow and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Iowa where she received her M.A. degree in United States History in 2008. She specializes in the history of gender and race in the American West. The lecture was cosponsored by the Office of the State Historian and the Center for Southwest Research at UNM.

Ashley Sherry was the LaDonna Harris fellow (2009-2010) and a Center for Regional Studies fellow in the Center for Southwest Research (2011). She is also a scholar with the Office of the State Historian. Sherry’s research and the focus of this talk is the discourse and model of Indigenous advocacy put forth by LaDonna Harris as it pertains to the return of Blue Lake to Taos Pueblo. LaDonna Harris’ papers and the records of Americans for Indian Opportunity are housed at the Center for Southwest Research in Zimmerman Library. Sherry is introduced by Beth Silbergleit from CSWR and Dennis Trujillo from the Office of the State Historian. Harris attended the talk and reflects on Sherry’s examination of her life’s work.

Aurore Diehl, the Thomas L. Popejoy Center for Regional Studies Fellow in the Center for Southwest Research in Zimmerman Libraries discusses her research in university archives as she compares two productions done by the Department of Drama at UNM. Diehl is a first year master’s degree student in American Studies. She is interested in the study of gender and sexuality in popular music.

Jessica Gardener, the Center for Regional Studies Beatrice Chauvenet Fellow at the Center for Southwest Research in Zimmerman Library talks about the collection of J.B. Jackson, the Father of Cultural Landscape Studies. Gardener, a Master’s student in Landscape Architecture at UNM curated the collection during her fellowship. Her own research is in the area of upland, dry land restoration and water in the urban environment.

Jordan Biro, a Center for Regional Studies George I. Sanchez Fellow at the Center for Southwest Research in University Libraries, gives this talk on her research into the history of the Taos Artists’ Colony and on one member of that colony, writer Myron Brinig. Biro is working toward her Ph.D. on the history of sexual migrations made by gay men and lesbians to the west in the 1940’s – 1970’s. In this talk she discusses Brinig and his insight in to the art colony.

Brian Luna Lucero, the Center for Regional Studies Sophie D. Aberle Fellow at the Center for Southwest Research talks about the 60 year effort for New Mexico to be recognized as a state. His research is part of a larger effort to build a digital portal for the CSWR’s centennial project. He speaks about the political and cultural resistance to admitting New Mexico to the union, and the many failed attempts to have the territory recognized as a state. Lucero is a Ph.D. candidate in History.

Brianne Stein, Center for Regional Studies Digitization Fellow in the Center for Southwest Research talks about the Basque Independent Movement and how it is reflected in the Sam Slick collection via posters and information. Stein enters the Ph.D. program in Architecture in the fall where she will focus on the built environment in the early 20th century.

Sue Taylor, the Center for Regional Studies Fray Angélico Chávez Fellow in the Center for Southwest Research in University Libraries talks about an effort by the Spanish government to settle California with orphans in the early 1800’s. Taylor explains this was one of several schemes by the Spanish government in Mexico City to settle more people on the west coast of North America to protect the rights of the Spanish crown against other European countries. Taylor has just completed her Ph.D. in history at UNM.

Center for Regional Studies Fellows in the Center for Southwest Research Max Fitzpatrick and Ashley Sherry speak about the Inter-Hemispheric Resource Center collection housed in the CWSR. The collection contains information about the center’s analysis and foreign policy recommendations on a number of issues. Fitzpatrick and Sherry curated the collection as part of their work as Juan and Virginia Chacón Fellows.

Clare Daniel, the Center for Regional Studies Pictorial Collections Fellow in the Center for Southwest Research discusses the Wayne Lambert Collection. Lambert began donating his photographs to the Center in 2006 and has committed to continue to donate his work in the future. In this talk she discusses the themes of Lambert’s work and the way in which it fits into the CSWR collections.

Summer Wood reads from and discusses her latest novel, “Wrecker,” at the UNM Bookstore.

Graduate Student Matt Harris, the Fine Arts Fellow at the Center for Southwest Research has spent the academic year working with “The New Mexico Composers Archive. He is working toward his Master of Musical Performance degree. In this talk he explores the challenges that archivists face in digitizing information so it will be accessible in the future and the opportunity the archive offers scholars who are interested in composers who have strong ties with the university and with New Mexico. Harris says the NM Composers archive is interesting because it contains original baroque materials, and some audio archives. Work from 30 composers is available in the archive.

PBS Pres­i­dent Paula Kerger came to Albu­querque last week. After a visit to UNM’s Children’s Cam­pus with Super Why, Kerger and KNME Gen­eral Man­ager Polly Ander­son spoke with UNM Today about pro­gram­ming, new media, fund­ing and other issues in pub­lic television.

Lisa Gill reads at the UNM Bookstore for National Poetry Month from “Caput Nili,” an illustrated book of poems and essays recounting the true story of what hap­pened when she threat­ened to hold up an MRI clinic in 2003.

Poet Mary Oishi reads at the UNM Bookstore in honor of National Poetry Month 2011.

This presentation by Howard Waitzkin, UNM distinguished professor emeritus and presidential teaching fellow, addresses two questions that grew from his life experiences as a student and teacher: How does a teacher cope with a sense that she/he is a stranger in educational institutions? How does a learner learn best when he/she feels like a stranger, in an educational environment where one longs to thrive and to make a mark? These questions focus on the needs of learners who feel alienation within academia, partly due their roots in families and communities characterized by poverty and limited educational opportunities. The talk is sponsored by UNM’s College of Arts and Sciences, Office of Support for Effective Teaching, Robert Wood Johnson Center for Health Policy and Department of Sociology.

Poets Renny Golden and E.A. “Tony” Mares read at the UNM Bookstore for National Poetry Month 2011.

The University of New Mexico’s Bookstore hosts the Wednesdays at Noon Poetry Series in celebration of National Poetry Month. The bookstore hosted Jessica Helen Lopez April 6. She read poems from her new book “Always Messin’ with Them Boys.” Lopez is the first of four poets in the bookstore’s series.

Carolyn Gonzales interview Holly Barnet-Sanchez and four students about Latino Literary Imagination and an accompanying exhibition the students curated. For more information on Latino Literary Imagination, visit UNM Today.

Christopher Mead, regents’ professor, gives a talk on two exhibits at the UNM Art Museum: “Roadcut: The Architecture of Antoine Predock” and “Like a Signature: Sketches and Models.”

Ed Nuhfer, director of faculty development, professor of geoscience, California State University Channel Islands, delivers the keynote address of Success in the Classroom: Sharing Practices That Work. The talk focuses on the role of emotion in learning processes. The conference is organized by the University of New Mexico’s Office of Support for Effective Teaching.

The Center for Southwest Research at Zimmerman Libraries has just opened a new collection to research. Albuquerque Singles Magazine was published from 1977 to the late 1990’s. It was the first magazine in the country directed to single people who wanted to explore the community, do new things and meet other people. In this short excerpt of a longer interview, publisher Marilyn Stutt talks about how she put together a sales team for the magazine: For more about the collection, visit the University Libraries Finding Guide.

A panel discussion with Farajollah Ghanbari, distinguished member of the technical staff and system engineer, Global Security Engagement & International Safeguards Department, Sandia National Laboratory; James A. Tegnelia, research professor, Department of Chemical and Nuclear Engineering, UNM; and Andrew L. Ross, professor, Department of Political Science and director, Center for Science, Technology & Policy, UNM. Part of Global Threats, the UNM International Studies Institute’s fall 2010 lecture series.

The fall 2010 commencement keynote address by Andrew Weil. Weil is direc­tor of the Ari­zona Cen­ter for Inte­gra­tive Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­sity of Ari­zona, where he is also the Lovell-Jones endowed chair in inte­gra­tive rheuma­tol­ogy, clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of med­i­cine and pro­fes­sor of pub­lic health. He is the author of 11 books, includ­ing inter­na­tional best­sellers “Spon­ta­neous Heal­ing” and “8 Weeks to Opti­mum Health.” He has trav­eled North and South Amer­ica and Africa col­lect­ing infor­ma­tion on med­i­c­i­nal plants and alter­na­tive meth­ods of treat­ing disease.

“Child Soldiers in Africa: From Degradation to Reintegration,” a lecture by Stephen L. Bishop, associate professor, French and Africana studies, UNM. Part of Global Threats, the UNM International Studies Institute’s fall 2010 lecture series.

“Icyizere (hope): Trauma, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation after the Rwandan Genocide,” a lecture by Patrick Mureithi, filmmaker and artist-in-residence, Drury University. Part of Global Threats, the UNM International Studies Institute’s fall 2010 lecture series.

“Policy Responses to Nuclear Threats,” a lecture by Hans Kristensen, director, Nuclear Information Project, Federation of American Scientists. Part of Global Threats, the UNM International Studies Institute’s fall 2010 lecture series.

“Political Terrorism and Gender: Comparisons from European History,” a lecture by M. Jane Slaughter, professor, history, and director, arts & humanities research initiatives. Part of Global Threats, the UNM International Studies Institute’s fall 2010 lecture series.