DAILY LOBO new mexico
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tuesday March 26, 2013
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
Petition: We deserve a raise VP hopeful touts wide experience Candidate has worked with Feds, business and higher ed by John Tyczkowski news@dailylobo.com
Aaron Sweet / Daily Lobo UNM criminology junior Sean Overlin cleans up in the SUB Monday afternoon. Overlin is a student manager at the SUB and has been working there for more than a year. “It’s a good job,” Overlin says. “I can work my way to student building manager from here.” The UNM Labor Coalition submitted a petition to the governor last week for higher salaries and wages at UNM, and it had more than 1,000 signatures
UNM workers ask Guv for overdue pay hike by Rebecca Gonzales news@dailylobo.com
Richard Martinez has been on UNM’s custodial staff for seven years and has only seen a pay raise once. “I am not real happy,” Martinez said. “I wish they’d change their minds about raising wages. Prices go up and we’re not making the money to pay our bills.” The UNM Labor Coalition drafted a petition signed by more than 1,000 students, staff and faculty members that speaks to the pay issue at UNM. The petition, which calls for a raise in all UNM employee salaries and a living wage for hourly labor, was delivered to Gov. Susana Martinez last week, said Doris Williams, a spokeswoman for the coalition. A living wage is not a specific number, but a wage that allows employees to live above the poverty line. Other elements of the petition include a cost-of-living increase, a clause to honor commitments to retirees and a clause to keep tuition affordable via grants and the Lottery Scholarship. Susan Velasquez, director of constituent services at the office of the governor, said the governor received the petition but was already giving attention to legislative bills that addressed the same issues. Among these is the state budget bill, which calls for a 1 percent pay increase for all state workers; a bill that adjusts public employee retirement benefits in accordance
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with the cost-of-living index; and a bill raising the statewide minimum wage. Martinez has said she opposes the minimum wage bill, but has not vetoed it yet. Kayla Russo, a student employee who works in the Student Union Building, said she has been involved with UNM for several years. She remembered signing and supporting a similar petition last year, but has not seen results of that effort. “I have been at UNM for five years and my sister was here two years before that,” Russo said. “After seven years of UNM politics, I feel like it won’t pass.”
“We have not had a raise in four or five years, and in that time, parking, insurance costs, everything has gone up.” ~Judy Hansen librarian and copyright permission specialist Judy Hansen, a librarian and copyright permission specialist for the Fine Arts and Design Library, said she is not very optimistic about the petition. “We may be looking at another couple of hard years,” Hansen said. But she agreed that a pay raise is warranted.
“We have not had a raise in four or five years, and in that time, parking, insurance costs, everything has gone up,” Hansen said. “I like my job and I am grateful for it, but I haven’t had a raise in a long time.” Gordon Hodge, an associate professor of psychology, said a number of roadblocks stand in the way of receiving more funding for employee salaries. “We want to do a lot of things for a lot of people,” Hodge said. “But there doesn’t seem to be sufficient funds. I don’t know where the state would get the money. Some other part would have to lose money.” Hodge also said he felt a petition signed by only those with close ties to UNM may not be as compelling as one signed by a broader base of people, such as other citizens of the city or state. UNM regent Jack Fortner agreed with faculty and staff about the necessity of pay raises. “They deserve their wages,” Fortner said. “State workers are getting a 1 percent pay raise and I think that should be at least the starting point for UNM employees. The reason that UNM is such a good university is we have good professors. If we don’t give them raises, they’re going to go somewhere else.” Fortner said the regents are making higher wages for employees a priority, but funds are an issue. “If the money was there, I’d say ‘absolutely,’” Fortner said. “It is kind of early to tell. I hope we can do enough to keep (employees) satisfied.”
Good spy v. bad spy
50 shades of play
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UNM’s latest candidate for a VP of research and economic development brings experience about how departments can weather sequestration cuts. Richard Billo is the second candidate for the position and spoke at an open forum Thursday. The VP position has been open since June when then-Vice President Julia Fulghum stepped down. An interim vice president, John T. McGraw, has served while the search for a permanent replacement continues. According to the job description available at VPRsearch.unm. edu, the VP for research and economic development is in charge of expanding externally funded research at UNM; promoting interdisciplinary collaboration and collaboration with other research institutions; and assisting faculty in expanding their research role at UNM. According to the salary book available on the UNM Sunshine portal, McGraw makes $145,000 per year. Billo, current interim associate VP for research for the University of Texas at Arlington, said he was the right person for the job because of his experience in the academic world, the corporate world and research for the federal government. His first job was working for Intel, where he managed three departments in Barbados, Puerto Rico and Santa Cruz, Calif. With Intel, he said he learned how to work with and for high-tech companies. After earning his doctorate in industrial engineering at Arizona State University and working at a research center there, Billo worked at Pacific Northwest National Laboratories and formed relationships with the departments of defense and energy. After two years, Billo moved to the University of Pittsburgh where he worked in corporate research and diversity and learned to work with nontechnology companies. “Some of these places had dirt floors where they would pour oil to keep the dust down,” Billo said. “It was a very different culture than the clean rooms I was used to.” Next, Billo worked at Oregon State University and leveraged his industry connections with Intel for fundraising. Finally, he came to UT Arlington, where he started as associate dean for research in the college of engineering. Billo said his varied experience contributed to his collaborative approach to fostering research. He cited an engineering project at UT Arlington that involved chemicals, which he said “engineers really
aren’t used to.” The engineering department wanted to build a new lab in its facilities, but Billo instead let the chemistry department host the project. “I don’t care about department boundaries or territories,” Billo said. “It’s not important to me. We’re all here to do research.” As the interim associate VP of research at UT Arlington, Billo said he acquired an appreciation for arts and humanities as well as science and engineering programs. “Universities are not just about dollars and cents, about big research projects,” Billo said. “Department performance in the arts and humanities is measured much differently.” Billo took questions about how he’s dealt with the federal sequestration cuts and securing enough funding for research projects and how he could do the same at UNM. Billo said he visited agencies, such as the National Science Foundation, in person, along with faculty, to more effectively lobby for funding. “Doing that shows you have a commitment to your faculty and shows that what they’re doing is important to the university,” Billo said. He said he encouraged faculty to spend a year working with the NSF and similar agencies to understand their organizational culture. Working with these organizations would also give faculty an opportunity to network and therefore increase chances of receiving needed funds. “You have to get to know who you’re working with and they have to get to know who they’re funding and their priorities,” Billo said. Billo said he encouraged departments to work with retired state and federal employees who have experience in their respective fields, because those employees understand best how government processes work. Overall, Billo said he wanted to bring a new approach to UNM in terms of safeguarding its research funding during the sequestration cuts. “You can’t just keep on doing the same things you’ve always done for your department funding,” Billo said. “You need to be much more proactive these days.”
Upcoming candidate forums Morris Foster, University of Oklahoma-Norman Monday, April 8 at 2 p.m. SUB Santa Ana A&B Timothy Ford, University of New England Thursday, April 11 at 2 p.m. SUB Ballroom A
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