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Former UNM prof named U.S. Poet Laureate By Beatrice Nisoli @BeatriceNisoli Former University of New Mexico student and professor Joy Harjo was named the U.S. Poet Laureate last week. The Oklahoma-born poet and musician from the Muscogee (Creek) Nation will be the first indigenous person to fulfill the prestigious role, and she found the news to be “shocking.” “It’s quite an opportunity to serve poetry, to serve the community. What I especially love is that it honors Native peoples too.” Harjo credits the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA)— her Santa Fe high school— with initially influencing her to pursue the arts. However, it was only upon enrolling at the University of New Mexico in the early 1970s that Harjo discovered and fostered her love for writing poetry. In her time at the University of New Mexico, Harjo found herself gravitating towards programs such as Kiva Club, a student organization. Though she first entered UNM as a pre-medical student, Harjo quickly found herself attracted to
the art studio, which mirrored her experience at IAIA. “I realized that a physician’s healing work can happen through art,” Harjo said. “And then I heard Native poets for the first time while at UNM. I had always loved poetry, but I had never heard Native poets. It revised my life.” According to Harjo, this shift from art to poetry surprised her, because she had always considered herself to be a timid person. “I wasn’t someone you would call a wordsmith," Harjo said. "But it’s as if the poetry spirit told me, ‘you need to learn how to speak; you need to learn how to listen.’ ” During her time as a UNM professor, Harjo made an overwhelming impact on staff and students alike. Sharon Warner, a UNM Professor Emerita in Creative Writing, befriended Harjo while they worked at the University and they have remained in touch ever since. “I think her work is very strongly grounded in the spiritual world; that is, a spiritual world that comes out of nature and people rather than a specific deity,” Warner said. “Her work opens a door to what poetry has to offer to all of us in terms
Sports cuts a done deal
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From top left, beach volleyball, men’s soccer and women’s skiing.
By Robert Maler @Robert_Maler The proposed cuts voted on by the University of New Mexico Board of Regents last summer was one of the biggest sports stories of 2018 for Albuquerque. But despite campaign promises by both candidates running for governor of New Mexico — beach volleyball, men's soccer, and men's
and women's skiing will no longer be a part of UNM Athletics as the calendar hits July 1. Some members of the community were outraged by the decision to eliminate the four sports, questioning the fairness involved in forcing current student-athletes to make a sacrifice for problems they played no part in creating. The decision to eliminate the sports had
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Inside this Issue GRIJALVA: Column — Reaching for the other half MALER: NM upset highlight of UFC fight
of understanding our place in the world and how we can relate to one another in a peaceful way.” Greg Martin, who is also a Creative Writing professor at UNM, spoke about Harjo’s well-known ability to connect with and inspire students. "Joy gave all her students here at UNM courage and inspiration, but she also gave them excellent instruction in craft, in both poetry and prose,” Martin said. “Both as a teacher, and as a colleague in the department, she was warm and patient, kind, fully present. She was a kind of hero to many of us, literary nobility, but she never acted like one.” In addition to writing poetry and mentoring students, Harjo enjoys intertwining music with her talented use of words. According to Harjo, she mentally hears the melody of her poetry as she comes up with it. She even learned to play the saxophone due to her belief that music is innate to poetry. However, music is not the only source of inspiration Harjo has drawn from. “There’s not just one thing that inspires me," Harjo said. "Poets are often messengers, and as such we’re often listening. We’re
listening to the earthquakes that nobody feels yet, or we’re listening to sunrises and sunsets, or to the flowers, or to what’s going on in general. What inspires me is that I am a commentator and a witness to a particular generation, to time, to people.” Harjo said that humanity gravitates toward poetry when there is a birth, a death, a wedding, a falling in love and a falling out of love; poetry is an interpretation of emotion. However, she also recognizes her poetry as a means to breach animosity and find common ground despite differences in ideology or background. “We need to learn to listen to each other and speak to each other across false boundaries that have been put up. There’s been a lot of divisiveness in this country, and poetry is a way to speak to each other despite that,” Harjo said. She plans to carry this mentality into her Poet Laureate position and utilize it as a way to introduce younger generations to poetry as well as draw more attention to indigenous poets. The interview closed with Joy Harjo lending words of wisdom to
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Joy Harjo as photographed by Shawn Miller for the Library of Congress
the Daily Lobo readers: “An Isleta Pueblo woman gave me the best advice I’ve ever been given, and that was to just be yourself.” Beatrice Nisoli is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @BeatriceNisoli.
Education prof takes on deanship By Justin Garcia @Just516garc Becoming the Dean of the College of Education was never the plan, but that’s where Deborah Rifenbary finds herself for the incoming Fall 2019 semester. Rifenbary is replacing the former dean, Salvador Hector Ochoa, on an interim basis. Ochoa left the University of New Mexico for a provost position at San Diego State University, according to an SDSU news release. He starts July 2. Before Ochoa left, Rifenbary said she was planning on retiring in December. “I think the college is in a transition right now. I think that I am someone who can offer stability. I have always been an advocate for faculty voice, collaboration and collegiality. I am committed to student success,” Rifenbary, who previously held an associate dean position in the college, told the Daily Lobo. The position vacancy, which Rifenbary described as sudden and unexpected, comes as the college grapples with the domino effects of declining enrollment. Rifenbary acknowledged the University’s enrollment problem as a significant challenge, but said that it allows them to rethink how they teach students. Rifenbary is drawling on a well of experience in teaching as the college undergoes that transition. Teaching has been her life for a long time. “You have to realize, at the time
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Deborah Rifenbary, now the UNM College of Education interim dean, looks over the shoulder of Austrian schoolchildren as they create posters depicting New Mexico. Photo Courtesy of the UNM College of Education.
I graduated college and was getting my masters degree, there weren't the same opportunities that there are right now for young women,” she said. She described the expectations of that time as: Either you were a teacher, a nurse or you got married. So, she became a teacher, first in Jersey City, N.J., while she obtained her first masters in the early 1970s. Rifenbary then returned to her hometown of Kingston, N.Y., where she taught English.
When she was 24 years old, Rifenbary made her way to Berlin, Germany, teaching at the John F. Kennedy School, an experience she described as life changing. Rifenbary taught German students, American students (children of the post-war american military presence) and students of expats from around the world, obtaining her masters in counseling along the way.
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