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Thursday, S eptember 26, 2019 | Vo l u m e 1 2 4 | I s s u e 1 3
UNM sees another decline in enrollment By Justin Garcia @Just516garc For the seventh consecutive year, student enrollment at the University of New Mexico has dropped — certain to cause a ripple of effects in funding throughout the University. Undergraduate enrollment fell 6.5% (16,170) for the fall 2019 semester, while combined graduate and professional enrollment fell 6% (6,130), contributing to a five-year decline of 16.67% (22,792). The Albuquerque Journal reported that UNM expects a $4 million budget shortfall as a result of the enrollment decline. In 2018, UNM saw a $10 million shortfall from a 7% decline. “It’s never nice when you have to (fill) a budget shortfall,” Holloway told the Journal. “We have the reserves to do it. Spending reserves this way will probably mean not doing some other things. There will have to be some strategic choices made, but we can manage this.” The enrollment decline has not been uniform across all University colleges and schools, according to headcount data from the Office of Enrollment Reports. Over the last five years, University College has seen the largest decline. The 80% decline from a
Computer Science professor recognized in high performance and technical computing By Lissa Knudsen @lissaknudsen
Justin Garcia / @Just516garc / Daily Lobo
An empty chair in Smith Plaza facing Zimmerman Library on Sept. 25, 2019.
2015 high of 8,719 students brings the college’s enrollment to 1,674 in 2019. The College of Engineering has also seen a significant decline from 2,287 in 2015 to 1,881 in 2019 — a 17.75% decline. Some schools and colleges that have maintained or even grown their enrollment headcount saw a decline in 2019. Anderson School of Management has seen a two year decline from a 2017 high of 2,446 to 2,102. The School of Nursing went from 794 in 2017 to 721 in 2019, a 9.19% decline.
Many of the smaller schools and colleges at UNM have actually seen an enrollment increase. Fine Arts saw a slight increase from 994 in 2015 to 1,004 in 2019. College of Population Health grew from 63 in 2015 to 82 in 2019. This is the first in a series of articles about UNM’s enrollment decline and its effects. Justin Garcia is the Editor-inChief of the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at editorinchief@dailylo-
Dr. Trilce Estrada, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of New Mexico, was recently named the 2019 recipient of the Emerging Woman Leader in Technical Computing award. Presented by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the international award aims to recognize women in the middle stage of their careers in the field of high performance and technical computing. The Emerging Woman Leader in Technical Computing designation is a biennial award open to women with a background in technical computing research, education and/or practice. According to the ACM website, "this international award creates a new career milestone achievement, and also establishes a cohort of role models for students and professionals who are just getting started in our field." "There are very few awards recognizing individuals in the middle stage of their careers and none
CIA funds new professor at UNM By Alex Hiett @dailylobo The University of New Mexico is building upon its relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The memorandum allows the agency to station an active-duty CIA operative on campus. UNM alumnus and CIA agent David Berg arrived on campus earlier this fall. Berg will be stationed at the University for two years, teaching classes and serving as a resource for students seeking career opportunities within the CIA. His classes will begin next semester and include Ethics in Cyber Intelligence, Technology, and Social Media for National Security, and Introduction to Global and National Security. David Berg graduated from UNM in 1999, double-majoring in criminology and psychology and going on to graduate programs at both Northern Arizona University and Arizona State University. He
served in the Marine Corps and the Army at different points in his career, later joining the CIA through a graduate fellowship program. Berg has been at the CIA full-time since 2008 and has done work related to counter-insurgency analysis and counter-terrorism operations. "Most of my work is focused on terrorism, so I spend a lot of time traveling to countries that are dealing with a terrorist issue, or have a national security interest related to terrorism," Berg told the Daily Lobo. "I spent a lot of time doing counter-ISIS work." The MOU that brought Berg to UNM is a different memorandum than the one that made UNM part of the CIA’s Signature School Program. The signature school MOU was signed in 2016 by then-President Bob Frank and was renewed this summer by President Garnett Stokes. An MOU, signed by interim President Chaouki Abdallah in 2017, brought Berg to the University. While at UNM, the CIA will be paying his salary. Berg described the agreement as "basically free labor for the University." Berg said his mission at UNM
involves teaching and outreach. His goal is to talk to people and educate them about the intelligence community and national security issues. This semester, much of his time has been devoted to outreach. On the whiteboard in his office, Berg is maintaining a diagram of the faculty members to which he’s been trying to introduce himself. "If they have questions, if I can bust some myths about the CIA in the process and break down some barriers between the UNM community and the CIA, I want to help do that," Berg said. Not everybody at the University is convinced of the potential benefits from the CIA’s partnership with UNM. William Stanley, the director of the Latin American & Iberian Institute, previously expressed concern to the Albuquerque Journal that the signature school designation for UNM has the potential to make student research in Latin America less safe, given the history of the CIA’s intervention in the region. Berg responded to these worries by saying the CIA’s relation-
aimed specifically at women. These are the years when faculty are working toward promotion and practitioners are moving through middle levels of management, a period which can be especially challenging for women," said the ACM SIGHPC website.
see
Estrada page 3
Photo Courtesy of the University of New Mexico.
Trilce Estrada, associate professor in the department of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico and director of the Data Science Laboratory.
Photo courtesy of the CIA
ships with prestigious universities date back to World War II with no evidence of negative impact on students or institutions. He said the CIA would be mindful of the kind of effect they have. "I’m just really excited to be back at UNM. I love UNM — I always have." Berg said. "I can’t believe that the CIA’s letting me do this,
and I’m really excited and happy that the University is letting me do this." Alex Hiett is a freelance news reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted through news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @dailylobo
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