Daily Lobo new mexico
wednesday October 1, 2014 | Volume 119 | Issue 33
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
Frank urged to divest from fuel companies Success By Marielle Dent
A group of activists and students are urging UNM President Bob Frank to sell off all University investments in fossil fuel companies within the next five years — and UNM administration is listening. Fossil Free, a campaign affiliated with 350.org, leads similar campaigns on campuses all over the country, and said their petition at UNM is the most successful one yet.
Fossil Free is a global campaign working to convince major institutional leaders to immediately freeze new investments in fossil fuels and to divest any stocks within the industry. It is just one of 350.org’s movements to preserve our planet and act against global warming. “A university should be dedicated to the future of its students, and this particular type of investment goes against the future of students. Unless, of course, you don’t believe in climate
change, which is absurd,” said Ken Bergeron, a Fossil Free member. The UNM Foundation manages University investments and is worth $425 million, Frank said. A finance committee meets quarterly to oversee the investment of that money and to maximize investment strategies, Frank said. A meeting between the Foundation and Fossil Free is being scheduled to discuss and debate divestment, but a date has not yet been set. “The investments (in fossil fuels)
are only a very small portion of the $425 million. It’s like a raindrop in a puddle,” Frank said. “Their job is to maximize the returns to the University and it’s not enough to achieve what these guys are saying. It’s only a symbolic act, but it’s an important one.” Fossil Free regularly petitions on campus, gathering signatures from students and other people who want to see UNM walk their talk when it comes to protecting the environment, Bergeron said.
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Divestment page 2
GPA increase discussed at conference
William Aranda / Daily Lobo / @_WilliamAranda
Panelist Dr. Nancy López, left, speaks during the “Exclusion Masked as Excellence” seminar in the SUB Santa Ana A&B on Tuesday afternoon. Panelists at the seminar discussed their disapproval of raising the high school GPA requirement from 2.5 to 2.75.
Seminar aimed at shedding light on inequality on college campuses By Jonathan Baca Students and faculty crammed into a crowded conference room in the Student Union Building to discuss the “continued practice of keeping students of color out of the University.” The panel discussion on Tuesday, titled “Exclusion Masked as Excellence,” brought together experts from the UNM community, including professors, graduate students and activists, to discuss rules and regulations that have the unintended consequence of limiting the ability of minorities to attend and succeed at UNM. The event was hosted by OurUNM, the New Mexico Coalition for Equality and Justice, RGSA, Lambda Theta Phi Latin Fraternity, the Project for New Mexico Graduates of Color and ENLACE. The main topic of discussion was the proposal to raise the mini-
mum grade point average required for college students to receive the New Mexico Lottery Scholarship from 2.5 up to 2.75. For years the Lottery Scholarship, which is funded by sales of state lottery tickets, has been spending more money than it brings in, and one of the proposed solutions the New Mexico State Legislature has discussed is raising academic requirements for scholarship recipients, speakers said. The panel speakers believe this will disproportionately affect minority and low income students, who rely more heavily on the Lottery scholarship and would not be able to afford tuition without it. While much of the discussion focused on issues specific to UNM, many of the speakers talked about the university system in general, and issues of race and privilege that affect society at large. The discussion also examined the ideas of merit and mediocrity,
two concepts the speakers claim were created in order to keep power in the hands of the powerful and prevent minorities and lower income people from improving their status in society. Doctoral graduate student Virginia Necochea, who focuses on the education system and how it relates to racial issues, spoke at the event. She discussed how the argument of raising GPA and test score requirements to increase the achievement of students is deeply flawed, because it is based on faulty assumptions. “(This argument) is assuming that our education system is working fairly and that it is functioning in an applicable way,” she said. “We see the colleges and universities argue that the way to increase excellence at the institutions is by increasing admission requirements such as GPA, test scores, etc. Although research has shown that
there is a correlation between GPA, higher test scores and what is considered success at college, we also know that these factors are also associated with family income.” Santhosh Chandrashekar, another panel speaker, is a graduate student focused on critical race theory and the political economy of the media. Chandrashekar charged that while UNM is increasing its efforts to recruit international students in an attempt to increase the diversity of the university, it is doing so at the expense of minority groups here in New Mexico, like Native American and African American students. Chandrashekar also said that the international students who are selected are chosen because they are the most likely to succeed in getting advanced degrees. This boosts statistics that are critical to UNM for its image and for certain funding.
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Exclusion page 3
of Native students a priority By Raleigh Silversmith and Jonathan Baca Keeping and graduating Native American students has been a problem for some time, but the source and solution have not yet been found. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Native Americans make up 10.4 percent of New Mexico’s population, well above the national average of 1.2 percent. UNM’s student body, on the other hand, is only 6 percent Native American, a report presented at the September Board of Regents meeting. The rate at which Native American students drop out or fail to graduate on time, also known as the retention rate, is well below the average of other ethnic groups at UNM, Provost Chaouki Abdallah said. Because there is such a small number of Native Americans at UNM, the data shifts severely when only two or three students do not succeed at graduating, Abdallah said. The same happens when another two or three students graduate successfully and the rates spike up suddenly. Pamela Agoyo is the director of the American Indian Student Services office at UNM, an organization founded in 1980 to help raise the Native American student population and offer support in the form of financial assistance and cultural belonging. The assumption seems to be that Native students are coming to campus unprepared for the different and overwhelming responsibilities of academic life and this presents a big problem, Agoyo said. “Our previous graduation rate has been around 25 percent, but we’ve seen some small gains and we’re at about 31.5 percent,” she said. The most recent overall graduation rate for the entire student body, however, is about 48 percent. The retention rates for Caucasian students, both nationally and at UNM, are typically higher than the rates for minorities, something Abdallah called the “achievement gap.” Retention rates for Hispanic students are now better than they have ever been, and Abdallah said he hopes the rates for Native American students will increase as well. “We’re going to be focusing a lot more on the Native American populations this year,” he said. When asked about the retention rates for Native students, Agoyo did not comment. There are a number of struggles Native students have to overcome to attend college and do well in a university setting, and people at UNM don’t seem to agree on the source of the problem, or how to handle it. There are many unique cultural and academic challenges that
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Retention page 2