Dear UNM-Taos Students, Faculty and Staff,
Happy New Year and welcome to the Spring, 2013 semester that begins Monday, January 14!
I know it’s cold out there, and we are starting the semester earlier than usual this year, but we have a great lineup of courses, enthusiastic new teachers and more than a half dozen new staff, including much-needed advisors. Please sign up for a class, if you haven’t already, and encourage your friends and family to do the same---it’s a great way to help make our community and our community college the best they can be. Here are just some of the highlights of the past year:
Special thanks go to David Trujillo, Anita Bringas and Walter Lane for their success in bringing in two Upward Bound grants, one for math and science and the other for veterans. Please join me in welcoming the new staff as you meet them.
Juan Montes and his team are moving forward with the CAMP grant and we wish them continuing momentum as they gear up to serve our community.
We are excited to announce that we are getting closer to the long-awaited “one stop shop” for student enrollment and advising. Patricia Gonzales and her team are now the folks to see for registration, financial aid, advising, scholarships, veterans’ services, Lobo ID’s, payment plans, and more.
The Department of Instruction has now taken on the faculty contracts duties. Thanks to Gina Vigil, Ana Pacheco and Roberta Vigil, all faculty issues will now be under one roof.
Because of the passage of the GO Bond and the GRT this past year you will continue to see infrastructure repairs and development around the Klauer Campus. We are fortunate to have Jim Pollard spearheading the efforts with Mario Suazo, Rudy Baca and Joaquin Cantu and their teams---literally---doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
And on a very special note, kudos to Tracy Jaramillo and her team for achieving Five Star NAEYC Accreditation for the UNM-Taos Kids’ Campus. The vision first championed a decade ago by former UNM-Taos ECME professor Margaret Mactavish, and supported by so many others, including our local Rep. Bobby Gonzales and Sen. Carlos Cisneros, has finally come to full fruition. Congratulations to Director Jaramillo along with the staff, advisory board and all of the Kids’ Campus families. Well done!
We are excited to finally have our head librarian Kathleen Knoth and the UNM-Taos Library at the Klauer Campus. We look forward to the day when they have larger quarters, but for now the library staff is doing a great job providing students with a place to get online, conduct research and take advantage of the extraordinary opportunities of interlibrary loan.
Along the same lines, the HELP Center is up and running, CASA tutoring is expanding, and online learning continues to grow. UNM-Taos Student Government is especially active this year and we thank Bill Knief for his guidance and enthusiasm.
Clearly, there is much to be proud of; I am barely getting started. Suffice it to say there are just a lot of amazing and exciting things happening all around campus.
As I head off to the 2013 legislative session in Santa Fe, I must say that we will be facing major challenges in the coming semesters in regard to formula funding, Pell grant limits and other economic matters. Despite these issues, however, there’s no better place to be than UNM-Taos right now. As we turn ten years of age, we are truly coming into our own.
With best wishes for an engaging and transformative semester. All the best!
Dr. Kate O’Neill
