Flores

William V. Flores, formerly dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at California State University at Northridge, has been appointed to the position of provost at New Mexico State University. The provost is the university’s chief academic officer and serves as acting president when necessary. Flores has been a dean and professor of political science at Cal State Northridge since June 1996. He previously taught at Cal State Fresno, where he was associate dean of the School of Social Sciences and, prior to that, chairman of the Department of Chicano-Latin American Studies. He also has taught at Stanford, Santa Clara University and Cal State Hayward. He received a Rockefeller Fellowship for Scholarship in the Humanities in 1993 and spent a year as a visiting scholar at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York.

Intel and Microsoft donate to engineering computer lab

The Intel and Microsoft corporations have donated computers and software valued at $90,000 to upgrade the computer laboratory in the College of Engineering.

Over the course of a year, Intel donated 25 computers valued at about $60,000, and Microsoft donated software valued at about $30,000.

“The state-of-the-art Engineering Computer Laboratory at New Mexico State, made possible through generous donations from Intel and Microsoft, supports students majoring in mechanical and industrial engineering and engineering technology,” College of Engineering Dean Jay B. Jordan said.

University awarded NASA math and science education grant

New Mexico State has been awarded funding from NASA for a project aimed at increasing minority enrollment in technology-related majors.

The NASA grant will fund the Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Aerospace Academy, said Susan W. Brown, a professional development coordinator in the university’s College of Education and a co-director of the academy.

NASA will provide $400,000 and 10 computerized work stations, which the university will use to create summer and weekend workshops for students in public elementary, middle and high schools.

Initiative to improve higher education for Hispanic youth receives grant

New Mexico State University in collaboration with students, parents, schools and the business community in Las Cruces has received a $1.3 million grant to implement a fouryear plan aimed at reducing the dropout rate and improving higher education opportunities for Hispanic youth.

The grant funds Southern New Mexico ENLACE, which includes three area school districts, the Dona Ana Branch Community College, seven community groups, the city housing authority and the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce.

“We want to address the issue holistically,” said Juan N. Franco, New Mexico State vice president for administration and principal investigator on the project. “We need to address critical issues, such as the high dropout rate among Hispanic students.”

New Mexico State is one of 13 colleges and universities that have partnered with their communities in the second phase of the ENLACE (ENgaging LAtino Communities for Education) initiative. The partnerships are part of a six-year, $28 million effort funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Houston Endowment Inc. New Mexico State also joins the University of New Mexico and Santa Fe Community College to form a statewide collaborative, ENLACE in New Mexico. UNM and Santa Fe Community College also received $1.3 million grants and the state collaborative will receive an additional $1 million.

“The New Mexico collaborative is unique; it gives us the opportunity to have greater reach and influence,” said Elisa Sanchez, New Mexico State’s ENLACE director.

ENLACE is derived from the Spanish word enlazar, which means to link or weave. The initiative’s guiding principal is that community-based partnerships are the foundation upon which lifelong learning and achievement are built.

“The intent is to support education through the collaborative efforts of communities,” Sanchez said. “This shared endeavor acknowledges that the educational success of Latino students is everyone’s business.”

The Southern New Mexico project has five main goals: supporting and encouraging informed academic planning and achievement; involving the community in supporting educational achievement of area youth; empowering families and fostering change within the community to achieve greater access and academic success of Latino students; strengthening the collaborative investment of all stakeholders in the educational and economic development of area youth; and becoming agents for effective policy reform.

“ENLACE has the potential to be a major turning point for our educational system. We will show significant cultural contributions of Latinos and how cultural identity is tied to educational success,” said Irene Oliver Lewis, executive director of the Court Youth Center in Las Cruces, an ENLACE community partner.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 “to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations.”

Julie M. Hughes, ’95

KRWG-TV documentary wins regional Emmy

Perez and Shumow

El favor de los Santos, a KRWGTV documentary on the historic role of religious images in the lives of residents of the American Southwest, Mexico and Latin America, has received a Rocky Mountain Emmy Award. Hugo Perez, ’94, and Moses Shumow, ’01, the documentary’s producers, received the coveted Emmy statuette June 30 at the annual awards ceremony in Scottsdale, Ariz. El Favor de los Santos was honored for Program Achievement, Cultural Issues Programming. This is the first year that a KRWGTV production had been nominated for an Emmy. “The nomination was totally unexpected,” Perez said. “I was very humbled to be in the company of so many experienced and talented journalists.” Each year, the National Academy of Television Arts and Science chapters across the country recognize and reward excellence in their broadcasting communities. The Rocky Mountain/Southwest Chapter has done this for 24 years through the annual Rocky Mountain Emmy Awards. “Even to be nominated and to be judged by your peers was an honor,” Shumow said. “To win and to have our effort recognized validates a lot of hard work.”

Satellite radio built from off-the-shelf parts

When NASA launches three miniature satellites in the summer of 2003, the trio’s communications system will have components familiar to any amateur radio operator, said Stephen Horan, a professor at the Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Horan said a team from New Mexico State built the communications system for the experimental satellites out of parts they ordered from catalogs.

“The design was based on experiments we did in the laboratory and we stripped everything we didn’t need off the components, but the components themselves would be familiar to any amateur radio builder who regularly orders out of catalogs,” Horan said.

Working with Horan were Larry Alvarez, a New Mexico State electrical engineering technician; Michael Jourdan, an electrical engineering major; and Allison Silva, an engineering technology major.

Balloon flight will shed new light on mysterious neutrinos

A New Mexico State researcher will send a scientific balloon aloft on a mission next spring that could help unravel some of the mystery of neutrinos — wispy subatomic particles that are passing through your body by the billions as you read this.

Steve Stochaj, director of New Mexico State’s Particle Astrophysics Laboratory, has been awarded a National Science Foundation grant of about $535,000 for the project, which will provide scientists with new data in their quest to understand neutrinos and their role in the cosmos.

Scientists know that neutrinos are produced in a specific kind of particle interaction called “weak interaction.” The decay of a variety of subatomic particles produce neutrinos, but the numbers of neutrinos detected by instruments on the Earth’s surface fall short of the numbers predicted by current theories of physics, Stochaj said.

A key to solving the discrepancy could be a better understanding of what happens to particles from space as they strike and pass through the Earth’s atmosphere.

Four Corners grasses win New Mexico State thirst test

Greener lawns with less water? It’s no pipe dream, according to researchers from New Mexico State.

Members of the university’s Agricultural Science Center in Farmington, N.M., say they can show homeowners and turfgrass managers in northwestern New Mexico how to conserve water and still grow plush green lawns.

The center studied 14 turfgrass varieties for the Four Corners area to find out which ones make the best use of water while still providing acceptable coverage and quality green color.

The study also provided data for precise lawn watering recommendations for each species, something previously lacking for northwestern New Mexico.

“We can now recommend alternative grass species with acceptable quality that use less water and that are generally more drought-tolerant,” said Dan Smeal, an agriculture specialist who headed the study.

The project compared water usage rate for several varieties of warm- and cool-season turfgrasses.

Cool-season varieties such as blue grasses, rye grasses and fescues generally grow best during cooler months, allowing them to green up in early spring and retain their color until late fall.

Warm-season varieties such as buffalo and Bermuda grasses grow best in the hot summer months, giving them a shorter growing season.

Growth rates for each species were recorded during 1998, 1999 and 2000. Overall, the study showed the non-native, cool-season varieties needed about 40 percent more water to stay lush than the native, warmseason varieties.

A flow chart that shows water efficient irrigation schedules for optimum greening of each of the varieties studied will soon be made available online and in print through New Mexico State’s Cooperative Extension Service, Smeal said.

Dolores Lenko dies

Dolores Lenko is seen here with Sam Donaldson on the set of her show Que Pasa with Dolores, which she hosted for 20 years on KRWG-TV before her death in July. Donaldson, a prominent broadcast journalist, was on the New Mexico State campus in October 1999 to speak for a benefit for the television station.

Dolores Lenko, the host of KRWG-TV’s Que Pasa with Dolores, died July 10 in Scottsdale, Ariz., following a brief illness. Lenko had completed her 20th year as host and producer of the popular KRWG-TV television magazine program in June. The show was broadcast from the New Mexico State campus. She began her career at KRWG-TV as host for a 26- week program sponsored by the American Cancer Society called Cancer Answers. After the program ended, she was asked to host a new program about New Mexico. In addition to hosting Que Pasa, she was KRWG-TV membership director for a number of years. She retired from that position in 1998. For two decades, Lenko interviewed New Mexicans young and old and introduced Que Pasa viewers to New Mexico’s historic byways and communities. Lenko interviewed and featured many of New Mexico’s most prominent political and social leaders.

Originally from Iowa, where she received a degree in English from the University of Iowa, Lenko moved to New Mexico 31 years ago. She had been a teacher in New York City and taught in Las Cruces and in Albuquerque before beginning her broadcasting career.

Lowry named New Mexico State women’s coach

Lowry

Nikita Lowry was promoted in March to head women’s basketball coach at New Mexico State. She succeeds former Aggie head coach John Sutherland who resigned March 12. “I’m excited about the opportunity because the future of Aggie basketball is bright. I look forward to many Sun Belt Conference championships and NCAA tournament appearances,” Lowry said. “The talent to succeed is already here, and with the recruits we have coming for next season, we have a chance to make Aggie basketball a household name.” Prior to coming to New Mexico State as an assistant coach, Lowry was the head women’s basketball coach at Detroit-Mercy from 1996 to 1999. She led the team to two Mid-Continent Conference tournament finals and coached 10 all-conference athletes as well as 20 honors students. She compiled a 48-38 overall and a 30-14 conference record during her four seasons. As a player for Ohio State, Lowry led the Big Ten her junior year in scoring, rebounding, field goal percentage and steals. She earned first-team All-American honors as a senior and also was named the Big Ten Player-of-the-Year by the Chicago Tribune after repeating as the league’s scoring champion. She was inducted into Ohio State University’s Athletics Hall of Fame in September 2000.

President Gogue calls NCAA decision a fair one

The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions reached a fair decision regarding violations that occurred in the men’s basketball program in 1996 and 1997, university President Jay Gogue said in June.

“The committee looked at us very carefully and we think the judgement was a fair one,” Gogue said. “We’re ready to move forward now. We plan no appeal.”

The president’s comments followed a news conference at which Committee on Infractions Chairman Jack Friedenthal announced the committee’s findings on the violations, the majority of which were selfreported by the university to the NCAA enforcement staff in February 2000. The committee added several penalties to those the university imposed on itself last December for violations involving a former head coach and two former assistant coaches.

New Mexico State Athletics Director Brian Faison noted that none of the coaching staff or players involved in the violations are with the basketball program now.

A copy of the committee report is available on the NCAA’s Web site at www.ncaa.org.