In the field and in the laboratory, in the greenhouse and in the observatory, NMSU students work side-by-side with faculty members on important research projects. It's one of the advantages of attending a major research university.
Hands-on research experience provides both immediate and long-term benefits for students, said Gary Cunningham, interim vice president for research.
"It gives them an opportunity to earn money so they can stay in school," Cunningham said. "It also gives them valuable experience they can use later, in their careers or in graduate school. Students get hands-on experience with the kinds of equipment they will be using in their careers, and they learn how to work with other people, how to analyze data and problem solving skills."
Research opportunities for NMSU students range from programs designed to bring more minority students into the study of science and technology, such as the Alliance for Minority Participation, to laboratory jobs funded by specific research grants. In any case, the students work closely with faculty mentors.
In the past year, NMSU faculty members have demonstrated their ability to bring in more research funding even as research dollars have been getting tighter. The university's research expenditures in the 1996-97 fiscal year totaled $104.87 million, up 5.5 percent from the previous year's $99.41 million.
"In a period when research funding is decreasing and competition for grants is increasing, our faculty have shown that they are nationally competitive, and increasingly so," Cunningham said.
From the student perspective, these research grants and contracts provide educational benefits beyond the opportunities to work as research assistants. Grants help equip laboratories, for example, and provide seed money for more research. And, said Cunningham, "when you have faculty members who are on the leading edge of new knowledge development -- who are not just teaching the stuff found in textbooks -- that has a major impact on the educational experience of our students."
Karl Hill
Building a better walker
NMSU's McNair Scholars program for first generation and minority college
students has given Lacey Cole of Farmington, N.M., left, the opportunity
to work on a research project with physical education professor Rick
Powell, right. Their research shows that walkers, the devices that help
disabled and injured people get from place to place, could be designed
more efficiently. The typical walker uses hand supports, but forearm and
elbow supports would make walkers easier to use by bearing people's weight
more economically, Cole and Powell say. A psychology student, Cole is
interested in health psychology and exercise. Last September, with the
help of additional external funding, the McNair Scholar traveled with
Powell to Seoul, Korea, to present her research at the Seoul
International Conference on Disability -- "an incredible opportunity
for a student," says Cole.
Shooting for the stars
At a telescope they use to study binary star systems are, clockwise from
top, NMSU students Allison Silva, Tom Jarvis, Diana Olivares, Eduardo
Galvan (seated) and Javier Galvan. They are participating in a project
designed to bring more minority students into scientific fields. "The
purpose of this program is not to train astronomers," said NMSU astronomy
professor Bernie McNamara. "We try to give them skills they can use beyond
astronomy -- gathering and analyzing data, digital image processing,
publishing research results." The project is funded through the National
Science Foundation's
RIMI (Research In Minority Institutions) program. The students presented
the results of their research at a meeting of the American Astronomical
Society in Washington, D.C., in January. Eduardo Galvan and Allison Silva
have had a paper accepted for publication in the June 1998 issue of
The Astrophysical Journal.
Busy cartographers
NMSU's geography department has mapped all 36 public airports in New
Mexico, creating comprehensive layouts of current and proposed property
configurations. The majority of the work was completed by NMSU students
majoring in geography. "These maps will basically be used for capital
improvements and planning," said NMSU geography professor Robert Czerniak,
left. "These will help the state and local governments plan for future
developments." Students John Hamilton, right, and Jason Blevins, bottom,
have worked on the project. The new maps are put onto a CD-ROM format,
making one airport map consistent with others and easily updated. The maps
are color-coded and can be customized by including or excluding specific
details. They identify land ownership in buffer zones surrounding each
airport as being local, state, federal or private.
Hoist 'em high
Don't accuse O'Neill Burchett and his students of living in some academic
ivory tower, where theory is king and practicality is the ugly step-child.
Burchett, far right, said his senior design class in mechanical
engineering regularly takes on real-world challenges and turns them into
class projects. From left to right, students Joel Jaramillo, Roger Young,
David Gonzales, Edgar Calderon and David Vasquez demonstrate a viga hoist
developed by the class to help a local builder who needed a simple design
that could be operated by two or three men on a construction site. The
portable hoist can lift vigas and prefabricated building materials (up to
440 pounds) 14-20 feet high using counterweights and a pulley system.
Robert Garcia, owner of Evercon Construction in La Union, N.M., paid for
the parts and machine work, trusting Burchett and his class to come up
with the design.
Cuentos del Varrio
You could say that students at the Panther Achievement Center, an
alternative high school, are in the salvage business. A banner over their
portable classroom near Gadsden High School in Anthony, N.M., tells what
they salvage, "Cuentos del Varrio," neighborhood stories. The students are
tape recording, writing and translating the stories and histories of their
families and neighbors, and taking photographs. Teacher Pauline Staski,
'89, '91, pictured with some of the students, and her fellow teachers
jumped at the chance to develop the oral history project when NMSU public
historian Jon Hunner and linguist Daniel Villa suggested it. The two
faculty members helped the school launch the project with a $10,000 grant
from the New Mexico Juvenile Justice Division. Then they acquired a
$60,000 U.S. West Foundation grant, which provides a computer system that
will enable the students to put their stories on the Internet.
Since their research subjects are located 180 miles from campus at NMSU's
Corona Range and Livestock Research Center, teamwork has taken on new
meaning for Animal Science Professor Mark Petersen (center) of the College
of Agriculture and Home Economics and graduate students Lisa Appeddu and
Jason Sawyer. Traveling the long stretch on Highway 54 between Tularosa
and Corona and working as many as six hours a day corralling and feeding
cattle at the research center can make fast friends of students and
scientists. This research team is concerned with finding optimum
nutritional supplements for range cattle. In initial studies, they've
found that small amounts of protein can improve cows' pregnancy rates by
20 percent. They've also found that supplementing cows with just 100 grams
of fat per day increases their calves' weaning weight by 30 pounds.
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