Notes from the April 15, 2003 Regents Meeting

New Mexico Tech Board of Regents approve lease of Mountain Springs Apartments

by George Zamora

SOCORRO, N.M., April 15, 2003 -- The New Mexico Tech Board of Regents approved a measure today allowing the research university to lease a Socorro apartment complex to house some of the school's burgeoning student population, which may reach record numbers this coming fall semester.

Under the terms of the newly approved three-year contract, New Mexico Tech will lease the apartments from its affiliated New Mexico Tech Research Foundation, which recently negotiated an outright purchase of the Mountain Springs Apartments.

During the April 15 meeting, New Mexico Tech President Daniel H. López told the regents that preliminary figures on new student enrollment for the 2003 Fall Semester at Tech continue to indicate a significant boost in the school's student population over last fall's figure of 1,763 undergraduate and grad students.

In preparation for a possible record number of students at the university, the New Mexico Tech Board of Regents voted to lease the nearby rental property to house some of the students who might be unable to obtain on-campus housing if residence halls fill to capacity as is anticipated.

In addition, a soon-to-start renovation and expansion of the university's historic Cramer Hall will require using one of New Mexico Tech's older residence halls as replacement office space, displacing about 60 Fitch Hall residents--a situation which also will be alleviated with the leasing of the Mountain Springs Apartments, which are located three blocks east of Tech campus.

In another official action taken at its monthly meeting, the New Mexico Tech Board of Regents awarded an honorary doctorate in physics to Charles B. Moore, a longtime Tech physics professor and researcher at the university's renowned Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research.

Moore, an internationally recognized lightning expert, will be officially presented with his honorary Ph.D. next month at New Mexico Tech's commencement ceremonies.

The New Mexico Tech Board of Regents also acted on the following matters during its monthly meeting:

• approved the appointments of Tae-Chang Jo and Oleg Makhnin to the full-time, tenure-track positions of assistant professors of mathematics;
• approved the promotions to associate-professor level and granted tenure to faculty members Mark P. Cal of the environmental engineering department, Scott Teare of the electrical engineering department, and Scott Zeman, history professor with Tech's humanities department; and
• approved promotions to full professorship for Tech faculty members William D. Stone of the mathematics department and Laurel B. Goodwin of the Earth and environmental sciences department.

In addition, the New Mexico Tech Board of Regents were informed that Michael D. Heagy, associate professor of chemistry at Tech, and William Rison, professor of electrical engineering, both had recently had been granted sabbaticals from their teaching duties for portions of the next academic year.

New Mexico Tech President López also announced during the board meeting that a proposed five percent increase in tuition and fees at the university would be formally presented to the Board of Regents for consideration at one of its upcoming scheduled meetings in May.