Notes from the Aug. 21, 2005 Regents Meeting

by George Zamora

MESCALERO, N.M., Aug. 25, 2005 – The New Mexico Tech Board of Regents, meeting on August 21 after its annual business retreat, gave its approval to a long list of funding requests for future research and special projects at the state-supported research university in Socorro.

The more than $3 million in approved funding requests for Fiscal Year 2006-2007 will now be forwarded to the New Mexico State Legislature for its consideration during next year’s legislative session.

Included in the appropriation requests are an increase in funding for New Mexico Tech’s Geophysical Research Center, additional staff support for the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources’ new statewide aquifer mapping program, and matching funds for new federally funded research projects at the university’s Petroleum Recovery Research Center.

Additional funding is also sought for several of New Mexico Tech’s existing research divisions and academic programs, including the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center, Institute for Complex Additive Systems, Master of Science Teaching Program, and New Mexico Science and Engineering Fair and Science Olympiad.

In addition, the New Mexico Tech Board of Regents also gave its approval to the school’s five-year facilities plan, another list of funding requests for upcoming capital improvement projects on the university campus.

Ranked high in priority among the “wish list” of major construction projects for New Mexico Tech are renovations of the Kelly Building and Jones Hall, Phase I of a new facility for the New Mexico Bureau of Geology, design and construction of a campus wellness center, and a new building to house the university’s chemistry and materials engineering departments. The facilities plan covers a five-year span beginning with the 2006-2007 Fiscal Year.

In other official actions taken at the university governing board’s monthly meeting, the New Mexico Tech Board of Regents approved a budget recommendation to use $90,000 from revenues earned by the university’s Marion and Irving Langmuir Quasi-Endowment toward the $200,000 total cost of a major electrical upgrade for the Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research, a research facility located atop the Magdalena Mountains since 1963.

Tech regents also approved the recent faculty appointments of Raul Morales Juberias to the full-time, tenure-track position of assistant professor of physics; Sharon L. Sessions to the full-time, tenure-track position of assistant professor of physics; Glenn Spinnelli to the full-time, tenure-track position of assistant professor of Earth and environmental science; and Claudia Mara Dias Wilson to the full-time, tenure-track position of assistant professor of civil engineering, marking the first such appointment in the university’s newest academic department.

Emeritus status was conferred by the board of regents on longtime New Mexico Tech geology professor John Schlue, as well as on longtime New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources geoscientists James M. Barker and Lynn A. Brandvold, all of whom recently retired from their full-time positions at the university.

In other faculty related matters, the Tech regents were informed that a sabbatical leave had recently been granted to John McCoy, professor of materials and metallurgical engineering.

During the meeting, the New Mexico Tech Board of Regents also voted to approve the following measures:

The New Mexico Tech Board of Regents was further informed by Tech administrators that two recent expenditures of more than $100,000 were made with restricted funds, including: