Notes by: Ilse
WORKING GROUP MEETING 6 DECEMBER
REPORT BACKS
UNM LIAISON/OUTREACH GROUP
* Desi is doing a teach-in on legislative workings and issues Wednesday 7 December P+J 3:30-5:30
* Sarita and Elaine are working on compiling an archive/database/general resource collection
* Desi has done teach-ins (2 at Highland, 1 at Rio Grande High School; will do another next week at a charter school). Daan Schwarz has done one at UNM Valencia.
* African American Studies department planning events around Martin Luther King Day celebrations. Desi will enquire how we can potentially articulate with them.
GRAFFITI GROUP
We’re postponing our big event till beginning next semester. We will have markers and cloth outside the SUB (east side) to collect smaller and more mobile graffitis to carry with us to Santa Fe. Will start doing this after the UNM presidential candidate talk Thursday around 1.
MALL ROVING GA
Who is going to be around during the winter break who can take this one on?
UNM PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES SESSIONS
The five finalists will do meeting sessions with staff/faculty (10:30-11:30) and students (11:45-1:00) starting Thursday 8 December through Wednesday 14 December in the SUB Ballrooms. Anyone who can, please attend and ask questions. [I am including below an email I had compiled for the Graduate Employee Together group to mobilise that group for tomorrow’s meeting with Elsa A Murano. Several attachments on the candidate. I will be doing similar cursory backgrounds on the other candidates. If you want to receive these, let me know off list.]
JANUARY 17 GROUP
Skype conference call:
* decided to reach out to those communities who didn’t participate in the call
* Española representative wants to contact teachers’ union
* Can Desi (/someone else) do more teach-ins on legislative procedure before 17 Jan or on the day?
* Program on day will now be arrive 11:00, mobilise 11:30, and be at Roundhouse by 12:00 for mike check
* Once governor starts her speech, we could leave to do GA or something.
* Press conference real possibility (Desi is organising with J Oriz y Piño). Presumably this will take place after state of the state thingy?
* Desi mentioned possibility of out getting access to committee rooms in the Roundhouse for our working group meetings. This might be a good idea. What would the parameters be of such an arrangement? Will they be available to us after 5? How many could we get hold of? Any restrictions?
* Will the public audience section be open during the opening spectacle?
* Desi believes we could get access to the Planned Progressive Caucus Session and do a teach-in on what we stand for etc. (They are potentially 20-25 people who form something of a voting block)
General tasks:
* Outreach to faculty crucial
* Flyers necessary to get word out
* What will we say during mike checks?
* Sebastian will send out original brainstorming list of topics to take to the legislature. Brainstorm more about topics
* Andy mentioned that normally (i.e. not during all the pomp and ceremony) everything but the chamber is open to the public. We could make use of this later in the session. (This morning’s NPR edition had a story on the Washington Occupy Congress method of people going in to see representatives etc.)
ELSA A MURANO: FIRST CANDIDATE
11:45-1 THURSDAY 8 DECEMBER
She seems to be a bit of a mixed bag. I am attaching some documents/articles that seem relevant here. She seems to be a ground breaker of sorts (first Hispano woman pres at A&M, highest food safety health official under Bush, 2008 TX Women’s Hall of Fame). The so-called Murano report on enhancing undergrad experiences is perhaps not that earth shattering (didn’t study the thing, only glanced at main discussion sections). Wiki has a longish piece on her but the section on her evaluation and resignation was flagged. There are many other sources on this. theeagle.com piece is interesting on this issue more for the numerous comments to the piece than anything else. I am attaching the evaluation and her response. Difficult to contextualise from so far removed. Some arbitrary things: She presided over Chevron funding A&M with $1.3million. In 2004 the Safe Tables Our Priority (STOP) group complained about Murano (then undersecretary for food safety) for being “less-than-committed” to hearing from consumer representatives. There is also a thing about the USDA coopting/scooping a STOP event. Not sure what to make of that. What I liked most from what I had read about her is her retroactive elimination of tuition for A&M students with parents earning <$60k (in Wiki story). What worried me the most immediately is the Memorial Student Centre renovation story where the student body had voted on the project, thought it was being implemented, and a year later found out that Murano had decided to change the plans for the centre without consulting with/informing the student body. We might have had enough of that nonsense already here.
