Three Placitas students accepted by 2007 leadership program

Gage Davis, Sarah McPhee, and Clayton Richards, all students at Bernalillo Middle School and Placitas residents, have been accepted into the People to People World Leadership Forum. The three will join a group of students in Washington, D.C., April 9 through 15, 2007, to earn school credits while studying leadership and exploring some of the most prominent United States monuments and institutions.

From Capitol Hill to the Smithsonian Institute and from colonial Williamsburg to the National Museum of American History, the students will examine the characteristics of American leadership during times of national challenge and prosperity. Forum delegates will also participate in small group discussions and exercises to experience firsthand how successful leaders develop strategies, make decisions, build consensus, and foster change.

Nominations for the People to People World Leadership Forum are based on outstanding scholastic merit, civic involvement, and leadership potential.

The program is coordinated by People to People Student Ambassador Programs to fulfill the vision Dwight D. Eisenhower had for fostering world citizenship when he founded People to People during his presidency in 1956.

Making Lottery Success Scholarships sustainable

—Think New Mexico
The New Mexico Lottery exists to provide the maximum amount of revenues for full-tuition scholarships at public colleges and universities in New Mexico. These Lottery Success Scholarships have sent over thirty-eight thousand of New Mexico's best students to college. Unfortunately, for every dollar bet on the lottery, only twenty-four cents goes to scholarships, while nearly twenty cents goes to pay operating and administrative costs.

The Higher Education Department projects that the scholarship fund will face an $18 million deficit in 2011, when the cost of the scholarships will exceed lottery revenues and current cash reserves will be depleted.

When that occurs, the eligibility requirements for the scholarship will have to be raised so that many deserving students will no longer qualify for Success Scholarships, or the value of the scholarship will have to be cut for all students, increasing the financial burden on already stretched New Mexico families.

Think New Mexico proposes a different strategy for making Lottery Success Scholarships sustainable: cut the disproportionately high operating and administrative costs at the New Mexico Lottery and reallocate those savings to scholarships. The New Mexico Lottery's operating and administrative costs are very high even when compared to other states that have low populations, rural populations, and low ticket sales.

In September 2006 Think New Mexico released a policy report describing its "30% solution" for making the scholarships sustainable: require that the lottery return 30 percent of every dollar to the scholarship fund, just as state law already requires 50 percent be returned to players as prizes. Increasing the dollars to scholarships can be achieved by renegotiating the state's overly expensive, sole-source online-gaming contract with multinational corporation GTech, and reducing the relatively high commissions paid to New Mexico's lottery retailers.

Ten other states have already successfully implemented this strategy, and several other small lotteries delivered over 30 percent to their beneficiaries in 2005, including North Dakota (33.5 percent), Washington D.C. (30.4 percent), New Hampshire (30.2 percent), and West Virginia (30 percent). Think New Mexico will be advocating for legislation enacting this solution during the 2007 legislative session.

Think New Mexico's encourages public support for its effort to ensure that college scholarships continue to be accessible to all of New Mexico's deserving high-school graduates by reforming the state lottery. Please call or write your state legislators and urge them to support efforts to reduce the operating and administrative costs of the New Mexico Lottery and dedicate 30 percent of the revenues to scholarships.

Vocal public support of proposals like making Lottery Success Scholarships sustainable is crucial to achieving policy reform. Legislators are attentive and responsive to letters to the editors from their constituents. We encourage you to express your support for reforming New Mexico's lottery through the media, as well as directly to your state senators and representatives.

For more information, contact Think New Mexico, at 505 992-1315 or info@thinknewmexico.org.

Do you have trouble sleeping?

Sleep disturbances are often the first sign of trouble. An undetected mood or anxiety disorder may be affecting your sleep. On October 5 you can take a free, anonymous NDSD Mental Health Screening (National Depression Screening Day) at over fifteen hundred sites across the country. For a list of participating sites in your area, go to the NDSD Event Locator http://www.mentalhealthscreening.org/locator/NDSDmap.aspx and click on your state and city or town. (Please note that additional sites will be added on a daily basis; check later for additional sites in your area.) No appointment is necessary. In Albuquerque the screening will be held on October 5, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., at The University of New Mexico Student Union Building, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Call 889-3632 for further information.

If you do not find a participating site located near you, a free anonymous online screening will be posted on www.MentalHealthScreening.org from September 25 through October 10. Military personnel and family members can access an online screening especially for them, available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week at www.MilitaryMentalHealth.org.

NDSD is an opportunity to learn if you or a family member may be suffering from a mental-health disorder and what treatment resources exist in your community. As part of the screening program on October 5, you will have the opportunity to fill out a brief questionnaire and talk to a health professional about your results. Those who score positive will be referred to local treatment resources.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, sleep disturbances figure prominently in any psychiatric disorders. Of the estimated thirty million Americans who have chronic insomnia, 30 percent also have a psychiatric disorder, most often depression or anxiety. “For those who are experiencing issues with sleep disorders, it is important to talk to a health-care provider about the possible causes. By taking a screening and talking to a health professional, individuals can take the first step in figuring out whether their issues are linked to underlying mental-health issues,” says Douglas G. Jacobs, MD, president and CEO of Screening for Mental Health, the organization that sponsors NDSD.

UNM, NMSU, CNM to collaborate on Rio Rancho campus plan

A nine-person working group, with representatives from the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University, and Central New Mexico Community College, will soon begin planning and negotiating for higher-education offerings in Rio Rancho.

Harris will head up the working group, which was formed in part during the joint meeting of the UNM and NMSU boards of regents in Las Cruces on September 9. CNM officials were invited to participate during a meeting with UNM regents and NMSU regent president Steven Anaya on September 12.

Collaboration among the three institutions will focus on UNM’s future full-service campus that will be located on 216 acres next to the City Centre in Rio Rancho. The UNM acreage is the product of a land-exchange agreement between UNM and the state land office that will be finalized in early October.

“Now that the land is secured, the intention is to move forward quickly,” said Harris. “The main focus will be on extensive curriculum planning, but we will also be talking about land use.”

Harris envisions that this working group will develop a template for future collaborations among institutions and says that New Mexico Secretary of Higher Education Beverlee McClure will be invited to play a major role in the planning.

Joining Harris on the working group from UNM will be Regent Don Chalmers and Reed Dasenbrock, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. NMSU representatives will be president Michael Martin, executive vice president, Provost William Flores, and Regent Bob Gallagher. CNM representatives will be President Michael Glennon, Kathie Winograd, vice president for planning and budget, and Richard Barr, chair of the CNM Governing Board.

The University of New Mexico is the state’s largest university, serving more than thirty-two thousand students. UNM is home to the state’s only schools of law, medicine, pharmacy, and architecture and operates New Mexico’s only academic health center. UNM is noted for comprehensive undergraduate programs and research that benefits the state and the nation.

Child-development screening available

The Bernalillo Public Schools will conduct Child Find screenings for children from ages two to five, at the locations listed below. At no cost to parents, children will be screened for developmental speech and language; gross, motor and fine-motor skills; and social,emotional, and adaptive-behavior ability.

The district is also partnering with New MexiKids, a program for no-cost or low-cost health coverage for kids. Assistance with sign-ups for Medicaid will be available at all Child Find sites.

Bring children to one of the following sites: October 13—Cochiti Elementary School; October 20—Santo Domingo Head Start; November 10—Roosevelt Elementary School; November 17—Algodones Elementary School; March 2—Roosevelt Elementary School. For further information about the program, you may call Linda McClain, at 228-9128.

One Word, Two Words, or Hyphenated?—a sidebar,

by Greg Leichner

paperwork

flextime

launchpad

puddle jumper

folk tale

double take

double-park

by-product

smarty-pants

cropland

jawbone

flimflam

hit parade

inner city

flip side

flip-flop

yo-yo

spaced-out

wiretap

workhorse

wellhead

quick-witted

single-handed

off-color

southpaw

sidekick

seesaw

tunnel vision

end table

long shot

horn-rims

cross-reference

round-robin

chowhound

homemade

anthill

zoom lens

miter box

flight plan

play-off

blow-dry

go-cart