Sept. 14—LOS ALAMOS — The campus of the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos doesn’t yet resemble the flagship school’s main campus in Albuquerque, but it comes close.
New fixtures are a mix of Lobo gray, silver and cherry red. The latest iteration of the university’s logo — featuring the interlocking U, N and M — is appearing on signage across campus. And the futuristic, capsule-like furniture typical of college campuses awaits students in study spaces.
It’s the culmination of a series of multimillion-dollar upgrades to the campus in recent years — and it’s not over yet, according to Chancellor Mike Holtzclaw. Next on the to-do list are improvements to UNM-Los Alamos’ entrance and a central courtyard.
The changes are about more than creating a cohesive color scheme or outdoor spaces, Holtzclaw said. They’re part of a plan to create a more vibrant school community and invite students — many of whom are earning some or all of their degrees online — to return to campus after the coronavirus pandemic.
That’s especially important because UNM-Los Alamos, like other colleges in northern New Mexico, is critical to training area residents for jobs at Los Alamos National Laboratory, said Frances Chadwick, the laboratory’s staff director.
“We still want to make sure that we engage them and that we bring those students to campus, that they feel part of the community, even though they are doing a lot of their education online,” Holtzclaw said.
There is no one way to be a student at UNM-Los Alamos, the chancellor said.
Like many community colleges, the student body there is made up of a diverse group of students, from high school seniors taking dual credit courses to seniors trying out new skills.
UNM-Los Alamos is a community college that primarily offers associate degrees and certificate programs and serves about 1,000 students, according to the latest data from the New Mexico Higher Education Department. The majority of them, Holtzclaw said, are part-time students — and often full-time workers.
The college is located on a plot of land owned by Los Alamos Public Schools. The main academic building was built in the 1940s to serve as one of the district’s elementary schools.
For the past two years, most of that building, known on campus as Building 6, has been closed to students. It underwent an extensive $4 million renovation to transform the space into a “much more inviting place to learn,” said Paul Allen, dean of the Department of Education at UNM-Los Alamos.
Some of the renovated classrooms, in addition to lab space elsewhere on campus, will be used by students pursuing a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. This program was established a few years ago in collaboration with the lab and UNM’s main campus, and saves students the trek down.
The lab and the university work “very well and very often together,” Holtzclaw said. And the mechanical engineering program is designed for people who already work in the lab but don’t have a bachelor’s degree.
“It’s a way for them to enhance their skills and education and get a degree, which opens up more opportunities for them,” Chadwick said.
It has become one of the most popular courses on campus, Allen adds.
The next project on the university’s to-do list: expanding the welding shop. More space — created by moving a ceramics studio to another location on campus — means more trained welders.
“Welding is one of our most popular courses here, and it is a necessity to meet the demands of our workforce,” Allen said.
But it’s not all about the academics. Holtzclaw expects the new outdoor spaces to be a boon to student life, and he hopes to build a hub for student support services — including academic advisors, tutoring and a food pantry — from an outdated study room.
Like many other colleges, UNM-Los Alamos has worked to expand students’ access to sufficient, nutritious food. Researchers from the UNM Basic Needs Project and the state Higher Education Department found that nearly a quarter of New Mexico students face food insecurity, a struggle that Holtzclaw said extends to students at UNM-Los Alamos.
The renovated workspace will become a study space, an access point for student services and a near-underground food pantry with a space to prepare meals. It will eliminate the stigma of having to ask for food bank supplies, the chancellor said — which is the current setup at the food pantry on the UNM-Los Alamos campus.
“It’s just a place for them to hang out, and a place for them to find food,” Holtzclaw said.
What will UNM-Los Alamos look like in about five years?
“I hope that by then all of our buildings will be refurbished and have a uniform look that is similar to UNM; that all of our buildings will be well insulated, energy efficient, and the roofs will not leak; that we will also start using some of our underutilized space for other, new programs,” Holtzclaw said.
Allen noted that new programs — such as a nursing or engineering technology program — can take root if space becomes available, and that process is currently underway.
“We’re not looking to build a bunch of new buildings or add-ons to our current space,” Holtzclaw said. “It’s a reinvention of the spaces that we have.”
