OASIS works to raise awareness about sustainability

As the Year of Sustainability comes into its final months, a club on campus is hoping to increase awareness about the importance of sustainability through films, recycling and community events.

The Organization of Aggie Students Inspiring Sustainability was formed in 2008 by two students who had taken a class on the importance of organic agriculture, said Mark Uchanski, faculty co-adviser of OASIS. Since then, the OASIS club has expanded to over 50 students working to increase green awareness across New Mexico State University, Uchanski said.

“This started as a grassroots student group with an environmental focus,” Uchanski said. “The focus is to inspire sustainability education in Las Cruces and at NMSU.”

Uchanski said OASIS became a fundamental part of the Year of Sustainability, initiated by former Interim President Waded Cruzado, by helping with recycling and compost projects. Uchanski said the grade from the recent sustainability report gives NMSU room for improvement.

“The audit group [who determined the sustainability report grade] looks at all efforts, including building, investments, and how NMSU is spending money to help with education,” Uchanski said. “In many categories, we did very well, but there are some categories that we can improve on.”

OASIS Co-President Carli Romero said the low sustainability grade was disappointing.

“I don’t think NMSU has taken enough steps to enhance the curriculum or eliminate non-recyclable materials,” Romero said. “We need to make some changes.”

To help raise awareness, OASIS is hosting the Sustainability Film Series supported by a grant from the City of Las Cruces. The seven films, which Uchanski said are mostly documentaries, focus on food, social equity, economics and waste management and other related topics. Following the films, Uchanski said experts invited by OASIS will lead a discussion on the message of the film.

“This is a new venue to learn from and discuss,” Uchanski said.

OASIS will also be focusing on agriculture and the environment during the Earth Day celebration to be held at Young Park in Las Cruces, tentatively set for April 17. Uchanski said this will be the third year for the event.

“The event will tell people how to be green with mostly an environmental focus,” Uchanski said.

Romero said the group is hoping environmental and waste awareness will lead the community in sustainable practices.

“The administration needs to step it up,” Romero said. “They are educating the future professionals of New Mexico.”

Romero said many OASIS participants are involved with other events such as the Community of Hope Food Shed World Café event, which will be held on Halloween, which will concentrate on agricultural sustainability in the Mesilla Valley. Romero said some OASIS members also support the Organ Mountain Desert Peak Wilderness Act to preserve areas of the Organ Mountains.

“The idea of sustainability is a huge movement nationally,” Romero said. “We have a lot of work to do.”

For more information about OASIS, e-mail oasis@nmsu.edu.

Jenna Candelaria is a staff writer and can be reached at trunews@nmsu.edu.

Earlier this year, 2,242 students in grades 9-12 took an economics survey in the form of a quiz. The result: Six in 10 high school students did not make the grade.

On average, the students scored a 53 (F), reported Harris Interactive Inc., which conducted “The Standards in Economics Survey” on behalf of the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE).

The national survey covered concepts such as scarcity, allocation of goods and services, role of competition, role of money, and specialization and trade.

The findings don’t surprise Benjamin N. Matta, a New Mexico State University economist. He said high school students’ exposure to economics is limited. Matta first realized this when his own children received homework assignments and textbooks that were supposed to be teaching economics. “Well, they were not,” he said.

“I began to survey my own freshmen students and asked them about their experience (with economics),” Matta said. “For a lot of them, the extent of their knowledge of economics and personal finance was that they knew there was a stock market.”

But to get to the students, you first have to get to the teachers.

Hoping to bridge the gap between what students need to know about economics and what they are being taught in school, NMSU’s College of Business created the Center for Economics and Personal Finance Education (CEPFE).

The only such program in the state, CEPFE conducts workshops where high school teachers receive new ideas on how to teach economics and personal finance to their students. Participants are given a review of economic concepts, and receive a stipend and several materials. In addition, the college will supply year-round support to participants.

The College of Business received funding from the State Legislature to develop these workshops through CEPFE, which was awarded a three-year affiliation with the NCEE in May 2005.

“It’s been a great refresher, and I think it’s wonderful that the business college has come up with this (program),” said Hanna Phillips, a social studies teacher from Mayfield High School in Las Cruces. “As a high school teacher, one of my main goals is to prepare students for college so I think it’s great that they are opening up the lines of communication in order to provide us with (material) so we can better prepare kids.”

Harry Hellmuth, an advanced-placement European history teacher at Oñate High School in Las Cruces, said the key to the workshops he attended was Michael Ellis’ emphasis on presenting economic concepts in a way that is more relevant to the age of his students.

“He presented a lot of economic theory in regard to NASCAR racing,” Hellmuth said. “Economics can be pretty abstract, very heavy stuff, but Dr. Ellis has the most interesting way of presenting these dry theories.”

Ellis, head of the economics and international business department at NMSU, was one of three faculty members who taught the first week of the three-week program in July. Other workshop professors include Ken Martin, a professor of finance, and Randy McFerrin, an assistant professor of economics.

Matta, director of CEPFE, said the program serves as a resource for high school teachers who are inundated not only with daily work but also with federal requirements such as the No Child Left Behind Act.

“It makes their job a little more difficult and what we have to do is find ways to accommodate those requirements,” he said. “One way to help teachers is to advise them on how to integrate economics in areas that are being tested like math and writing. This way we serve both goals – helping students prepare for the test as well as achieve economic literacy.”

For the future, CEPFE plans to include workshops for primary and middle school grades, provide literacy programs for adult populations, partner with local financial institutions and with the economic education program of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The center also intends to have workshops for school districts in the northern part of the state.

“In the end, I hope New Mexico kids have a stronger knowledge of economics and personal finance so they can make better decisions,” Matta said. “If in four or five years test scores are up in those two areas, I will be very happy.”

The quiz also revealed the following:
•Fewer women than men show a good understanding of economics.
•Black and Hispanic participants are less likely than their Anglo counterparts to get an “A” or “B.”
•On average, adults received a grade of 70 (C) for their knowledge of economics.

For more information on CEPFE, contact Matta at (505) 646-4085 or bmatta@nmsu.edu.

In addition to CEPFE, Matta also has worked with NMSU’s College of Education to revise its business education curriculum for current teacher candidates who want to teach business in the future.

“Although the state of New Mexico has not modified its business teaching endorsement since the mid 1980s, the college decided that it was time to take the curriculum from more of a vocational focus to a professional one,” said Michael Morehead, associate dean in the College of Education. “All other secondary endorsements have been modified more recently so the college worked with Dr. Matta and the College of Business to update the program to meet the needs of today’s business teacher candidates.”

Morehead said the new program allows future teachers to understand the most up-to-date business models.

“High school teachers have the ability to enhance the preparedness of students moving into business programs at universities. In the past they have been seen as preparing students for clerical positions, but that has changed and we need to change how we are preparing our business teachers,” Morehead said. “Because of Dr. Matta’s work we have really been able to create a spirit of collaboration between the colleges of business and education.”

Teacher candidates who pursue the new business education curriculum designed by Matta will now meet all of the requirements needed to later pursue an MBA in the College of Business.

“The new curriculum opens a lot of doors for our students,” Morehead said.

Las Cruces, New Mexico. The College of Business at New Mexico State University has achieved reaccreditation of its undergraduate/master’s/doctoral) degree programs in business administration and accounting by recent action of the Board of Directors of AACSB International – The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. The official announcement was made November 18, 2002.

As of November 2002, there are 432 accredited members – 406 in North America (396 in the U.S., eight in Canada and two in Mexico), 15 in Europe, four in Asia, one in Australia, one in Central America, two in the Middle East, and three in South America.

To achieve AACSB International accreditation, business programs must satisfy the expectations of a wide range of quality standards relating to curriculum, faculty resources, admissions, degree requirement, library and computer facilities, financial resources, and intellectual climate that all are mission-linked.

During the accreditation process, College of Business was visited and evaluated by business school deans, accounting educators and corporate representatives, who are leaders in the field of management education, applying AACSB International accreditation standards that are widely accepted and adopted by the educational and business communities.

“This achievement is a high-water mark for the College. The faculty, staff and administrators have been working towards this goal for the last ten years. It provides concrete validation for the college’s efforts, particularly since the organization accredits achievement of excellence rather than simply meeting minimum standards,” stated Danny Arnold, Dean of the College of Business at New Mexico State University.

AACSB International is a not-for-profit organization consisting of more than 900 educational organizations and corporations, world-wide, devoted to the promotion and improvement of higher education in business administration and management. Its mission is to provide global leadership in advancing management education through accreditation and by fostering international interchanges, key business linkages, sharing of best practice, and professional development.

AACSB International is the premier accrediting agency and service organization for business schools and has its headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. For more information, please contact Tom Weiser, Communications Manager, NMSU Business, 505-646-6290.