Latest news with #SouthwesternCollege
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Only one NM college president signs letter opposing ‘unprecedented government overreach'
Southwestern College President Thom Chesney at the graduate-level school's Santa Fe Southside campus. (Danielle Prokop / Source NM) Hundreds of leaders at colleges and universities from across the United States recently signed an open letter to the Trump Administration, rebuking 'the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.' Only one New Mexico higher-education leader signed the letter — from a small college in Santa Fe. In the first 100 days, the Trump administration has frozen billions of dollars in research grants and threatened further cuts if universities fail to comply with policies to reshape admissions, curriculum and speech on campus. Broadly, the Trump and Republicans have alleged higher education indoctrinates students with left-wing ideologies, and are using federal funds as leverage to require universities to change campus policies. Last week, Harvard University sued the Trump administration over its freezing of $2.2 billion in grants after the school refused to comply with federal demands to limit activism on campus. The letter from academics, released last week by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, pushes back against the Trump Administration, penning a defense of higher education. 'We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight,' the letter states. 'However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses. We will always seek effective and fair financial practices, but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding.' As of Monday morning, the letter had amassed 523 signatures from colleges, universities and scholarly societies. Leaders from University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University, the state's largest schools, did not sign reached for comment, Cinnamon Blair, a spokesperson for UNM wrote: 'What I can share is that UNM's participation in any statements is an internal administrative decision, and will be reflected in the public record.' New Mexico State University spokesperson Amanda Bradford confirmed the administration had not signed the letter, stating: 'The university has no further comments on this topic at this time.' As of press time, Thom Chesney, president of Southwestern College, a private graduate-level school tucked away on Santa Fe's Southside, remains the only New Mexico school leader on the list. Southwestern College offers a variety of graduate-level programs and certificates, including: master's degrees in counseling, art therapy and consciousness in action; as well as a Ph.D in visionary practice and regenerative leadership. In an interview with Source NM, Chesney said higher education is facing unprecedented threats at multiple levels. Chesney took the position at Southwestern College eight months ago, following three years as president at Clarke University in Iowa and nearly eight years as president of Brookhaven College in Texas, among other academic postings. He's been in higher education for nearly 30 years and started his work in academia teaching English, American and British literature and the humanities. 'We've not seen this before,' Chesney said. 'The federal government stepping in and making demands about how we admit, who we admit and what we teach — that flies directly in the face of independence, of building a curriculum.' Chesney told Source NM that this was the right time for his college to speak out, and said other New Mexican institutions are trying to navigate a difficult position. 'I'm going to defend my colleagues, my peers from the public and private institutions in New Mexico, who haven't signed the letter,' Chesney said. 'They're not on the sidelines, they're not silent, in assent or giving in — we can't assume any of that. They are absolutely, I believe, thinking through where their space is, at this time, for this type of response.' Chesney said the letter he signed offers the chance to be part of 'a collective, unified voice.' 'It fits in with not only the mission of my institution, but also the broader need to respond in a call to action for dialogue, for decorum to come together and recognize we have a shared space, to identify the successes, the flaws — all of that, rather than react reactionarily,' he said. Chesney noted that all higher education institutions face threats, regardless of size and programs. Southwestern College's enrollment is just over 320 students. While his institution does not receive federal research grants, some of the students rely on Title IV funds to attend college. The college also offers a counseling center at which its counseling and therapy students receive real-world experience and provide low-cost or no-cost services for 500 Santa Fe residents. 'If someone comes in and says 'you can't do that anymore,' that's a threat,' he said. 'That threatens the wellness of Santa Fe's Southside, Santa Fe in general and ultimately New Mexico, in my mind.' Not only did Chesney sign the letter, he hopes his participation in a national dialogue creates an opportunity for students to become more engaged with faculty and administrators in addressing the future of higher education. And he has a message for prospective students who are considering further training or schooling: 'Don't become cynical.' 'No one should give up on that dream or that aspiration to do the kind of learning that leads them into opportunities to serve and create and have jobs that are for the greater, common good,' Chesney said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
South Bay college newspaper receives prestigious recognition
CHULA VISTA, Calif. (FOX 5/KUSI) — The Southwestern College Sun student newspaper outdid other elite journalism programs for a prestigious award given by Columbia University. 'I'm still in shock because I can't believe that we won against these Ivy League schools when we're a little community college here close south to the border,' said Alexa Lima, the Southwestern Sun Newspaper's editor-in-chief. 'At first, I thought it must've been another Southwestern College from somewhere else. I said the one in Chula Vista, right? Yes. So, I was astonished and very happy,' said Max Branscomb, a journalism professor and the advisor for student publications. San Diego has a new official flower Named North America's best collegiate print newspaper by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, the Southwestern College Sun won the Gold Crown Award, Columbia's highest award for student print and digital media. 'It is and as far as I know it's the first time Southwestern College has ever won this award in the 99 years they've been giving it,' said Branscomb. This two-year community college newspaper has just one faculty advisor and wrestles with low funding. For the award, it competed with larger programs with better funding and three to five times the staff, but the stories they're producing are superior. Lima explains how she quickly worked her way up to editor-in-chief. 'They just took me under their wing, the leadership here, and they were like okay this is how you report, this is how you write, this is what we like to cover. We like to cover the community here in Chula Vista,' said Lima. That community coverage combined with their diverse staff is what sets them apart. The small but mighty staff consists of students from many different countries speaking a combined total of 11 different languages, allowing them to cover a wide range of topics in a diverse community, giving everyone a voice. 'Some people that come to this newsroom were from other places in the world and they bring their points of views and they contribute to it and I think that they always pitch really good ideas,' said Lima. 'We can send people to speak Tagalog, we can send people to Mexico to do stories in Spanish. So, we have a lot of power. Our diversity gives us power and strength,' said Branscomb. Lima says some of the pieces she's most proud of are stories that highlight the cultural diversity of the region. 'I wrote a story about Rosie Hamlin, she was a local from National City, and she became the first female to go into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,' she said. The work is done under the watchful eye of Professor Branscomb, who has been training and inspiring student journalists for nearly three decades. 'There's nothing more honorable than protecting democracy and protecting people that don't have a voice and telling the stories of underrepresented people, I can't think of a better way to earn a living,' Branscomb said. The Sun received many other national awards in 2024, and the students behind the success say this is just the start. 'It was a way to show that because of all the hard work we do here we are good enough to compete with all of these Ivy Leagues, but at the same time it just pushes us to be better and to continue to do great work here,' said Lima. To view the award-winning stories written by these student journalists, visit their website Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Los Angeles Times
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Bruce Nauman's pensive Conceptual art from the 1970s seems timely again
Out in the back garden of Marian Goodman Gallery in Hollywood, a solid steel square, four feet wide and four inches thick, sits on the gravel covered ground. 'Dark' is a legendary 1968 sculpture, one that caused great consternation when first shown at an annual purchase competition at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, south of San Diego, where it won the $1,900 first prize. Adjusted for inflation, that's more than $17,000 today — not an insignificant chunk of change for a '60s art contest. Some were outraged. A blank steel plate, apparently just waiting to rust? Local sculptor Frank James Morgan, whose conventional portrait busts and stylized bronzes of women had gained some notice, wasn't having it, and he denounced Nauman's sculpture as 'junk' in a letter to the San Diego Union. Artist John Baldessari, a competition organizer just then getting traction for his own Dada-inspired anti-art, leapt to its defense in a three-page, 18 bullet-point text. At Goodman, the sculpture sets up 'Bruce Nauman: Pasadena Years,' a modestly scaled but museum-quality survey of his work from 1969 to 1979, the prolific decade when the now critically lauded artist lived in Los Angeles. (A resident of New Mexico since then, Nauman is 83.) Two dozen works are on view, including sculptures, installations, videotapes, drawings and prints, plus the artist's book 'LAAir,' featuring 10 full-page color photographs said to show the city's famous smog. The book's title makes a droll pun for 'lair,' a villainous place of danger or death, while his vivid, mostly monochrome abstract photographs of poisoned atmosphere wittily recall fashionable Color Field paintings. 'Dark' immediately predated his move from Northern California. The dust-up that ensued among artists and critics was another signal that the region was continuing to mature as a center for the production and presentation of provocative new art. 'Dark' doesn't look like much. The solid but shallow steel box, weighing in at a reported 1.3 tons, was an example of a recently emerging, stripped-down Minimalist aesthetic. The artist's last name is written in block letters along one edge, but there's some confusion over whether the artist or the school added it later as an identifier. There was also the matter of the sculpture's title, 'Dark,' which referred to the artist's claim that the word had been scrawled on the underside of the brute slab. Was the word 'dark' just meant to describe what was under there — darkness, the absence of light beneath a space-gobbling hunk of immovable material? Was it inscribed as a mordant Dada riposte to the shimmering ephemerality of Light and Space art, the perceptual spatial enigmas by Robert Irwin, Doug Wheeler and others who were fashioning the first wholly original art form to emerge from sunny Southern California? Maybe. But encountering 'Dark' now, something else stands out: There is no way for a viewer to know for certain whether the word is really written on the underside, beneath all that obdurate tonnage. None. It's unknowable. A viewer, and not just the gravel beneath the steel plate, is in the dark. Aside from the general 'don't touch' social prohibition hovering in the presence of any art object, lifting this particular weighty slab is impossible. You'll simply have to take the artist's word for it that the declaration is written there. The confrontation with Nauman's sculpture is a blunt exercise in artistic faith — an expression of trust between artist and audience, and an agreement to play together. If you can't grant that, you probably should just walk away from art — this or any other. That contemporary art might be a dubious realm populated by frauds and charlatans seems quaint today, but once upon a time it was a standard assumption. It was there from the beginning. In 1916, at the first large-scale U.S. exhibition of Modern American art held in New York City, the acerbic critic at The Nation magazine gave the stink-eye to claims of the avant-garde's artistic seriousness. 'Many persons are most seriously convinced that the world is flat,' wrote Frank Jewett Mather, looking down his nose, 'the poor whites of certain Southern regions are most seriously convinced that clay is a delicious comestible. But their seriousness doesn't matter, and I think that the seriousness of these Modernists matters very little.' Nauman, at a tumultuous and perplexing period of upheaval politically, socially and artistically, was getting down to basics. For 1968, which has been called 'the year that shattered America,' such a compact of faith at the core of 'Dark' — and a contract between strangers, no less — is no cavalier thing. Neither is it today. Civil rights, gender equality, Vietnam, student protest — so many divisive crises then are being repeated now, in our time of advancing darkness, with Ukraine and Gaza replacing Southeast Asia. Nauman's sculpture is thoroughly non-figurative, but its inescapable social and political dimensions resonate anew. So do those of 'Performance Corridor,' a baffling installation made when Nauman moved into a Raymond Ave. studio the following year. He was 27, with a wife and son, and they shared a rambling Craftsman house nearby, owned by curator and art dealer Walter Hopps, with artist Richard Jackson. Hopps was a wealth of information about Dada godfather Marcel Duchamp, whose now legendary 1963 retrospective he had organized for the Pasadena Art Museum. Nauman paid close attention to Duchamp's penchant for an art of puns and conundrums. As a sculpture, 'Performance Corridor' might be even more initially mute than 'Dark,' but it ends up speaking volumes. The corridor, eight feet tall and 20 feet long, is built from ordinary wall board and exposed two-by-four struts. One end is flush against a gallery wall, and looking into the unembellished corridor from the open end isn't promising. Roughly shoulder-width, it invites one person at a time to walk down the hall looking straight ahead. Arriving at the blank gallery wall at the end of a restricted, uneventful walk, one's immediately puzzled thought is, 'Why am I here?' And, after all, that is the question, isn't it? The performance in 'Performance Corridor' isn't something Nauman is doing, beyond performing a set-up for any art viewer to be nudged into wondering: Why am I here? Existential inquiry is an artistic staple, but typically it tends toward big gestures and grand declarations — see extravagant and flamboyant Abstract Expressionist paintings of the late-1940s and 1950s for examples. Nauman's, however, is refreshingly without illusions or pretensions. Also in 1969, although not part of the fine Goodman gallery exhibition, he sketched out a paradoxical skywriting sculpture that wasn't executed until 40 years later, when finally, it was performed in 2019 from a small airplane flying over Pasadena's Rose Bowl. 'Leave the land alone,' the ephemeral skywriting said in puffs of wispy smoke. The aerial sentiment about environmental degradation below also artfully invokes individual human mortality, when just a slight pause precedes the final word. Leave the land — alone. Nauman's skywriting drifted for a moment in the late-summer breeze, then disappeared. Marian Goodman Gallery, 1120 Seward St., Hollywood, (310) 312-8294, through April 26. Closed Sunday and Monday.
