With renovations, UNM-Los Alamos looks to create inviting, adaptable campus

Sep. 14—LOS ALAMOS — The University of New Mexico-Los Alamos campus doesn't look like the flagship school's main campus in Albuquerque yet — but it's getting there.

New fixtures feature a mixture of Lobo gray, silver and cherry red. The latest version of the university's logo — with its interlocking U, N and M — pops up on signs across campus. And the futuristic, capsule-style furniture quintessential of college campuses await students inside study spaces.

It's the result of a series of multimillion-dollar upgrades undertaken on the branch campus in the last few years — and it's not over yet, said Chancellor Mike Holtzclaw. Next on the to-do list are improvements to UNM-Los Alamos' front entryway 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 earn part or all of their degrees online — back to campus in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.

That's particularly important given that, like other colleges in Northern New Mexico, UNM-Los Alamos is critical for training area residents for jobs at Los Alamos National Laboratory, said Frances Chadwick, staff director at the lab.

"We still want to make sure that we're engaging them and bringing those students to campus — that they feel part of the community — even if a lot of their instruction is happening online," Holtzclaw said.

There's no one way to be a UNM-Los Alamos student, the chancellor said.

As is the case with many community colleges, the student body there includes a diverse group of learners, from high school students taking dual credit courses to seniors trying out new skills.

A community college that primarily offers associate degrees and certificate programs, UNM-Los Alamos serves about 1,000 students, according to the latest data from the New Mexico Higher Education Department. The bulk of those, Holtzclaw said, are part-time students — and often full-time workers.

The college is located on a piece of property owned by Los Alamos Public Schools. In fact, its primary academic building was built in the 1940s to serve as one of the district's elementary schools.

For much of the past two years, most of that building — known on campus as Building 6 — was closed to students as it underwent an extensive, $4 million renovation to transform the space into a "much more inviting place to learn," said Paul Allen, dean of instruction at UNM-Los Alamos.

Some of that updated classroom space — in addition to lab space elsewhere on campus — will be used by students pursuing bachelor's degrees in mechanical engineering, a program created a few years ago in partnership with the lab and UNM's main campus that saves students the trip down the mountain.

The lab and the college collaborate "quite well and quite often," Holtzclaw said. And the mechanical engineering program was designed for folks who already work at the lab but haven't yet completed a bachelor's degree.

"It's a way to try to raise their skillset and training and get a degree, which opens up more opportunities to them," Chadwick said.

It's become one of the campus' most popular majors, Allen added.

The next project on the college's to-do list: expanding its welding shop. More space — created by relocating a ceramics studio to another spot on campus — equals more trained welders.

"Welding is one of our more popular programs up here, and so that's a need for us to meet our workforce requirements," Allen said.

But it's not all about academics. Holtzclaw expects the new outdoor spaces will be a boon to student life, and he hopes to construct a hub for student support services — including academic advisers, tutoring and a food pantry — from an outdated work room.

Like many other colleges, UNM-Los Alamos has been working to expand students' access to sufficient and nutritious food. Researchers with the UNM Basic Needs Project and the state Higher Education Department found nearly a quarter of undergrads in New Mexico are experiencing food insecurity, struggles Holtzclaw said extends to UNM-Los Alamos' students.

The revamped work room will be a study space, an access point for student services and an almost-undercover food pantry with a space to cook meals. It'll remove the stigma of having to ask for food pantry goods, the chancellor said — which is the current setup at UNM-Los Alamos' campus food pantry.

"It just really is a place that they're hanging out — and there's food available," Holtzclaw said.

So what will UNM-Los Alamos look like in, say, five years?

"I hope, by that point, all of our buildings will have been refreshed and created a unified look that looks like UNM; that all of our buildings will be well-insulated with good energy-efficiency, roofs that don't leak; that we also are starting to take some of our underutilized space and start converting them to other, new programs," Holtzclaw said.

Allen noted new programs — like one in nursing, perhaps, or engineering technology — can take root as space becomes available, and that process is currently underway.

"We're not looking at building a bunch of new buildings or additions to our current space," Holtzclaw said. "It's reimagining the spaces we have."