Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
PORTALES — Eastern New Mexico University regents are hopeful students treat Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as the phrase goes, as a day on and not a day off.
Starting in 2021, it is again a day off at the university, in terms of classes. Regents on Friday approved a holiday calendar adding MLK Day as a “campus closed” holiday.
There were three dozen people in the audience for Friday’s meeting — packed by regent meeting standards — with a majority coming specifically for the discussion on MLK Day.
Regents were first approached with the issue in November by a group of students seeking the holiday, but weren’t sure at that time what holiday should be removed from the university calendar to compensate. All previously scheduled holidays will remain on the calendar, and Vice President of Academic Affairs Jamie Laurenz said departments would work to ensure class instruction time and office hour availability wasn’t negatively impacted.
The university has had different stances on having MLK Day as a university holiday. The coming MLK Day of Jan. 20 will be a normal instruction day, with that holiday calendar approved more than a year ago. The general effect the campus has seen in the years it’s closed the campus for the holiday is students treating the three-day weekend as a chance to leave Portales.
Oscar Robinson of Portales, who chairs the MLK state commission, said he’d work with whatever the regents wanted to do, but noted that having a closed campus means there’s more legwork to schedule an event at ENMU and the lack of students means a smaller potential audience and volunteer base for any on-campus event the commission organizes.
Portales Municipal Schools keeps school in session on MLK Day, which Robinson said he prefers “because we can educate.”
Kyanna Walton, part of a group trying to create a Black Student Union on campus, understood Robinson’s perspective but hated the notion it wasn’t worth granting the holiday because students were unlikely to spend it at local MLK-focused events.
“The other holidays, nobody’s telling me how to celebrate them,” Walton said. “We’re not being told how to celebrate Veterans Day, Presidents Day or Thanksgiving.”
Regarding events while the campus is closed, President Jeff Elwell noted, “we don’t shut down everything; the power isn’t off.” He said if there’s any desire to use ENMU for a function when the campus is closed on Jan. 18, 2021, “All Oscar has to do is ask me.”
Student Regent Joseph Gergel appreciated the passion and leadership and wished more students would attend regent meetings, but asked Walton why there wasn’t an effort to go through student government. Walton said there was an effort, but without naming names said one member of student government wasn’t professional in private discussions on the matter.
Student Body President Adilene Adame also attended the meeting and said student government has made some missteps but that she was open to discussing any matters with Walton.
Just before the unanimous vote, Board President Ed Tatum noted that some students with no classes to worry about may prefer to do MLK Day events in other cities, but that should be viewed as a challenge to make local events more appealing.
