Back bonds that support higher ed

On behalf of Santa Fe Community College and the Institute for American Indian Arts, we express our gratitude to members of our community for their continued support of higher education, and respectfully request your vote on General Obligation Bond B for Libraries and Bond C for higher education — which would provide crucial funding for Santa Fe’s publicly funded schools and libraries without raising property taxes. Bond funds are needed now more than ever in this economic downturn to help Santa Fe students get on a path to success.

General Obligation Bond C for higher education will be on the Nov. 3 ballot and will upon passage assist in providing necessary resources to maintain affordable, high-quality education and training programs. Bond C will support students at Santa Fe Community College; Institute of American Indian Arts; Santa Fe Indian School; New Mexico School for the Deaf; and statewide at 33 colleges, universities and special schools.

General obligation bonds help institutions provide safe and up-to-date campuses where we help students achieve their dreams and prepare them for successful careers. As students earn a degree or certificate, they earn higher salaries at better jobs, contribute to the tax base and become better-informed citizens. Bonds help our students stay in Santa Fe by providing quality classrooms, facilities, library resources and technologies for online learning. In addition, bonds help better serve low-income and disadvantaged community members.

Bond C for higher education would provide $700,000 to assist IAIA in funding construction and renovation on our campus to establish a research center for Contemporary Native Arts. The research center will support the education of IAIA students in studio arts, museum studies, and Native art history programs — and will assist in building capacity to offer graduate programs in studio arts and museum studies — and a BFA in Native American arts history.

The research center also will provide artists and scholars opportunities for residencies in which they will have online access to more than 9,000 artworks in IAIA’s Museum collection and archival records. Through this unprecedented access, they will document, through research and scholarly publications, the significance and contributions of Native artists and arts advocates. Moreover, the research center will provide training and support for organizations and individuals seeking to carry out exhibitions and arts research using Indigenous research methodologies.

Bond B for academic libraries includes $9,500,000, with $3 million shared by public, academic and public school libraries — and $500,000 for tribal libraries. If the bonds pass, SFCC will receive $2 million for asset protection, including fire suppression systems, stucco and fencing, and the SFCC Library will receive funds for collections and subscriptions, electronic access, databases, streaming films, books and electronic journals. The SFCC Library would remain vital and relevant during the coronavirus pandemic and into the future.

IAIA’s Bond B allotment would buy additions to our e-Book Collection, which is crucial to support online learning, crucial databases to support research by students, faculty and staff, and technology upgrades, which include new computers in the library and the ability for students to have off-campus access to our collections.

Please inform yourself and vote on General Obligation Bond B and Bond C — nonpartisan issues that will support the education of present and future generation students without raising taxes.

It is an investment in people — our greatest resource — and crucial to the future of education in New Mexico.

Robert Martin is president of the Institute of American Indian Arts and Becky Rowley is president of Santa Fe Community College.