** 2024 Commencement Updates **

** 2024 Commencement Updates **

Art students attend Western Cast Iron Conference

New Mexico Highlands University art students Jabari Johnson and McKaila Dorman will be working as interns during this year’s Western Cast Iron Conference in Denver. As part of the conference, which will be held next week, the two are building a cupola, an iron-melting furnace.”Each student cupola is supposed to melt 500 pounds,” said Highlands art professor David Lobdell. And each cupola must be entirely student built with no direction from their professors. “It’s all students with no one telling them what to do,” Lobdell said. Dorman said the cupolas are judged on efficiency, creativity and size. Johnson and Dorman said they are designing theirs to look like a tequila bottle. “We’ve learned a lot on the mechanics and science of iron casting,” Johnson said.