SUB - Student Union Building

SUB - Student Union Building

The University of New Mexico built the current Student Union Building, known as the SUB, in 1959. The SUB functions as a gathering place for student organizations, a dining facility, and a location for large meetings.

Prior to this building, since 1936 the building that is now the Maxwell Museum functioned as the main social gathering location for UNM students. As early as 1950, the Student Council and other campus leaders recognized the need for a new building in the context of post-World War II changes in the student population. For example, the enrollment in 1929 had not even reached 1,000.¹

In 1956, the Student Council voted in favor of a fee to fund the construction of a new Student Union Building. Funds for the building also came from a federal agency, the Works Progress Administration.²

By all accounts, students enjoyed the 1959 SUB for many years, with spacious dining areas and a twelve lane bowling alley on the lower floor.

However, by 1972, students began complaining about the SUB and holding debates on whether to close it to the general public. A Daily Lobo editorial read, “the Union is the major extracurricular campus problem,” and called on students themselves to come to an agreement about what to do.³

The first major renovation of the building took place in 1976. With the campus bookstore relocated, the renovation added new dining venues in the model of a rathskeller.⁴

On November 21, 1977, the bowling alley got demolished.⁵ In the twenty years of the building’s existence, bowling had fallen out of style. The space became used for pool tables and ping-pong.

In the 1990s drug use in the SUB decreased, but other problems remained. In 1996, UNM student Khepran Mathes complained that “the SUB basement still smelled like dried barf.”⁶ That same year, students had to wait to use the telephones in the SUB since there weren’t enough to meet the demand for their use. ⁷ In Fall of 2000 UNM initiated a major renovation of the SUB, the largest since the building’s original construction. From October 2000 to August 2002, kiosks sold food on Cornell Mall while the construction continued.⁸

Project delays pushed the completion of the renovation to July 2003. No further major renovations to the SUB took place between 2003 and 2025.

Features and Amenities

At various times in its history, the SUB included a sodar bar, a bowling alley, a billiards room, a video game arcade, and a fitness center. Services available at the SUB have included a barber shop, a bank, and a backpacking equipment rental desk. The campus bookstore was also located in the SUB from 1950 until the early 1970s.

The SUB has continuously operated a theater space, at times for live performances in addition to film screenings. Toward the end of the twentieth century, the SUB maintained a large copy center. As a reflection of the large percentage of commuter students, the lounge spaces have also been a mainstay of the SUB.

In 1973, the Union Board decided to demolish the bowling alley.⁹ In prior years, fewer and fewer students bowled there and only the bowling classes used it. In 1977, a new games area with pool tables, along with a larger dining space, replaced the bowling alley on the ground floor. The renovation in 2003 created an atrium in the SUB, which now serves as a central feature of the building for gatherings and exhibitions.

Site of Antiwar Occupations

In 1970 and 2024, students occupied the SUB as a social protest action against the University for its support of the national and global military industrial complex.

The 1970 Occupation

In response to the killing of students on the campus of Kent State University, UNM students occupied the SUB on May 6, 1970. On May 8, the occupation of the SUB ended when the protesters submitted to arrest without resistance. However, a crowd formed outside the SUB and approached the National Guard soldiers. The soldiers, ordered to not let anyone through, stood their ground and a violant clash erupted. The National Guard soldiers bayonetted ten people, a group that included UNM students.

Ferrel Heady, the President of UNM in 1970, wrote a memoir in 1999 in which he recalled the events of 1970. Farrel was inside the SUB when the National Guard troops arrived. He refused to blame the National Guard for the violence, writing: “specific incidents that occurred have been recounted in detail by numerous participants, without fully clarifying exactly what took place.”¹⁰

Calvin Horne, who served as a member of the Board of Regents, collected interviews and firsthand accounts of the events of May 8, 1970. Horne concluded that the National Guard acted aggressively against students and initiated the violence.¹¹

The bayonet stabbings inflicted by National Guard soldiers nearly killed several people. When New Mexico Governor David Cargo met with student groups on May 9, one student said:

The problem as I see it, Governor Cargo, is that you are hte only man who can call out the National Guard. But the Guard was under the command of Chief Vigil; so that exonerates you from the bayonet use at the Mall yesterday. President Heady says he couldn’t stop the National Guard, so that exonerates him. Mr. Vigil says he had no knowledge of the bayonets; so that exonerates him. General Doane says it’s standard operating procedure for the National Guard to use bayonets; so evidently he thinks that exonerates him. Do people get stabbed by themselves? Who decides to do these things? Who is responsible?¹²

The 2024 Occupation

Starting on April 22, 2024, UNM students set up a solidarity encampment at the Duck Pond. The protestors at the encampment aimed to show solidarity with other college campuses in an effort to support Palestinians in Gaza. They called on the UNM Board of Regents to adopt a resolution to divest from Israel.

On April 29, students and members of the community expanded the protest. They occupied the SUB to protest the refusal of the University to divest from Israel. Several of the protestors chained tents to the railing on the second floor.¹³

However, the occupation lasted less than ten hours.

At 3:30am on Tuesday, April 30, in a militarized police action, the New Mexico State Police arrested 21 protestors. A statement the following day from the United Academics of UNM, the union representing the faculty, read “We urge President Stokes and Provost Holloway to de-escalate their response toward students exercising their first amendment rights.”¹⁴

An Exclusive Audio Interview with the SUB Itself

A 3D Image of a sub purchased at the SUB on April 29, 2025

Bibliography

• Alexander, Lily, and Nate Bernard. “The SUB’s History with Anti-War Protest.” Daily Lobo, May 13, 2024. https://www.dailylobo.com/article/2024/05/the-subs-history-with-anti-war-protest.

• Briggs, Sherie. “Bowling Alley to Die Soon.” Daily Lobo, October 22, 1973. UNM Digital Repository. https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/daily_lobo_1973/119/

• Chapa, Leila, and Paloma Chapa. “Seven Arrested as Police Dismantle UNM Palestine Solidarity Encampment.” Daily Lobo, May 16, 2024. https://www.dailylobo.com/article/2024/05/seven-arrested-as-police-dismantle-unm-palestine-solidarity-encampment.

• Daniel, Ella, and Paloma Chapa. “UNM Encampment Stands in Solidarity with Palestine, Other Universities.” Daily Lobo, April 30, 2024. https://www.dailylobo.com/article/2024/04/unm-encampment-stands-in-solidarity-with-palestine-other-universities.

• Daniel, Ella, and Paloma Chapa. “16 Arrested After Pro-Palestine Protesters Occupy the SUB: UNM Solidarity Encampment, Week Two.” Daily Lobo, May 1, 2024. https://www.dailylobo.com/article/2024/05/16-arrested-after-pro-palestine-protesters-occupy-the-sub.

• “Dedication of the New Mexico Union: Program.” University of New Mexico, November 14, 1959. UNMA 028, Box 96. Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico.

• Heady, Ferrel. One Time Around. Albuquerque, NM: School of Public Administration, University of New Mexico, 1999.

• Hooker, Van Dorn, Melissa Howard, and V. B Price. Only in New Mexico: An Architectural History of the University of New Mexico: The First Century, 1889-1989. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2000.

• Horn, Calvin. The University in Turmoil and Transition: Crisis Decades at the University of New Mexico. Albuquerque, NM: Rocky Mountain Pub. Co., 1981.

• “Inspection Report.” University Architect, University of New Mexico, November 21, 1977. UNMA 028, Box 96, Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico.

• Mathes, Khepran. “Construction Screws Up East Campus.” Daily Lobo, August 26, 1996.

• Navrot, Miguel. “SUB Planners Happy to Hear Your Renovation Suggestions.” Daily Lobo, May 1, 1996.

• Ordower, Garrett. “Student Union Target for Change.” Albuquerque Journal, January 20, 2001.

• “Students Should Solve Union Problem.” Daily Lobo, January 19, 1972.

• University of New Mexico. Dept. of Facility Planning Records, 1889-, collection UNMA 028,Box 96. Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico.

• “UNM Construction Continues.” Albuquerque Journal, August 15, 1976.