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Faculty Credits
Martha May Tevis, Ph.D., Professor of Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, has been invited
to serve on the Founding Board of the Educating
Women Project. This project responds to a perceived generation gap in scholarship on women, gender, and education
and also to a widespread limit-situation for this field: in general, its senior scholars often lack opportunities
for collaborative work, while interested junior scholars often lack opportunities for adequately diversified advanced
studies of women, gender, and education. Funded from various sources including the International Society for Educational
Biography, this project will combine distance-education technologies, annual special-interest-group meetings within the
American Educational Studies Association and the National Women’s Studies Association, publications online and in print,
face-to-face intergenerational collaborations, and international conferences. Its purposes are to broaden, deepen, and
more extensively share specialized knowledge and ongoing scholarship on women, gender, and education and thus to construct
unprecedented opportunities for novice, mid-career, and senior scholars to undertake advanced learning and inquiry in this
new field of scholarship.
Dr. Bobby Guinn, Professor and Health Program Coordinator, has made two juried presentations of completed research
and has two refereed journal (national) publications during the 2007-2008 academic year.
Presentations:
“Perceived Barriers to Physical Activity in Adult Mexican Americans.” Presented at the Research Section of the Texas Association for
Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance Annual Convention, Galveston, December, 2007. Lead presenter with V. Vincent.
“Leisure-Time Physical Activity Barriers Among Female Mexican Americans.” Presented at the Research Consortium of the American
Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance National Convention, Fort Worth, TX, April, 2008. Lead presenter
with V. Vincent.
Publications:
“Activity Determinants Among Mexican American Women in a Border Setting.” American Journal of Health Education, Vol. 39(3),
May/June, 2008. Lead author with V. Vincent.
“Leisure-Time Physical Activity Barriers Among Border Mexican American Women.” American Journal of Health Studies, Vol. 22(2),
Summer, 2008. (In Press). Lead author with V. Vincent.
Dr. Baltazar Arispe y Acevedo, Jr., has had a refereed article accepted by The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education and it will
appear in the September, 2008 issue. The title of the article is Actualizing Its Demographic Destiny: Challenges and Opportunities
for Hispanic America.
Dr. Acevedo is also presenting a refereed paper: The Role of the Rio Grande in the Institutionalization of the Texas Lower Rio Grande
Valley, at the XIX Annual Symposium on Modern Languages. This symposium is being sponsored by the Department of Modern Languages and
Literature in the College of Arts and Humanities at UTPA. . The symposium, Border Walls and Border Mirrors: Language, Literature and
Culture on the US-Mexico Border will be held at the Echo Hotel on April 30th, May 1st and 2nd, 2008.
Dr. Acevedo has also been invited to lead a dialogue at an invitational symposium of twenty-two national Chicano scholars which is
being sponsored by the College Board and the Hispanic Border Leadership Institute at the Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.
The symposium is being held in conjunction with the Annual Conference of the College Board in Chicago from May 19-21, 2008. The title
of his presentation is: Perspectives on Chicano Participation in the American Academy: 1968 to 2008.
Professors Francisco Guajardo and Miguel de los Santos from the Department of Educational Leadership have been working on a
public information campaign to inform the community of Edinburg to vote on a bond issue to build new schools in Edinburg. The faculty
members encourage everyone to visit the website www.edinburgyes4kids.com to gain information about the bond issue. They encourage
everyone in the UTPA community to exercise their right to vote on May 10th.
Francisco Guajardo, Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership, published an article in the spring edition of
Anthropology and Education Quarterly entitled, "Transformative Education: Chronicling a Pedagogy for Social Change," with Miguel Guajardo
and Edyael Casaperalta.
Guajardo delivered a keynote address entitled "Stories from Rural South Texas," at the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Askwith
Lecture Series on April 20, 2008.
Guajardo facilitated a statewide workshop for educators in the state of Wyoming in Centennial, Wyoming, on April 16, 2008, and he will
lead a national conversation on the state of education in rural America at the National Rural Assembly in Washington, DC, in June.
Melinda Blomquist, UTPA Dance Ensemble Co-Artistic Director and Lecturer in the Department of Health and Kinesiology, has been
invited to present excerpts from her choreographic work Trials and Rejoicing at the Northwest Vista College Dance Concert on May 3, 2008
in San Antonio, Texas. The full length work premiered at UTPA in the Fall of 2007 and excerpts of the work were presented in the recent
Dance Ensemble Concert. The work is performed by undergraduate dance major students Adina Flores, Elizabeth Gonzalez and Mary Caitlin
Wantland. Trials and Rejoicing was created in the Fall of 2007 and focuses on the concept that the trials we face in life serve to
strengthen us and give us greater understanding of ourselves and our relationship to our faith. The multi section work explored how
gaining this knowledge enables us to discover joy through the strength, faith, and knowledge gained as a result of the experiences that
we face during our trials. Working with the dancers to delve into and explore their own experiences of how they have found joy through
their trials was an important part of the choreographic process. Each of the dancers in the work contributed ideas regarding how trials
shape our lives and how they personally have been strengthened through these experiences. Drawing upon her own experiences and the
dancer’s experiences, Melinda created movement that is reflective of this process. The work is set to traditional hymns, spirituals
and folk songs that represent the Rio Grande Valley and the life experiences of the choreographer and dancers.
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