UTSA students, community invited to explore Selena’s lasting impact on Hispanic identity

UTSA will once again delve into the lasting impact of one music icon’s work on the Hispanic identity. “Selena: A Mexican American Identity & Experience” will return for the summer 2022 semester.

ABA at UTSA to host Camp Durango for second year

ABA at UTSA will be holding Camp Durango for the second year in a row. This summer camp for children with autism and their siblings focuses on fostering communication, social and adaptive skills through applied behavior analysis (ABA). It is part of ABA at UTSA, a group of university faculty, staff, and students who conduct research and complete service projects to support the field of behavior analysis within the local community.

UTSA announces University Excellence Awards nominees for 2022

UTSA has announced the nominees for this year’s University Excellence Awards — the annual event that celebrates the achievements of Roadrunner faculty and staff, including exceptional teaching, innovative research, exemplary team spirit and impactful advocacy.

Selena at 51: What might have been

It’s been nearly two years since Sonya Alemán introduced a course at the University of Texas at San Antonio about the late, legendary Tejano singer Selena. … The course uses Selena’s story as a prism to examine the Mexican American experience, in all its contradictory glory. Alemán traces the class’s genesis to 2015, when she was teaching a UTSA course, Latino Cultural Expressions, which surveyed all the cultural products that have come out of Latino communities. “Selena filtered into so many of those conversations,” Alemán said.

Oral history project preserves San Antonio’s West Side Sound

During the 1950s and ’60s, San Antonio’s West Side was the site of a unique musical phenomenon. Teens from the mostly Latino neighborhood started forming bands that played with some of the soul of Detroit’s Motown acts, but with distinctly Texan accents. The West Side Sound, as it came to be known, developed organically. Now, more than a half-century after the scene reached its summit, cultural historians at the University of Texas at San Antonio are compiling an oral history archive to preserve memories of the music and the people behind it.

Texas’ ‘wild west’ teacher prep landscape could make teacher shortage worse

The road for budding educators in Texas is a sprawling landscape of universities, nonprofits and companies getting teachers into the classroom – with minimal state requirements and feeble oversight. Of those many paths, the for-profit, online route is experiencing meteoric growth and pumping out the largest number of candidates as the state faces a teacher shortage crisis. That can contribute to more turnover on campuses, unsupported educators and students left in a lurch.