A new school year brings new opportunities—for incoming first-year students; for returning undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students; for just-arrived faculty and staff; and for the potential of fresh educational and research collaboration as well as athletic ambition.

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UTSA is a powerhouse for research in areas of the tech industry. A couple of these areas that you’ll be hearing more and more about very soon are in the use of altered realities and big data. In our cover story we delve into how teams in UTSA’s College of Science, College of Engineering, and College of Business are collaborating on the use of virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and data visualization. While some of the terms might sound like the stuff of science fiction, the projects are anything but. They’re actually about solutions to problems that many people will use in their everyday lives—helping patients who have multiple sclerosis with physical therapy, letting children with autism design virtual teachers so that they might more readily interact with them, allowing artists to explore in great detail works of art that aren’t easily accessible, and training cardiac bypass surgeons in special situations. There are more, and this is just the beginning for our university.

We’ve taken the opportunity to explore the technology ourselves in creating this issue. You didn’t notice as you first picked up this magazine, but it’s interactive. With a smartphone or tablet, you can see something special on our front cover. Using an app called Layar, which is available on all platforms, point it at our cover, and see how it comes to life to show you highlights of the technologies discussed in our cover story. We’re excited about it, and we hope you will be too. This kind of interactivity—through apps like Layar, available for iOS and Android platforms (see instructions below)—are coming into everyday use more and more. So there will be other opportunities that you’ll come across, not just from Sombrilla Magazine, to use it. Don’t be left out of the loop on the amazing things that others are seeing.

Finally, about the new faculty and staff who are coming aboard. Among them are three new deans as well as new head coaches of football and men’s basketball—all of whom we’ve interviewed to introduce you to what exciting things they plan on bringing to UTSA. Enjoy!