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“UTSA
in the News” is a synopsis of items that have appeared in periodicals
mentioning UTSA, its faculty, staff, students and programs. June 2003 With the building of a new $83.7 million
Biotechnology, Sciences and Engineering (BSE) facility getting under
way, the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) has high hopes of
becoming the state's next premier research institution. UTSA President
Ricardo Romo is one of the many people that are excited about the opportunities
for the UTSA campus, but for the community and the state of Texas. "We
are going to train a generation of people who can work in this exciting
biological field, said Romo. "We feel very good about the impact
it will have in the community."Scheduled to be completed by the
spring of 2005, the 220,000 square foot BSE Building is dedicated to
biomedical research and will be the largest building at the Loop 1604
campus. While Hispanic high school students
will walk across the stage during the next two weeks to receive their
diploma and perhaps stroll onto the road to college, according to a
Presidential Advisory Commission only 10 percent are estimated to walk
across a second time with a bachelor's degree. Although Hispanics are
now considered the largest minority by the U.S. Census Bureau, a gap
still exists between Hispanics completing a degree of higher education
than that of other races and ethnicities. One out of three Hispanic
American students fails to complete high school. University of Texas
at San Antonio President Ricardo Romo said that universities are the
destination of the effort to get high school graduates and the need
to outreach to students early in high school. Six weeks after tuition deregulation
was pronounced all but dead, Texas lawmakers revived it in the final
days of the 78th Legislature. Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said the
House and Senate have agreed in concept on the idea of giving public
universities the power to set their own tuition rates. The deal was
made palatable to some members with an agreement to set aside 20 percent
of any tuition boosts for workstudy programs and to create a joint panel
to monitor its implementation. Universities could begin to exercise
their tuition-setting ability next January. At UTSA, it's unclear how
tuition deregulation would affect rates over the biennium because lawmakers
still haven't settled on the amount of higher education cuts, Provost
Guy Bailey said. One thing is assured, however tuition rates will rise.
Still, he added, about 70 percent of the student body is on some type
of financial aid, and the university would be hardpressed to justify
significant tuition increases. There are no headliners at the Texas
Folklife Festival, instead the star attractions are more than 40 ethnic
groups, all found in Texas, that spend four days proving there's a lot
more to the Lone Star State than cowboys and Tex-Mex fare. The 32nd
Texas Folklife Festival starts Thursday and runs through June 8 on the
grounds of the Institute of Texan Cultures. About 70,000 people are
expected. Once again, the festival will offer a kaleidoscope of food,
music, dance, crafts and activities. City and county officials want to keep
Sony Electronics' soon-to-be-closed microchip plant humming, possibly
by moving UTSA, Southwest Research Institute and another semiconductor
company into the Northwest Side facility. And so far, they say, the
Japanese mnaufacturer has been willing to listen. Under the emerging
proposal for the Sony plant, The University of Texas at San Antonio
and the nonprofit Southwest Research would form a partnership. They
would use some of the facility's "clean rooms" and equipment
for research into nanotechnology, or the making of microscopic mechanical
and electrical devices. Faculty from UTSA's College of Engineering and
SRI researchers would provide most of the facility's staffers. South San Antonio High School student
Evelyn Garcia is the latest celebrant in the tradition of many elated
and grateful recipients of the Richard and Martha Landsman Scholarship
a full four-year tuition scholarship to UTSA awarded through the Volunteer
Center at United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County. Each spring, the
Landsman Scholarship is given to one high school student to attend The
University of Texas at San Antonio in the fall. These scholarship recipients
are selected from students with a minimum grade point average of 2.0,
a need of financial assistance and a record of outstanding community
service and traits." Top Toyota Motor Manufacturing North
America Inc. officials broke down the process of becoming non-assembly
suppliers for the planned auto plant to two simple rules. One, be patient
and two, use the Web site www.toyotasupplier.com, to get your foot in
the door. Toyota will not be ready until the summer of 2005 to decide
which companies will provide the San Antonio assembly plant with maintenance,
repairs and operating supplies and services. But local companies hoping
to count Toyota among their customers can fill out an online supplier
entry form. The event was filmed by the University of Texas at San Antonio's
Institute for Economic Development, which is under contract with Toyota,
to research local suppliers, stands ready to help companies prepare
to do business with Toyota, said the institute's head, UTSA Assistant
Vice President Robert Mckinley. The institute at the UTSA Downtown Campus,
offers classes in contracting, contract marketing, e-commerce and quality
assurance. Effective partnerships and smart business
sense could keep Brooks City-Base off a target list for the 2005 round
of federal base closures, said U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
Cornyn who sits on the Senate Armed Forces Committee, toured the facility
as part of a fact-finding mission to vulnerable sites in Texas. Earlier
in the day, he met with officials at Ingleside Naval Station near Corpus
Christi. As part of the Brooks City-Base visit, Cornyn toured an onsite
budding biotechnology research lab that will be operated jointly by
the Air Force and The University of Texas at San Antonio. The $3 million
facility will be capable of producing a variety of vaccines and anti-toxins. Hugo Quintero may someday sit in the
buildings he is helping create at The University of Texas at San Antonio.
Quintero is one of three graduate students working on three multimillion-dollar
construction projects at the university. Along with Quintero, Justice
Edge and Kam Loong Kong are engineers-in-training who are working under
professional engineers at Jaster-Quintanilla San Antonio, LLP. One project,
the Biotechnology, Sciences and Engineering Building III, is a $83.7
million facility that will house undergraduate and graduate programs
within the colleges of science and engineering. The university broke
ground this month and the estimated completion date is Spring 2005. The University of Texas at San Antonio's
TRIO programs were recently awarded $3.1 million in renewed grant funding
by the Department of Education. The four-year grant will help low-income
and first-generation college-bound students improve their grades and
enroll and graduate from an institution of higher education. U.S. Rep.
Henry Bonilla has been instrumental in securing more than $5 million
over the last decade for the TRIO programs housed at UTSA. Bonilla,
a TRIO alumnus, has visited with many of the students in the program
explaining the importance of staying in school and getting an education
so they can have successful college careers. More than 1,250 students are participating
June 9-July 31 in the 2003 San Antonio Prefreshman Engineering Program
(PREP) taking place at nine college and university sites including the
UTSA 1604 and Downtown Campuses. PREP identifies achieving middle and
high school students with the interest and potential for careers in
science, engineering and technology and other mathematics-related areas
and reinforces them in the pursuit of these fields. The eight-week,
mathematics-based academic program for students in grades six through
11 provides up to one elective credit toward high school graduation
for each successfully completed summer of PREP..
Comments
or questions to Kris Rodriguez
(krodriguez@utsa.edu)
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