Women’s Studies Institute announces Associate Director

 The University of Texas at San Antonio Women’s Studies Institute has named Patricia D. Quijada, Assistant Professor in Counseling and Educational Psychology, the new Associate Director.

“As the Associate Director for the Women’s Studies Institute I seek to collaborate with the executive director, Dr. Sonia Saldívar-Hull, in carving out a research trajectory that seeks to produce new, creative, and critically informed scholarship that deals directly with issues related toward the empowerment of women,” says Quijada. “In so doing we intend to further expand upon the collegial relationships here at UTSA and in the local San Antonio community by building alliances with faculty across disciplines and with the community.”

Quijada joined UTSA in 2004 with a Ph.D. in educational psychology with a designated emphasis in human development from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; two masters of education degrees in counseling and human development from Harvard University; a multiple subject teaching credential from the University of San Diego; a bachelor of science degree in sociology and a bachelor of arts degree in political science from the University of California at Riverside.

Quijada’s research interests include examining identity formations among female youth in home, community, and school contexts; mother-child relationships among Indigenous communities; and academic achievement among students of color.

In the summer of 2005 with the support of the WSI, Quijada collaborated with a community-based non-profit youth organization to launch the First Annual JUNTAS: Cultivando a Stronger Futuro Conference which focused on encouraging first generation 9-12 year old college bound Chicanas/Latinas to pursue a post-secondary education.

This conference is the beginning of a longitudinal project Quijada will pursue advocating for Latinas to have opportunities to attend post-secondary institutions. With this in mind, Quijada intends to have the JUNTAS conference serve as a pilot project for a longitudinal community-action based research study that will center on promoting the educational success of Chicanas/Latinas in the San Antonio community.

Quijada has been appointed to serve a three year term on the Scholars Advocating for Gender Equity (SAGE) committee and will be Co-chairing Division K (Teaching and Teacher Education) Section 7 and the Adolescence Special Interest Group for the American Educational Research Association.

Quijada has presented her research at numerous national and international conferences and most recently has published, Semillas educacionales fortalecen nuestro futuro: K-8 Latina(o) schooling experiences. Quijada has also presented at several events and will be the keynote speaker for the 2006 Young Women & Young Men’s Conference sponsored by the San Antonio College Women’s Center.