Big data gets schooled

January 14, 2019

Urban Education Institute featured in Spring 2019 issue of Sombrilla Magazine

His eyes light up like a child who has just seen fireworks fill the night sky for the first time. Yet it is not brilliance and sparkle that have captured the attention of Mike Villarreal, founding director of UTSA’s Institute of Urban Education. It’s facts, figures, charts, and graphs. Villarreal sees UTSA as a prosperity engine in one of the fastest growing cities in the United States and the institute’s education research as a way of amplifying UTSA’s community impact.

The new institute is a cornerstone in UTSA’s urban-serving mission. When President Taylor Eighmy arrived at UTSA he envisioned an institute on the Downtown Campus structured much like the University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute, which has been a driver behind improved public education outcomes in Chicago.

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