UTSA Office of Information Technology awards grants to six UTSA colleges to support student success initiatives

UTSA College of Business students listen to a lecture.

(May 26, 2017) -- Six University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) colleges have been awarded grants totaling $125,000 from the UTSA Office of Information Technology Academic Support Solutions Fund, formerly the Technology Fund. The awards will assist each college in the implementation of projects aimed at contributing to student success.

Last fall, OIT extended a call for proposals to all nine UTSA colleges by way of its Faculty Advisory Committee. This committee convenes on a quarterly basis and serves as a liaison between UTSA faculty and OIT.

Interested UTSA colleges were encouraged to request support for student-centered projects that aligned with at least one goal of Blueprint UTSA. In addition, proposed projects were required to adhere to the guidelines of the UTSA Automated Services and Computer Access Charge.

UTSA faculty and staff submitted proposals for an array of projects, including computer lab refreshes and upgrades, technology purchases, the implementation of a student workstation and the creation of a graduate level course.

"All of the proposals were excellent," said Vanessa Hammler Kenon, assistant vice provost for Information Technology and chair of the OIT Faculty Advisory Committee. "They were creative, innovative and based on students' needs and research directly connected to students."

A sub-committee of the Faculty Advisory Committee, comprised of OIT staff and UTSA students was created to vote on proposals. After a brief deliberation, the sub-committee decided to award funding of varying amounts to all applicants as part of OIT's ongoing commitment to fostering technological innovations and student achievement at UTSA.

"Our funds are very limited and we wish we could do more," said Kenon. "Although this is a variable budget line, we are trying to fund these projects even in tightly funded years because it is so important to UTSA's mission in so many areas."

The six colleges and their awarded projects include:

• College of Architecture, Construction and Planning
  "Meeting the Demands of Architecture and Interior Design Students' Digital Skills"

• College of Business
  "Tier One Technology for a Tier One Program"

• College of Education and Human Development
  "Documentary Narrative Analysis"
  "Psychological Assessment and Consultation Center: Adopting an Electronic Health Records and Practice Management System"

• College of Engineering
  "UAV-Based Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing for Enhancing UTSA Campus Sustainability, Urban Planning and Students Learning"
  "High Performance Dell Workstation to support Geoinformatics Education and Research"
  "High Speed Research Computing Network Demonstration Project"
  "Pilot Study for Determining the Efficacy of Utilizing VDI in Engineering"

• College of Liberal and Fine Arts
  "Upgrading Technology in the Graduate Anthropology Lab"
  "Psychology Shared Research Lab Refresh"

• College of Sciences
  "Student Collaboration Table"
  "Cyber Security Lab Computer Refresh"
  "Expand Cyber Security Enrollments"

OIT plans to make funds available for the upcoming academic year and a call for proposals will be circulated to all UTSA colleges in early July. Interested colleges are encouraged to apply via their OIT Faculty Advisory Committee representative.

UTSA is ranked among the top 400 universities in the world and among the top 100 in the nation, according to Times Higher Education.

- Nicole Duff

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