Carmen Tafolla reads Estrellas of Possibility during the Inauguration.
(March 21, 2018) -- UTSA President Taylor Eighmy received a very special gift this week. To commemorate his inauguration as the university’s sixth president, Carmen Tafolla, the 2015-2016 Texas Poet Laureate and a professor in the UTSA Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies, presented him with “Estrellas of Possibility”, the Inaugural Poem. Tafolla’s poem celebrates Eighmy’s vision to make UTSA a flourishing community that drives prosperity.
“I was intrigued and enthused that we had a new President who, although academically trained in the sciences, showed great appreciation of the humanities, and stated as a high priority the involvement of our beautiful, multicultural, but often-neglected community,” Tafolla said. “When I heard the stories about he and his wife courting each other via the poetry of Pablo Neruda, the idea was born for ‘Estrellas of Possibility.’”
Tafolla adds President Eighmy’s interest in reaching both the English-speaking and the Spanish-speaking communities freed her to write the inaugural poem in her native code-switching Tex-Mex, to solidify his connection with both language communities.
With UTSA advancing as San Antonio’s university of the future, Tafolla also wrote about the connection between the city and the stars.
“The images of exploding stars, filled with energy and possibility drove me, and the distinct image of a billion drops of water bonded together and unstoppable touched both on his love of rivers, and of our city’s millennia-old heart, the San Antonio River,” said Tafolla.
Learn more about UTSA’s vision for the future.
Learn more about UTSA professor and poet Carmen Tafolla.
Connect with UTSA online at Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn.
UTSA Today is produced by University Communications and Marketing, the official news source of The University of Texas at San Antonio. Send your feedback to news@utsa.edu. Keep up-to-date on UTSA news by visiting UTSA Today. Connect with UTSA online at Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Instagram.
Community input is central to developing a well-conceived roadmap for the next 50 years of the ITC. To date, the visioning process has included opportunities for public input and ideation through two rounds of Community Conversations that sought input from a wide variety of ITC stakeholders.
Virtual EventPlease join us Thursday, July 7th, 2022 for a discussion with Colonel (ret) Michael Davis, MD, FACS, FRCS (Hon), former Director of the U.S. Combat Casualty Care Research Program. Dr. Davis will discuss how to best identify strengths at UTSA that can be effectively leveraged for funding proposals to the Department of Defense.
Business Building (BB `2.06.04,) Main CampusEducators will develop strategies that can be implemented to stimulate, guide, and build capacity of diverse student populations.
UTSA Downtown CampusParticipants will be introduced to applications included in Adobe Creative Cloud, a tool that is free for all UTSA faculty, staff, and students. Attendees will be able to complete short projects that will give them the opportunity to produce artifacts that they can use to improve digital literacy in their courses
Virtual EventThe Innovation Academy is an 8-hour online hybrid course designed to introduce faculty to a variety of educational ideas, best practices and resources for becoming more comfortable in teaching in different modalities. This academy will run July 18 – August 21. Upon completion of all activities, faculty will receive a one-time incentive of $1,000
Virtual EventLearn how to design surveys that are scientifically valid and are inclusive of diverse populations. Anchored in culturally and linguistically competent practices, this interactive workshop will explore and apply concepts related to the lifecycle of survey development from design to implementation.
Virtual EventThe virtual conference will bring together information professionals and academics to discuss current research, ideas, insights, and best practices that advance STEM research and education.
Virtual EventThe University of Texas at San Antonio is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge through research and discovery, teaching and learning, community engagement and public service. As an institution of access and excellence, UTSA embraces multicultural traditions and serves as a center for intellectual and creative resources as well as a catalyst for socioeconomic development and the commercialization of intellectual property - for Texas, the nation and the world.
To be a premier public research university, providing access to educational excellence and preparing citizen leaders for the global environment.
We encourage an environment of dialogue and discovery, where integrity, excellence, inclusiveness, respect, collaboration and innovation are fostered.
UTSA is a proud Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) as designated by the U.S. Department of Education.
The University of Texas at San Antonio, a Hispanic Serving Institution situated in a global city that has been a crossroads of peoples and cultures for centuries, values diversity and inclusion in all aspects of university life. As an institution expressly founded to advance the education of Mexican Americans and other underserved communities, our university is committed to ending generations of discrimination and inequity. UTSA, a premier public research university, fosters academic excellence through a community of dialogue, discovery and innovation that embraces the uniqueness of each voice.