(Nov. 15, 2018) -- In an email sent today to UTSA faculty and staff, President Taylor Eighmy provided updates on the presidential, strategic and tactical initiatives underway to support the university’s strategic vision.
Consultants from Page visited Oct. 25-26 for a series of campus open forums where they presented findings from the UTSA Campus Master Plan Discovery Survey. Approximately 4,000 participants completed the online survey tool. With the Discovery Phase of the initiative now complete, Page consultants will visit campus again in early December to begin the Exploration Phase of developing initial plan options for both the Main Campus, including Park West, and the Downtown Campus. UTSA students, faculty and staff who were unable to attend a forum are welcome to share feedback and ideas with the steering committee by emailing masterplan@utsa.edu or texting 830-339-2252.
Classroom to Career
Subcommittees of the Classroom to Career Task Force are in high gear finalizing a survey that will circulate to UTSA’s academic departments and student service centers, conducting interviews of peer institutions, and inventorying internal and external resources that can be creatively applied to this initiative. Outreach to potential partners is ongoing, including one-on-one meetings and, coming up in December, employer focus groups that will be held in conjunction with a Career Center event. The Task Force will draft a report by the end of the year to include both findings and recommendations.
Since last month, both the City of San Antonio and Bexar County approved land transfers of a total of 5.1 acres of property just east of the existing Downtown Campus to be the sites for the National Security Collaboration Center and the proposed School of Data Science. Meanwhile, task force sub-groups continue to meet and a #UTSADowntown listserv has been created to keep the campus community informed of events and announcements affecting the Downtown Campus.
Research Excellence
In an effort to encourage teaming and collaboration across disciplines, the VPREDKE will be launching a new seed grant program in December 2018 for Transdisciplinary Teaming (T2). Two awards of $20,000 each are anticipated to begin in September 2019. The VPREDKE staff continue to work with college leadership to identify multi-million dollar grant opportunities and build teams around them, as well as to identify faculty who are interested and well-positioned for various NRUF and CMUP-recognized scholarly awards.
Strategic Communications
President Eighmy met with members of the Strategic Communications Task Force and UTSA Communications Collective last month to share the university’s strategic vision and emphasize its three destination points. Since that time, Dougherty Insightings, a Dallas-based brand consulting firm, has been hired to facilitate UTSA’s brand redefinition. The firm is conducting interviews with university leadership this month to gather and interpret perceptions of the university brand. A follow-up workshop will be held in early December with members of the UTSA Senior Leadership team. These findings will help shape the strategic communications messaging for a new branding campaign in 2019.
SACSCOC 2020 – Racing to Reaccreditation
The Racing to Reaccreditation Team had an October 15 deadline for first drafts of narratives for the over 70 standards that will be addressed in UTSA's Compliance Certification Report due September 2019. By the first draft deadline, 92% of all standards were addressed. Content revisions are in progress, as is a review of outstanding documentation needed.
National Security Collaboration Center and School of Data Science
A second round of programming workshops were held the week of October 22, which included campus deans, department heads, center directors and NSCC federal and industry partners. Public solicitations to select a professional design firm and a construction manager-at-risk are now in progress. The $90 million in funding for the project includes $70 million in Permanent University Funds from UT System and a $15 million donation from Graham Weston. The NSCC will build a cybersecurity research and development ecosystem facilitating the collaboration of government partners, industry partners, and academia. The School of Data Science will house research and teaching in cybersecurity, cloud computing, data and analytics, and artificial intelligence in one building to include classrooms, laboratories and research space. Construction will start late in 2019 and finish in 2021.
Freshman Residence Hall
The facility program is complete and schematic design is in progress. The project will be presented at the February Board of Regents meeting for the first of two required Board approvals. The new residence hall will be located at the corner of Brenan and Tobin Avenues adjacent to Roadrunner Café and will consist of a four-story building with 372 beds, mostly doubles with a few singles. The hall will include several study and academic resource lounges, laundry rooms, a multipurpose/seminar room, and a coffee shop. Project construction will begin in fall 2019 with the project scheduled to open for residents in the fall of 2021.
Cattleman’s Square Residential Tower
A Request for Qualifications (RFQ) is being developed to solicit interested developers in a public-private partnership (P3) to enhance build this mixed-use residential facility to house UTSA’s growing population at the Downtown Campus. The RFQ is on track to be issued by the end of November with the selection of a private partner in spring 2019.
Roadrunner Village
A Request for Qualifications (RFQ) is being developed to solicit interested developers in a public-private partnership (P3) to enhance student experience at the Main Campus through the construction of a vibrant neighborhood that includes housing, dining and retail space. The RFQ is on track to be issued by the end of November with selection of a private partner in spring 2019.
Residential Honors College
The new Residential Honors College initiative will create a living-learning community for the university’s top students and bring UTSA’s Honors College to new levels of national prominence. Initial steps are now underway, including drafting a timeline and outlining the solicitation process for a design firm. Related to this effort, the Honors College launched a new Honors Advisory Council on October 26, comprising of representatives from across campus. The Council will assist and advise Honors College leadership, including on expansion of the college and its offerings—a goal that is fundamentally intertwined with the construction of the new residence hall.
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This event will acknowledge graduating seniors from the McNair Scholars program at UTSA before inducting the new cohort of scholars into the program.
North Paseo Building (NPB 5.140), Main CampusAt this memorable celebration, UTSA graduates will be introduced one-by-one to cross the stage and accept their doctoral degrees.
Arts Building Recital Hall, Main CampusRoadrunner Walk is an event for graduating students to have a memorable walk on campus to celebrate an important milestone and their achievements. Graduates will walk along the Paseo while being celebrated by the UTSA community, friends, and family members.
Student Union Paseo, Main CampusCelebrate the accomplishments of College of Education and Human Development, College for Health, Community and Policy, College of Sciences and University College.
Alamodome, 100 Montana St.Celebrate the accomplishments of Alvarez College of Business, College of Liberal and Fine Arts and Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design.
Alamodome, 100 Montana St.The 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.
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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 promoting access for all. UTSA, a premier public research university, fosters academic excellence through a community of dialogue, discovery and innovation that embraces the uniqueness of each voice.
