Tuesday, October 20, 2020
FEBRUARY 18, 2020 — A university icon and founder of the UTSA Ambassadors student leadership group, Pat Graham died Feb. 17. Graham, who retired from the university in 2017 as executive director of the Special Events Center, had worked for 43 years at UTSA.
When she began working at the university it was still operating out of the Koger Center, which served as a campus from 1973 to 1975. She remembered clearly when everything transitioned to the new campus off of Loop 1604, today’s Main Campus.
“We had to park along UTSA Boulevard, and then they would bus us into campus and drop us off at what is now the McKinney Humanities Building,” she told UTSA Today in 2014. “The library was in one of the [athletics] small courts in the PE building, and if you wanted to check out a book, the librarian would send a courier to UT Austin to get the book and bring it back the next day for you.”
The UTSA Ambassadors program is one of Graham’s greatest legacies, starting in 1988 and continuing today with a group of 60 or more student leaders. The Ambassadors act as hosts at campus events, university-sponsored conferences and community and alumni functions.
⇐ UTSA holds a retirement party to honor Pat Graham for her 43 years of service to the university.
Another of Graham’s most distinctive qualities was her ability to see the potential in people and to help them recognize it for themselves, particularly young students. “I believe in the rough diamond theory,” she said. “A rough diamond just looks like an old rock. But if you polish it, you’ll get a beautiful gem.”
In her decades of service to UTSA she had also worked as the assistant vice president for student services, associate vice president for student affairs and assistant to the vice president for student affairs for planning and special programs.
Graham was the 2010 recipient of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education’s ASAP Outstanding Adviser Award for her work with the UTSA Ambassadors. She was also the 2004 recipient of the Order of the Roadrunner Award, the highest honor a staff member can receive for dedication to the UTSA community.
⇒ Read the Sombrilla Magazine interview with Pat Graham after her retirement from UTSA.
⇒ Gifts in memory of Pat Graham can be made via Launch UTSA for the Dr. Pat Graham Scholarship fund or by mailing a check to UTSA Giving, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249.
She was also well-known beyond UTSA, serving as the national president of Alpha Lambda Delta National Honor Society for First-Year Students from 1997 to 2003. She was instrumental in establishing the chapter of Alpha Lambda Delta at UTSA in 1981. Graham served on the National Council of Alpha Chi National College Honor Society for juniors, seniors and graduate students.
Graham received her bachelor’s degrees in business administration and history from Trinity University and her master’s degree in guidance and counseling from St. Mary’s University. She earned her doctoral degree in curriculum and instruction from The University of Texas at Austin.
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UTSA Main Campus will serve as a designated polling station during the early voting period, today through October 30, and on Election Day, November 3.
H-E-B Student Union Ballroom (HSU 1.104)The First Generation and Transfer Student Center (FGTSC), Transfer and Transition Student Success Services (T2S3), and Alamo Runners invite you to join the virtual fun as we celebrate National Transfer Student Week. UTSA is enriched by transfer students who bring their diverse experiences, backgrounds, and assets to our campus. National Transfer Student Week seeks to celebrate, empower, and support transfer students with events and workshops specifically designed for transfers.
Virtual EventJoin Student Health Services as we discuss Intellectual Wellbeing with TRC - Academic Success Coaching.
Virtual EventAre you missing our Roost Tournaments? We will be having our UFC 3 tournament and our tournaments are now back to Wednesdays! Sign up and show us your skills. See if you have what it takes to be our champion.
Virtual EventDr. Mo. Jamshidi is an Endowed chaired professor at the University of Texas-San Antonio. He is a Persian Native, born in Shiraz, Iran in 1944. He was an advisor to NASA for 10 years (including with the first MARS Mission and seven years with NASA Headquarters (Washington, DC), among other organizations. He has over 800 technical publications including 74 books in English and 5 foreign languages. For the past 20 years, he has been collecting data on Persian Scientists and Poets from 1000 BC to 2021 AD. This presentation will be about the book written by Dr. Jamshidi that collects information on Persian scientists and poets.
Virtual EventJoin this informative, interactive webinar with practical tips on how to plan your charitable giving now and for the future. Michael Perkins, member of the UTSA Alumni Association and the UTSA College of Business Accounting Advisory Board, is no stranger to gift planning. As managing partner and CEO of Slattery Perkins Ramirez P.C. (“SPR”) his primary areas of focus include counseling business owners, executives, and other high net worth individuals on personal financial issues, including estate planning, wealth transfer, and income tax planning techniques. Michael also practices philanthropy himself – establishing an endowed scholarship at UTSA as well as supporting numerous charitable causes throughout San Antonio.
Virtual EventUTSA Main Campus is a voting poll for Election Day on November 3.
H-E-B Student Union Ballroom (HSU 1.104The 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 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.
