Tuesday, October 20, 2020
AUGUST 4, 2020 — Six faculty members from UTSA have participated in the San Antonio Compassionate Institute 2020 along with representatives from multiple other city educational organizations. The institute, hosted by Compassionate San Antonio, consists of online curriculum where community educators and leaders receive compassion training to take back to their educational institutions and communities. Participants met virtually from June 15 to July 16.
Participants from UTSA who completed the 2020 Compassionate Integrity Training were Erica Sosa, associate professor in the Department of Public Health; Angela Speck, professor and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy; Jessica Wright, assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and Classics; Kathryn Henderson, assistant professor in the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies; Greg Griffin, assistant professor of urban and regional planning in the Department of Architecture; and Gary Jacobs, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering.
Mayor Nirenberg Greets Compassionate SA
Other members of the UTSA community are also involved in the program. Members of the CIT planning committee include Maria Alejandro, director of the Center for Civic Engagement; Mel Webb, a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and Classics and Honors College; Elvira Leal, assistant vice president for community relations; and Ph.D. student Kerry Mckeon. They have all previously taken the CIT training and will be facilitating post-training CIT workshops for other higher education participants.
“I was excited when the opportunity to bring CIT to San Antonio arose, since it is the only compassion-based training that also includes an analysis of the ways that systems, such as educational systems, can reproduce patterns of harm that require determined, compassionate engagement to repair,” said Webb. “I am glad to offer this program as part of a wider effort to deepen our local commitment to compassion and to move the needle toward more equitable outcomes for students at every level, in every region of San Antonio.”
CIT participants will continue to meet with educators from around the world in events hosted by a designated facilitator through the next academic year to assess how the training is being applied in their classrooms and educational settings.
“CIT has equipped me with the tools to guide students to self-reflect on what role compassion plays in building partnerships for authentic community-engaged experiential learning and scholarship,” Alejandro said.
⇒ Learn more about the Compassionate Institute.
The San Antonio Compassionate Institute 2020 grew from the Compassionate SA Resolution approved by City Council and signed in 2017 by Mayor Ron Nirenberg. Earlier this year Nirenberg reached out directly to local university presidents, superintendents and educational leaders, asking each to nominate participants for the program from their institutions.
In collaboration with the San Antonio Compassionate Institute 2020, the University of Incarnate Word will be hosting a workshop titled “Critical Thinking, Compassion, Paths to Civic Engagement,” open to all San Antonio university and college educators on August 11.
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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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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.
