Students in SAISD use binoculars to bird watch.
MAY 15, 2023 — A transdisciplinary research team led by the UTSA College of Liberal and Fine Arts (COLFA) has received a three-year, $1.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. The funding will support the UTSA Urban Bird Project (UBP), a community science program that integrates avian ecology, Mexican American Studies and Indigenous studies through research about local, migratory and culturally significant birds and their environments.
Additionally, the funding provides financial support and mentorship to UTSA undergraduate and graduate students who participate in community-based research, and collaborative partnerships that broaden public access to environmental justice programs.
The project will begin in Fall 2023 with Community-Based Research in Environmental Justice: The Urban Bird Project, a new transdisciplinary, team-taught course for UTSA scholars in English, Mexican American Studies, higher education and environmental science. In partnership with members of the community, students will conduct interdisciplinary research on local and migratory birds within San Antonio, the South Texas border region, and Greater México.
“UTSA and our community will benefit greatly from the Mellon Foundation’s generous gift in support of our great students and our steadfast community-engaged research efforts,” said COLFA Dean Glenn Martinez. “This project will enhance our students’ academic experience by providing hands-on learning and research opportunities that advance environmental equity, while meaningfully engaging with impacted communities and ecosystems.”
Community-Based Research in Environmental Justice: The Urban Bird Project will be co-taught by Principal Investigator (PI) Kenneth Walker (associate professor of English), and Co-PIs Claudia García-Louis (Lutcher Brown associate professor of educational leadership and policy studies), Amelia King-Kostelac (assistant professor of practice in integrative biology), Lilliana Patricia Saldaña (associate professor of Mexican American Studies), and Jennifer Smith (assistant professor of integrative biology).
“The project seeks to tell new stories about our human relationships to birds and other animals so we can affirm our deep interdependence with ecological systems and foster care and protection at a moment when half of the bird species across the world are in decline,” said Walker.
The course will feature field trips that center the ecological teachings of community experts and guest speakers to tell a more complete and decolonial story about land, place and identity across the South Texas Border Region and the Américas. Students will be linked to communities often neglected by universities and will be trained in community-engaged research to tackle some of the world's most pressing challenges like species extinctions, preserving Indigenous knowledges and practices and climate change.
“This challenge is informed by ecological sciences, but care and protection for our planetary kin also needs to be informed by engaged practices with the humanities and social sciences to grapple with the many human dimensions of this problem. These issues are too important to be addressed by one discipline alone,” said King-Kostelac.
One of the UBP research projects will focus on assessing microplastic pollution as an environmental justice issue through avian ecology and community-engaged research. The project aims to investigate microplastic exposure of common backyard birds and the potential effects on avian fitness by monitoring nest boxes both on campus and in the broader San Antonio community. This research empowers community members to address issues of environmental justice in their neighborhoods while also increasing knowledge about an environmental contaminant of pressing concern.
Another university-community project will highlight the cultural knowledge of birds in local borderland communities, with students working directly with Indigenous and Mexican American groups in South Texas and Mexico to create an urban bird restor(y)ation digital repository that will archive the avian stories, knowledges and practices that borderlands people have maintained for generations.
The Mellon grant presents a new higher education focus to a program previously funded by a U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Hispanic Serving Institution Education Grant.
“As a Hispanic Serving Institution with majority Mexican American and Latine/x students, the UBP will strongly contribute to UTSA’s mission of bolstering student success and cultivating a new generation of Mexican American, Latine/x, and critically conscious researchers who will center ancestral and community knowledges in the creation of new environmental justice methodologies in Yanawana and the South Texas border region,” said Saldaña.
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.
Celebrate the accomplishments of the graduates of the College for Health, Community and Policy, College of Liberal and Fine Arts and College of Sciences.
Alamodome, 100 Montana St, San Antonio, TX 78203Celebrate the accomplishments of the graduates of the Carlos Alvarez College of Business, College of Education and Human Development, Margie and Bill Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design and University College.
Alamodome, 100 Montana St, San Antonio, TX 78203Don’t know where to start in looking for a job or internship? Virtually join in a live job/internship search navigation lab-style workshop. Follow along to bookmark and save opportunities you are interested in applying for.
Student Union (SU 2.02.04,) Main CampusDon’t know where to start in looking for a job or internship? 🔍 Primary platforms utilized during this workshop are Handshake and LinkedIn. Some industry-specific job search boards may be utilized.
Student Union (SU 2.02.04,) Main CampusFirst Friday Stargazing gives anyone free access to the night sky using university telescopes and teaching equipment. Weather permitting, experienced astronomers will provide a handful of telescopes of varying designs, give training on how each operates, and point to various astronomical objects that may appear in the sky for that given time of the year. If you have a telescope and do not know how to operate it, feel free to bring it and get instructions on its use.
4th Floor of Flawn Science Building, Main CampusThe 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 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.
