Yearlong Series Orients New Faculty to UTEP, Students’ Unique Needs
A core tenet of The University of Texas at El Paso’s mission is to foster well-being in the lives of students. For UTEP faculty, that requires an understanding of UTEP students’ unique background, assets, and needs.
Throughout the 2023-24 academic year, Christina Convertino, Ph.D., is hosting four sessions that introduce new UTEP faculty to the mission and culture at UTEP, as well as the concept of servingness. Convertino is an associate professor of teacher education and a Provost’s Faculty Fellow focused on faculty leadership and professional development.
Convertino said, “The sessions provide a space for building a shared understanding of what it means to serve UTEP students and the region and to foster a culture of care through mentoring and collaborative research partnerships.“
At the most recent session, held in late February, three UTEP faculty members — Maria Teresa de la Piedra, Ph.D., Aaron Velasco, Ph.D. and Eva Moya, Ph.D. — presented how they integrate servingness into their curriculum and their work with students.
Moya, the chair of the department of social work, lectured on food, housing and transportation insecurities that impact UTEP students. Moya highlighted how she and a team of students, the UTEP Student Food Equity Council, are responding to the needs in ways that range from proposals to the UTEP administration for a community garden and mini food pantries, to the dissemination of videos on social media that teach students how to create nutritious meals on a budget.
Teresa de la Piedra, a professor of teacher education, spoke on language diversity and equity at Hispanic Serving Institutions. According to Teresa de la Piedra, higher education classrooms tend to be monolingual with a bias toward English, a stark contrast to the translanguaging, one’s use of the different languages available to them when communicating, used by UTEP students. Teresa de la Piedra’s challenge to the new faculty was to consider how they can integrate UTEP students’ language practices into the classroom and take advantage of the unique assets that students possess.
Velasco, a professor of geological sciences, presented on UTEP’s Community-driven Inclusive Excellence and Leadership Opportunities in the Geosciences (CIELO-G). According to the team at CIELO-G, the geosciences remain one of the least diverse STEM fields. In response, CIELO-G, through funding from the National Science Foundation, employs a five-pronged approach to diversifying the geoscience community and workforce. Two of the strategies utilized by the CIELO-G team are working with local educators to create a modern geoscience learning ecosystem and improving graduate students’ and postdoctoral scholars’ training through evidence-based professional development.
Robert Pankow, Ph.D., a new assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has attended all the sessions thus far, having found them beneficial and insightful.
“The sessions have provided me with a perspective about the key issues UTEP students may face during the completion of their academic programs,” said Pankow. “I leave each event with new tools at my disposal that I can use to foster environments where academic and research excellence are accessible to all.”
Last Updated on April 25, 2024 at 12:00 AM | Originally published April 25, 2024
By MC Staff UTEP Marketing and Communications
