2007 Centennial Commission Update
Introduction
UTEP’s Centennial Commission was established on October 6, 2004, following an extensive nomination and selection process. Members were drawn from a broad cross-section of external constituencies whose interest and support are essential to the University’s future development. The 100 members of the Commission were charged with developing a vision for the University in 2014, UTEP’s 100th anniversary. Ten committees of ten members each were asked to review and evaluate the opportunities and challenges associated with UTEP’s future development and to recommend long-range goals and, where possible, strategies to achieve them. The result of their work, the Centennial Commission Report, was published in November 2005.
Beginning in the fall of 2006, UTEP has produced an annual report to highlight the achievements of the previous twelve months that are aligned with the Commission’s recommendations. UTEP’s accomplishments during 2008 are presented in this report.
PreK-16 Educational Collaboration
Recommendation – “Focus on and showcase Access and Excellence Pre-K through 16, with an emphasis on increasing opportunities for students to attend college while ensuring rigor in the curriculum.”
Building on nearly two decades of K-16 relationship development by the El Paso Collaborative for Academic Excellence, UTEP, the El Paso Community College and El Paso County school districts continue to gain prominence statewide and nationally for success in strengthening the pathway toward higher academic aspirations and attainment among all young people in this region. Of particular importance during the past year has been the continued growth in the College Readiness Initiative, which enables pre-college students to complete their required college admissions assessment and any required remediation while still in high school, so that they can begin UTEP and EPCC fully ready to earn college-level credit, thereby saving both time and money and reinforcing the self-confidence required to become successful university students. Important too is the significant reduction in developmental education enrollments, which at UTEP decreased by 50% between 2005 and 2008.
Another extremely important development in vertically integrating education in the El Paso region, from pre-kindergarten through graduate school, has been the growth in both dual credit and Early College High School programs, led by the El Paso Community College in collaboration with area school districts. These programs enable high school students to earn concurrent credit toward both a high school diploma and an associate’s degree from EPCC, and they are rapidly changing the definition of “entering students” and services for them at UTEP.
UTEP and EPCC have worked for many years to devise strategies to achieve efficiencies in integrating information and exchanging data on the many students in this region who enroll at both institutions, either sequentially or concurrently. A major breakthrough occurred during the past year with the development of tools that enable dual-enrolled students at UTEP and EPCC to check on their Financial Aid, Admissions and Scholarship applications at both institutions simultaneously. Nearly 9,000 students have already accessed this service since it became available earlier this year.
Undergraduate Education
Recommendation – “Recognizing that the majority of UTEP students work, the committee recommends that UTEP expand opportunities for meaningful student employment on campus.”
UTEP faculty members have worked hard to create a broad range of on-campus opportunities for students at all levels to join in the excitement of their research and scholarly work, and grant funding often converts such experiences into paid employment. Nearly all UTEP students are employed while enrolled at the university, and research-related employment on campus is particularly valuable because it fosters greater coherence in students’ daily routines and combines earning with learning. Research-related grant funding created nearly 1,200 on-campus jobs for UTEP students during the past year.
Graduate and Professional Development Programs
Recommendation – “Establish a culture of dynamic creativity and flexibility in the provision of advanced educational opportunities, including integrating professional and graduate education, providing licensure and other professional certifications and training, and experimenting with non-traditional course timing and delivery formulas.”
UTEP’s College of Business Administration launched two new Accelerated MBA cohorts of classes targeting working professionals. Under the accelerated program, students can complete their MBA degrees within 24 months. The program enrolls working professionals from El Paso, Juarez and Southern New Mexico whose backgrounds include finance, marketing, engineering, computer network administration, health care administration, education, veterinary medicine, pharmacy and military leadership.
There has been significant growth in online degree offerings and enrollments at UTEP. Online enrollment has increased by approximately 254% between fall 2005 and fall 2008. Beginning this fall, the College of Education offered two new Master of Education degrees online. Students can earn Master’s degrees in either Bilingual Education or Early Childhood Education from UTEP’s Teacher Education Department.
Health Professions Education/Health and Biomedical Research
Critical Issue – “Throughout the country there is a significant lack of Hispanic-based health research.”
UTEP continues to make significant strides in becoming the next top-tier research university in Texas: research expenditures for fiscal year 2007 totaled $46.41 million. Conducting research that focuses on the Paso del Norte region’s health challenges, the university has become a national leader in research on Hispanic health disparities, with a special focus on emerging infectious diseases and vaccine development, chronic diseases, environmental health, drug and alcohol abuse, and health care policy. RO1 grants from the National Institutes of Health—among the most prestigious awards for the most competitive research laboratories in the nation—have
grown to total more than $9 million.
U.S.-Mexico Border and International Programs
Recommendation – “Formalized collaborative teaching and research between UTEP and foreign (especially Mexican) institutions of higher education should become a major recruitment tool for building graduate student enrollment in fields related to Mexico, the border, and international studies.”
UTEP’s location on the U.S.-Mexico border has provided us extraordinary opportunities to engage in collaborative work with institutions and colleagues throughout Mexico. From partnerships between UTEP’s Colleges of Education, Business and Engineering and Monterrey Tech, to joint research and clinical outreach between UTEP’s College of Health Sciences and School of Nursing and their colleagues at the Autonomous Universities of Chihuahua and Juarez, these collaborations have provided unique bi-national teaching, learning and research opportunities to UTEP students and faculty. Sadly, recent escalating violence in Mexico has slowed somewhat the momentum of these highly promising bi-national collaborations, as we have had to exercise greater caution in authorizing travel of UTEP students, faculty and staff into Mexico, including Ciudad Juarez. Nonetheless, we remain strongly committed to these long-term partnerships with our colleagues and sister institutions in Mexico, and will continue to seek strategies to grow and develop them in the years ahead.
Regional Economic Development
Recommendation – “Partner with key space and defense security industries in research and outreach.”
The Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI) successfully secured UTEP’s designation by the Department of Homeland Security as the National Center of Excellence in Border Security and Immigration. The center will receive $6 million over six years to coordinate expertise and research capabilities from colleges and universities throughout the United States to focus on long-term solutions to border security and immigration challenges. UTEP will conduct research and develop technologies, tools, and advanced methods to balance immigration and commerce with effective border security. The focus will be on assessing threats and vulnerabilities, improving surveillance and screening, analyzing immigration trends, and helping to enhance policy and law enforcement efforts.
In addition, UTEP received funding from the Department of Defense for the Center for Defense Systems Research, which is currently working on three ongoing research projects. Together, these two OSI Centers represent more than $10 million in new educational and research opportunities at UTEP over the next six years.
UTEP’s Neighborhood
Recommendation – “Identify and construct recognizable campus gateways.”
UTEP initiated two major construction projects during the past year that will boldly and beautifully define the campus perimeter. The Foster-Stevens Basketball Complex may be the most visible of our current construction projects because of its location on the corner of Mesa and Glory Road. This beautiful new Bhutanese-style building, funded entirely by generous private donors and scheduled to open next spring, will provide practice courts, locker rooms, training facilities and offices for both women’s and men’s basketball teams and coaches, as well as a Hall of Honor that will celebrate UTEP’s glorious basketball tradition, including a special tribute to our 1966 NCAA Championship team and our beloved Coach Don Haskins.
One of the most anticipated construction projects to be launched this year will be a new facility for the College of Health Sciences and School of Nursing. Relocating undergraduate Health Sciences and Nursing programs from their current downtown site to the main UTEP campus has long been a high priority, and thanks to support from the U.T. System Board of Regents, that dream is about to come true. A magnificent new, $60 million facility will soon rise on the hill at the corner of Sun Bowl and Schuster, where the tennis courts and the Student Health Center are now located. Scheduled to open in the spring of 2011, this new facility will take UTEP’s Bhutanese architecture in several interesting new directions, and its location will make it highly visible, both on the campus and to passing traffic on Interstate-10.
El Paso’s Quality of Life
Recommendation – “As we look toward 2014, UTEP has the opportunity to expand the resources that enrich the quality of life of students and the community.”
The announcement by the Smithsonian Institution that it planned to feature the Kingdom of Bhutan and the State of Texas at its annual Folklife Festival on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. last summer presented UTEP with a fortuitous opportunity to become involved in the Festival itself and, upon its conclusion, to bring at least some of Bhutan’s participation in it to El Paso! An enthusiastic UTEP team accepted the challenge of planning both our participation in Festival activities in Washington and a special visit of Bhutanese performers to El Paso.
Following the Folklife Festival, 22 members of the Bhutanese delegation, including HRH Prince Jigyel Ugyen Wangchuck, traveled to El Paso for a special performance at the Haskins Center of the masked and traditional dancers of the Royal Academy of Performing Arts. The 7,500 area residents who braved a monsoon rainstorm to attend the dance performance will not soon forget the experience.
And the Bhutan momentum continues to build. Bhutan’s Folklife Festival exhibit on the National Mall included the construction of a large lhakhang, or temple, whose entire interior was handcrafted in Bhutan. Especially exciting for UTEP was Bhutan’s announcement that this beautiful building was donated by the people of Bhutan to the people of the United States for permanent installation on the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso.
UTEP’s Image
Recommendation – “UTEP’s attempts to create a positive image should be guided by the notion that image matters—it provides a sense of pride, belonging, progress, and success.”
Through academic program recognitions, individual student and faculty successes, research breakthroughs, and athletic accomplishments, UTEP has increasingly stepped into the spotlight during the past year, experiencing growing national and international visibility. UTEP’s MBA program was recently ranked by Hispanic Business magazine among the Top Ten MBA programs for Hispanics in the U.S., joining Stanford, Duke and U.T. Austin. This is the first time that UTEP has been included in this national ranking. Also recognized by Hispanic Business magazine was UTEP’s College of Engineering, ranked first among all U.S. universities in the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded to Hispanics, fourth in master’s degrees, and second in Ph.D. degrees, and once again recognized as one of the Top Ten Graduate Engineering Programs nationally. The School of Nursing was recognized by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for achieving the largest increase in the number of nursing graduates among all academic institutions in Texas, while also maintaining a 95% pass rate on the professional licensure examination, and The Chronicle of Higher Education acknowledged UTEP’s Rhetoric and Writing faculty as the third most productive such Ph.D. program faculty in the U.S. in terms of publications, grants and honors received. University recognition was extended to athletics, as the UTEP Women’s Basketball program earned a bid to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in its history.
Alumni Relations
Recommendation – “The committee recommends that the organizational infrastructure and resource management of the ARO and AA focus on programs, services, and volunteer opportunities that respond effectively to the needs of alumni and students.”
The Alumni Relations Office (ARO) successfully partnered with the UTEP Alumni Association to achieve our long-sought goal of establishing a UTEP Parents Association and a Miner Ambassadors student organization. With support from the Office of Alumni Relations, the Parents Association provides enhanced communication between UTEP and parents, supports parents in the education of their children, and takes an active role in promoting the university’s excellence through programs and services. The association recently conducted its first mini-orientation for parents. Through the Miner Ambassadors program, students receive extensive training to serve as official hosts of the university. In addition to giving campus tours to constituents, these students have served as hosts at a number of events in the past several months including El Paso Days for Texas Legislators, the Distinguished Alumni Awards Dinner, pre-game events sponsored by the Alumni Association, and the U.T. System Board of Regents’ meeting.