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Loya is president of Vitol Inc., the North and South American arm of the Vitol Group, one of the world's largest energy trading companies. He earned his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at UTEP in 1977 and his M.B.A. at Harvard two years later.

He made international headlines in fall 2011 after he pledged $10 million to UTEP to develop integrated engineering and business education models to enhance the preparation of students for successful 21st century careers. Some of the funds are also committed to support students directly through scholarships and fellowships.

"The honorific naming of the Academic Services Building is a fitting tribute to Mike Loya," said UTEP President Diana Natalicio. "It recognizes his exceptional achievements, his generous spirit and his commitment to UTEP. Mike's association with this facility will also serve as an inspiration to UTEP students for whom Mike Loya represents an extraordinary role model."

University officials plan to celebrate the naming of the building during a special event at a date to be announced.

Mike Loya received a Gold Nugget Award from UTEP's College of Engineering in 2004 and in 2010 was named a UTEP Distinguished Alumnus, the highest honor the University bestows upon its alumni.

The two-story building at 601 W. Schuster Ave. (at Hawthorne Street), is home to 14 key student service departments, including the offices of Scholarships, Financial Aid, Veterans Affairs, Registrar and Records, and the Graduate School.

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Among the center's initial goals will be to develop the methods to secure the commercial and energy systems in the West Texas/Southern New Mexico region against cyber attacks, equipment failures and natural threats, said Ralph Martinez, Ph.D., the George W. Edwards, Jr./El Paso Electric distinguished professor in the College of Engineering and UTEP's director of energy initiatives.

The project is a joint effort between the University's Center for Environmental Resource Management and its Research Institute for Manufacturing and Engineering Systems. Martinez is the project's principal investigator. His co-PI is Ricardo Pineda, Ph.D., chair and professor of industrial, manufacturing and systems engineering.

The city will pay the University more than $3.4 million during the six-year contract that should start in a few weeks. The money will come from the city's franchise fees.

The center will address technical, regulatory, academic and commercial challenges associated with emerging cyber and energy security technologies tied to alternative energy resources, especially distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems.

"We have to make the power grids reliable and secure," said Martinez, who referenced several local, national and international examples where energy grid failures led to significant financial problems. He said El Paso's three-day freeze in February 2011 caused an estimated loss of more than $50 million to the business and education sectors.

"The problem is utilities do not invest enough in cyber security infrastructure," he said. "Without the proper protection, system failure could create havoc in a community when you think of medical, business, manufacturing and education. A significant disruption could endanger the population and cost billions of dollars."

The center, which would be located on the UTEP campus, expects to create 85 new jobs throughout the life of the contract to include faculty, staff and graduate students in the colleges of engineering and business administration. The estimated full-time salaries for these new jobs will range from $70,000 to $90,000.

Among the University's potential partners are the U.S. departments of defense, energy and agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, Sandia National Laboratories, El Paso Electric and the Electric Power Research Institute, a Palo Alto-based consortium of utilities. The center also plans to associate with colleagues at New Mexico State University to produce engineers trained in modern power systems and El Paso Community College to prepare skilled installation and maintenance technicians.

The center already is in talks with various companies in the oil, energy, water and natural gas industries that are interested in collaborations, Martinez said. He added that a secondary benefit to the center could be decisions by some of these companies to open offices in the Paso del Norte region.

"The economic impact from high-tech industries could be significant," he said. "This area has yet to tap into its solar PV potential, and the RCES Center will be an enabler."

Martinez said the center's scope eventually could encompass energy companies and academic institutions throughout Texas and the Southwest.

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Every February, the country celebrates the lives and legacies of our nation's most esteemed African-Americans. In conjunction with Black History Month, The University of Texas at El Paso is paying tribute to the rich history and culture of its student body and professors.

"I believe the University as a whole can benefit from the stories we share, whether our students be of African-American descent, Latino or white," said Maceo Dailey, Ph.D., associate professor and director of African-American studies.

Dailey has spent the better part of his career at UTEP educating the Miner student body about the historical significance of African-American culture. In keeping with tradition, this year's events center on the theme of black women in American history.

In 2000, Dailey edited the book Wheresoever My People Chance to Dwell: Oral Interviews with African American Women in El Paso. According to Dailey, women have taken a giant step forward in the past decades, overcoming oppression as African-Americans and as women.

"I think there will always be room to educate ourselves in order to reach a more fulfilled sense of enlightenment," Dailey said. "The plight of the African-American woman has been greatly recognized, and as a society, we are beginning to understand their importance and significance within American culture."

Since 1955, after accepting Thelma White Comach (the first black student to be admitted to Texas Western College), the University has continued to become more diverse. Today, more than 600 African-American students are enrolled at UTEP, and thousands more are alumni.

Greg Michel, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the history department at The University of Texas in San Antonio who delivered a lecture titled "White Students, Black Power" on Feb. 7, acknowledged the strong push for progress with today's generation, though he insists that as a society we still have a ways to go.

"Naturally, we'll all be doing better than our parents, though we need to keep a constant dialogue to maintain that momentum," he said.

Black History Month events are planned through the end of the month. A student art gallery is currently on display in the Union Building, and films ranging from "Set It Off" with Jada Pinkett-Smith to the Oscar-nominated film "The Help" will be screened on campus.

Remaining Black History Month events:

Feb. 12 – Gerald Blanchard, "Musical Recital: African-American Poetry Set to Music," Fox Fine Arts Recital Hall, 2:30 p.m.

Feb. 16 – Paulette Wingo, "The Person Behind the Passion: An Autobiography," Liberal Arts Building, room 318, 1:30 p.m.

Feb. 22 – Michael Hurd, "Black Women Educators in Texas," Blumberg Auditorium, UTEP Library, 6:15 p.m.

Feb. 23 – Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Ph.D., history professor emerita at Morgan State University, "Black Female Entrepreneurs: Madam C.J. Walker and Cathy Hughes," Blumberg Auditorium, UTEP Library, 6:15 p.m.

Feb. 28 – Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, professor of English and Anna J. Cooper Chair at Spelman College, "Coretta Scott King's Beloved Community," El Paso Natural Gas Conference Center, 6:15 p.m.

FILMS ON BLACK WOMEN

Feb. 8 - "Imitation of Life," Union Building East, Acacia Room 102A, 6:15 p.m.

Feb. 15 - "Daughters of the Dust," Union Building East, Acacia Room 102A, 6:15 p.m.

Feb. 17/18 – "The Help," Union Cinema, 7 p.m.

Feb. 22 – "Set It Off," Union Building East, Acacia Room 102A, 6:15 p.m.

Feb. 28 – "Dreamgirls," Union Building East, Acacia Room 102A, 6:15 p.m.

For more information, contact the African-American Studies program at 915-747-8650.

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Since the 1930s, the image of young Mexican-American men in baggy and pressed slacks, sleek dangling chains and sharp fedoras continues to represent an identity that has carried over within Chicano communities across the country for nearly a century.

This uniform of the times, commonly referred to as the "zoot suit" remains a symbol of the tenacious spirit of the Chicano youth. UTEP's Department of Theatre & Dance will celebrate the zoot suit culture through the production of Pachuco Zoot: A Tale of Identity, beginning at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10, at the Wise Family Theatre.

Lisa Smith, clinical professor of dance and creator of Pachuco Zoot, described the production as an interpretive dance piece that transcends the many eras of the central character, a young Chicano male swayed by his muse in search of his identity.

"It's important to know that the 'Pachuco' culture originated here in El Paso," Smith said. "The piece takes you through many years in the life of this young man, overcoming adversity in search of his culture and heritage as a young Chicano man."

The production is part of an ongoing series produced every semester by the dance department. The cast includes 27 students who study performance art.

Smith said she wanted to distance this show from Zoot Suit, Luis Valdez's 1979 Broadway play, in order to focus the Pachuco movement nearer to its roots – in El Paso.

"Whereas Valdez's production was more a true story based on the Sleepy Lagoon murders and the events that surrounded it, this is a story that celebrates the roots of the Pachuco movement," she said.

Dancer and senior dance major Jocelyn Lara portrays the aforementioned muse who guides the lead character through his journey. Now participating in her fourth production with the UTEP dance department, she describes Smith's creation as her most challenging.

Channeling the spirit of famed Latina performer Dolores Del Rio, Lara fought to bring the character into the light given the nature of her role. She accomplished that through accentuated movements to the over-the-top choreography "to bring words to her body movement."

"I really had to get into production mode for this one," she said. "It's been my most difficult performance, but I am beyond happy with the end result."

The production runs through Feb. 19.

Information: 915-747-5118

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Members of the Miner Nation who want to push their passions beyond the usual array of courses offered at The University of Texas at El Paso can reserve a romantic dinner opportunity on campus.

Students, staff and faculty have until the end of business on Friday, Feb. 10, to join in the fun at the Surf & Turf Valentine's Day Dinner from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 14, in the Templeton Suite on the third floor of Union Building East.

The event is the latest in the campus series of meals specially prepared by UTEP Executive Chef Tony Guardado.

Organizers promised to create a first-class romantic environment to include candles, fresh cut flowers at every table, and soft background music, said Adriana Ruiz, Sodexo district marketing coordinator. Sodexo is the international food service management company that has overseen UTEP concessions since 2001.

"Instead of the usual hustle and bustle at area restaurants, we suggest you come to campus," Ruiz said. "Come in, sit down and enjoy." The four-course meal includes homemade Caesar salad, roasted tomato bisque, wild mushroom demi glaze, garlic Dutch potatoes, grilled asparagus, and a choice of filet mignon with fried shrimp or chicken breast with shrimp scampi. Dessert will be cherries jubilee. Each diner will receive a strawberry covered with white and dark chocolate and nuts.

Felicia Brown, building coordinator at the Union, said that she and her husband, Jason, opted for the campus cuisine because of the seafood and the convenience.

"I have been to some of the chef's monthly luncheons and they've been good so we decided to try it," said Brown, who earned her bachelor's in organizational communication from UTEP in 2006. She said they usually opt for a dinner and movie, but do not enjoy dealing with the crowds, especially on weeknights. "We thought it would be nice to try something new … and not have to wait to be seated."

The dinner is $42 per couple and $15 for children age 10 and younger. To reserve your space, call 915-747-7460 or email your interest to mcaraveo@utep.edu.

Some Valentine background

The history of Valentine's Day is murky, according to historical accounts. The holiday's roots are thought to be a combination of Christian and ancient Roman.

The Catholic Church has three saints by the name of Valentine. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, all were martyred, or at least connected to, Feb. 14.

One story has Valentine as a priest who defied a decree by a 3rd century Roman emperor Claudius II who did not want young men in his kingdom to marry because single men made better soldiers. Valentine performed marriages anyway and was killed by the pagan leader after Valentine refused to take up paganism and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity.

A different account has Valentine killed because he helped Christians escape from a Roman prison where the prisoners were beaten and tortured.

Another legend has Valentine as a prisoner who befriended and healed the blind daughter of the jailer. Similar stories have jail visitors throwing supportive notes and flowers to him through his cell window. Before he was put to death, he sent a note to the jailer's daughter and signed it, "from your Valentine."

Pope Gelasius declared Feb. 14 as St. Valentine's Day around A.D. 498.

The saint was very popular in England and France during the Middle Ages (1066-1485) because Valentine was considered heroic, romantic and sympathetic.

The oldest known Valentine note dates back to 1415. It was a letter written by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife, while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London after the Battle of Agincourt.

By the mid-18th century, friends and lovers in France, England and even the American colonies were exchanging small gifts or love letters.

Pope Gregory XVI reportedly gave Valentine's remains to an Irish priest, the Rev. John Spratt, in 1835 for his passionate preaching while in Rome. The remains are opened to the public every Feb. 14 at Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland.

At some point Valentine's Day added the impish angel, Cupid, and his quiver full of love arrows, to the legend. Cupid is the son of Venus, the goddess of love, in Roman mythology.

Valentine cards began to be mass-produced in America by the 1840s.

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Mexican migrant women are the largest and fastest-growing migrant group in the United States, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. As such, access to family planning and reproductive health services for this population is critical.

Eva Moya, Ph.D., an assistant professor of social work at The University of Texas at El Paso, is studying the sexual and reproductive health needs of migrant women to identify strategies and approaches that can be used to improve access to services, and to examine the influences on health-seeking behaviors of migrant women.

Moya was awarded a $40,000 grant by PIMSA (Programa de Investigación en Migración y Salud) from the Health Initiative of the Americas (HIA) at the University of California, Berkeley, to fund the 12-month study titled, "The Sexual and Reproductive Health of Mexican Migrant Women in Ciudad Juárez, Guadalajara, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas."

"The results of this study will provide a better understanding of migrant women's health needs and access to reproductive care, which will help shape public policy to improve sexual and reproductive health access and address the social determinants that influence migrant women's health-seeking behaviors," Moya said.

As part of the study, Moya will partner with academic and community institutions that include the Universidad de Guadalajara, Centro de Educación y Atención en Salud y Sexualidad, Alianza de Colaboraciones Fronterizas, Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, Consulado Mexicano en El Paso, FEMAP Hospital de la Familia and the City of El Paso's Public Health Department.

Starting March 1, research assistants will conduct in-depth interviews with 90 Mexican migrant women ages 18 and over, and with 45 key informants who are experts in the areas of sexual and reproductive health, to obtain information in four critical areas: to document current unmet women's sexual and reproductive health needs, to describe the level of satisfaction of migrant women with their reproductive health services, to identify the availability of sexual and reproductive health programs, and to explore the positive and negative effects of migration on sexual and reproductive health.

In El Paso, participants will be recruited from different organizations such as the Mexican Consulate, the Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services women's support groups, University Medical Center's Women's Health Services, and other health care centers.

Women will be solicited from the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez and the Hospital de la Familia and Hospital de la Mujer health clinics in Ciudad Juárez.

In Guadalajara, women will come from the Universidad de Guadalajara Servicios Medicos, community health centers such as the Centros de Salud en Zapopan, and community initiatives that work with migrant and indigenous communities, like the Fundación Mexicana para la Planificación Familiar, A.C., or MEXFAM.

Key informants also will be recruited by the research assistants through health centers, clinics, universities, or other health institutions.

According to Moya, Guadalajara and Juárez were selected as study sites because of the migration and mobility of women in the two cities, the strong partnerships that UTEP has already established in these two locations, and Guadalajara's track record with sexual and reproductive health education in Mexico.

While preparing for the study, Moya found that migrant populations in Guadalajara, Juárez and El Paso share common characteristics such as poverty, health disparities and deficits of public services, day care centers, health services, hospitals, schools and public spaces. As a result, migrant and indigenous women have a more difficult time accessing sexual and reproductive health services, as well as getting an early diagnosis of an illness and appropriate treatment.

"Sexual and reproductive health rights and services are essential for everyone," Moya said. "Access to family planning and reproductive health services are critical to the health of women and children and help prevent maternal and infant deaths and reduce unintended pregnancies."

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Three students from The University of Texas at El Paso are doing their part to spread the word about an upcoming campus event that will promote social mobility through education and industry.

Jesus Smith, Ana Martinez and Kristine Velasquez are helping University officials to organize the May 2-3 UTEP Opportunity Days that will be part think tank and part open house.

The event is tied to the Opportunity Nation Summit conducted last November in New York, where national leaders – or Opportunity Creators – from a spectrum of fields discussed how to restore economic opportunity throughout America.

Smith, Martinez and Velasquez, who were selected from a national pool to attend the summit, returned to the University ready share their "Op Nation" enthusiasm.

The students are playing an important role in helping to conceptualize the event, said Gary Edens, Ed.D., interim vice president for student affairs and one of the main UTEP Opportunity Days organizers. Part of their roles will be to actively recruit student volunteers, promote event activities and participate in community conversations as the activity gets closer.

"All three students have remarkable stories of achievement and outstanding scholastic records," Edens said. "They are wonderful role models and are passionate advocates for the El Paso region. Each student, in their own way, believes in the importance of education and the role it plays in expanding opportunity."

The University was one of 12 institutions of higher education selected to conduct regional mini-summits, in part because of its successful history of access and excellence, especially among El Paso's minority population.

The first day involves a meeting of influential decision makers from the Paso del Norte region in the fields of business, health care, education, nonprofits, government, philanthropy and the military. They will assess information about the region and come up with a strategic outline of how to work together to enhance the area's economic opportunities.

The UTEP scholars are more involved in planning the second day visit by approximately 7,000 fifth- and seventh-grade students from area school districts who will tour parts of the UTEP campus and get a taste of the academic opportunities from the arts to science and technology.

The messages the scholars want the students to take from their visit include that a college degree is crucial for personal advancement, that graduate degrees should be pursued, and that UTEP is their best path to a successful academic and professional future.

"Enrolling at UTEP was one of the best decisions I ever made," said Martinez, a senior political science and English/American Literature major. "I've made great connections and had the opportunity to work with wonderful professors."

She said the biggest lesson from the summit was the importance of collaboration at every step in the process from when the ideas are conceived until they come to fruition.

Martinez praised UTEP for the role it played in her academic development. The education she received was instrumental in her selection by The University of Texas System as one of 32 Archer Fellows during the spring 2011 semester. The experience included an internship with the White House Council on Environmental Quality. She has sent applications to various law schools and expects to be enrolled in one this fall.

Smith, a sociology graduate student who earned his bachelor's in psychology in 2010 from UTEP, said he hoped one of the outcomes from the UTEP Opportunity Days is a culture where graduate degrees are the norm.

"(UTEP) can create that avenue to better jobs, better pay, and a stronger economy," said Smith, who has a history of working to create equality and opportunity on campus. He helped develop and lead the Rainbow Miner Coalition for three years. The group caters to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered individuals on campus.

He said Opportunity Nation's goals tie in with his studies because many sociologists focus on economic inequality for reasons such as race, gender and sexuality.

Velasquez, who earned her bachelor's degrees in 2011 in biology and chemistry, said she believed UTEP's Opportunity Days summit will be successful.

"Together we're going to come up with different approaches that we can use to help our community," she said.

Velasquez grew up in a family with few financial concerns compared to her grandmother, a native of Mexico who was orphaned as a teenager and became homeless with only an elementary school education. She said her grandmother suffered greatly as a result, but she was able to find economic opportunities as a citizen of the United States of America.

Velasquez, who is weighing future academic options in business and nursing, said her involvement with Opportunity Nation is her effort to give back to the country that has given so much to her family.

It is the latest example of her volunteer endeavors to improve the community that includes work at her church, soup kitchens, the Humane Society of El Paso, and Physician's Healthcare Associates. At UTEP, she is involved in Money Matters, a financial literacy program for students, and Project MOVE, an annual Universitywide community day of service.

"Although I was fortunate, my family wasn't, and I'll always remember that," Velasquez said.

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Jose Hurtado, Ph.D., has a grounded career – meaning that geology tends to keep him close to the Earth.

But in the last three years, Hurtado's knowledge of Earth science has been enough to earn him repeated invites into NASA's world of research and training.

"It's about how to teach people to operate in a scientific manner, to be a scientist and a geologist in addition to being an astronaut," said Hurtado, an associate professor of geological sciences at The University of Texas at El Paso.

Since 2009, Hurtado's Earth-bound expertise has been used to help train astronauts in the field of geology, to test new exploration technology and to explore independent research on exploiting resources from the moon. The latter is done in cooperation with UTEP's Center for Space Exploration Technology Research – a project funded through NASA and overseen by the College of Engineering.

Hurtado's latest adventure at the Johnson Space Center in Houston teamed him up with astronaut Alvin Drew for a week-long RATS (research and technology studies) testing in January.

The duo survived three days together in a cramped Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle (MMSEV) -- a prototype of the vehicle NASA would use for future exploration of near-Earth asteroids.

"The goal (of NASA) is to visit an asteroid by 2025," Hurtado said. "We test out the technology and procedures that hopefully will help us achieve that. So we try it here first on Earth and hopefully we do it in space some day."

But the real question for NASA as it pursues missions of exploring near-Earth asteroids is: "How does one do geology on an asteroid?"

Imagine the setting in space for a continually rotating rock about 1 kilometer in diameter.

It spins on multiple axes. And the big hunk of rock lacks any substantial gravitational pull. Its microgravity is dangerous ground for testing Newton's law of equal and opposite reactions – where a simple flick of a geologist's trusted hammer can shoot an astronaut into a dark abyss.

Hurtado tried his hand at this simulated microgravity challenge using ARGOS – NASA's space walk simulator winch system. Hanging from a cable, Hurtado found himself suspended over pits of simulated asteroid materials.

"Microgravity is definitely one of the biggest challenges in space for a geologist," Hurtado said.

The sensitive rigging equipment intended to duplicate a low gravity surface gave the professor heart-pounding reminders of how dangerous it was just to push off of a boulder while climbing along in the simulation. One thrust upward and Hurtado could have taken off to the ceiling of the hangar.

Geology plays a crucial part in NASA missions developed for landing on surfaces such as the moon, Mars or asteroids. The collection of rocks and minerals was a scripted task during the Apollo missions. Today, NASA is looking at the importance of astronauts calling the shots on the scene.

"We should trust what astronauts are seeing firsthand," Hurtado said.

As an instructor, Hurtado has trained astronauts in desert settings to practice techniques used in the field of geology.

From the San Francisco Volcanic Field in Arizona to the Kilbourne Hole in New Mexico, astronauts were instructed how to use observations to make assumptions on geological history. That is important when it comes to deciding which samples are the most crucial to bring back from a mission.

Hurtado's colleagues in geology have embraced his training of astronauts. Hurtado has used Skype to teach classes from the field and even brought students along for some of the events.

"We're happy to have Hurtado in our department," said Laura Serpa, UTEP chair of the Department of Geological Sciences. "He's doing amazing things in research with NASA and he's bringing that to the classroom. He's getting his students involved. I even use his participation with NASA when I'm out recruiting students for the college."

Hurtado, who received his Ph.D. in geology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned graduate and undergraduate degrees from the California Institute of Technology, always has had his eyes on space.

In 2009 he made the top 100 candidates under consideration for the NASA astronaut training program. Since then, Hurtado excitedly recounts his tales as a "pretend astronaut" on training missions for the exploration programs.

In fact, he has recently applied again to be considered for astronaut candidacy.

"It's the idea of space exploration. I'd like to be part of that somehow," Hurtado said. "And if I was chosen as an astronaut, I think it would be good for UTEP."

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]]> Thursday, Feb. 9, 2012 When Victoria Dominguez, a UTEP French major, traveled to Victoria University (VU) in Melbourne, Australia in 2010, it was the first time she was away from home.

Dominguez was among the first group of students to travel to VU as part of a fledgling student exchange program between UTEP and the Australian university.

From July to December, Dominguez took courses in cultural communication and politics and worked as a peer career adviser and as a student and staff program assistant with VU's Student Career Development.

"I have a strong passion for international affairs, politics and relations, and I thought it would be a great opportunity and experience for me to live and work abroad," said Dominguez, a UTEP senior. "It was really awesome."

The Student Exchange and Employment program is an integral part of the VU/UTEP Global Engagement and Learning Program, which is a partnership between Victoria University and UTEP that links students, faculty and staff in both institutions using advanced technology and has led to major innovations in the way both universities operate.

On Thursday, Jan. 26, the Institute of International Education (IIE) announced that UTEP's collaboration with Victoria University has been awarded an Honorable Mention in the category of International Partnerships in the 11th annual Andrew Heiskell Awards for Innovation in International Education.

The IIE created the Andrew Heiskell Awards in 2001 to promote and honor the most outstanding initiatives in international higher education by IIENetwork members. The goals of IIE's Heiskell Awards are to foster innovative ideas that will help international education professionals create and sustain new opportunities for students and faculty, to bring international education to the forefront of education policy, and to stimulate public awareness of the benefits of international educational exchange.

"This recognition from the IIE is a confirmation of the fact that people recognize that our nontraditional, technology-based approach to international partnerships is effective," said Stephen Riter, Ph.D., vice president for information resources and planning at UTEP.

Since the program launched in 2007, first-year students from UTEP have taken freshmen-level seminar classes, known as University Studies 1301, that are linked online to similar courses at Victoria University. They connect with their Australian classmates via video streaming, teleconferencing and social media. This semester, students also are participating in a graduate accounting class and a graduate seminar in health sciences.

Approximately 80 UTEP students have participated in the project.

The IIE recognized three key components of the VU/UTEP Global Engagement and Learning Program, which include the Global Learning Community; Student Employment and Exchange; and Library Exchange.

UTEP's Entering Student Program (ESP) and Victoria University started the Global Learning Community in 2009. Students study joint subjects, learn about each other's countries, and link up via video conferencing and social networking. In 2011, the program was selected as one of 22 national universities to participate in the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Institute for Globally Networked Learning in the Humanities. The two-year institute focuses on helping teams develop online learning models with their international partners.

The Student Employment and Exchange program enables UTEP students to trade positions with their peers at Victoria University. Students from UTEP work and take classes at Victoria University, while their Australian counterparts work and take classes at UTEP during the fall semester. Sixteen UTEP students have participated in the exchange since 2010.

Since 2008, the Library Exchange has fostered several collaborations between the UTEP and Victoria University libraries. Projects include development of the Collaborative Learning Center located on the ground floor of the UTEP library, and the creation of a variety of interactive learning spaces.

"The 2012 IIE Heiskell Awards recognize some of the world's best initiatives in internationalizing higher education," said IIE President and CEO Dr. Allan E. Goodman. "We appreciate the winners' commitment to excellence and applaud their serving as models for other campuses to learn from as they plot their own internationalization strategies. The IIE Heiskell Awards are designed to strengthen international education in the United States and around the world."

IIE will present the awards at a ceremony in New York City on March 9 as part of its seventh annual Best Practices in Internationalization Conference for campus professionals. More than 200 campus leaders and international education professionals in the United States and around the world attend the conference each year.

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]]> Wednesday, Feb.1, 2012 For three days in February 2011, television audiences were captivated as they watched the ultimate man vs. machine contest. Watson, a supercomputer created by IBM, competed on the quiz show Jeopardy! against two of the show's all-time champions, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings, in a contest that tested the supercomputer's abilities to answer questions quickly and accurately against its human opponents. Audiences were astounded as they watched Watson defeat Rutter and Jennings for a $1 million prize.

One of Watson's creators, Richard Talbot, director of IBM Power Systems product line management, talked about the supercomputer's origins and its impact on future technology in his presentation, "Beyond Jeopardy! Putting Watson to Work," during UTEP's first Centennial Lecture of the spring semester on Jan. 24. "One of the beauties of Watson, it has the capacity to store a lot of information and respond very quickly … using very effective sudden decision making criteria," Talbot said before a packed house in the University's Undergraduate Learning Center. Watson, named after IBM's founder Thomas J. Watson, is an artificial intelligence system capable of answering questions posed in natural language, or ordinary human language. When questions were asked during the game show, Watson would use algorithms to parse different keywords and sentence fragments in order to find the correct answer. Watson's top three responses were displayed in an answer panel, along with its confidence level. Watson would buzz in and give the answer with the highest confidence level. According to IBM Watson's website, the supercomputer is the only computer on the planet that can answer a Jeopardy! question in less than three seconds. "Having a computer system that is intelligent enough to interpret natural language, infer data and come up with answers to questions using that information is pretty significant," Talbot said. "Once that happens within the algorithms that Watson takes advantage of, it has the capacity to generate and evaluate maybe hundreds of hypothesis that it might develop using the information provided." Talbot said it took 20 researchers and four years to get the supercomputer ready for its appearance on Jeopardy! Ivan Gris, a computer science Ph.D. student, worked on a project about Watson for one his graduate courses. During the presentation's question-and-answer session, Gris asked Talbot about Watson's accuracy, to which Talbot responded that IBM partners with subject matter experts in a particular area - such as health care, finance or education - to provide researchers with "their view of what is the best qualified information to use for this application." He also said that Watson has the capacity to reveal the source of the data that it used to come up with the answers. "We found out when they were getting ready for Jeopardy!, they loaded a whole copy of Wikipedia into the computer," Gris said. "That's where the question came up because you always hear that you shouldn't trust Wikipedia too much because anyone can go in and edit. We found out that (Watson) weighs the answers, but not as (Talbot) mentioned based on how trustworthy the data is, but rather based on the context of the information." Another of Watson's notable characteristics is its ability to know when it is giving the wrong answer. After Watson repeatedly missed a few answers on the game show because of the way the questions were phrased, it recognized the problem and used a series of algorithms to adjust its strategy. From then on, the supercomputer got all of the answers correct and eventually won the game. "It was really exciting to see in real time that Watson has the capacity to learn when it's getting the wrong answers and how to adjust the way that it's using its algorithms and using the source of information that it's been given to give the right answers," Talbot said. After Watson's debut on Jeopardy!, IBM was overwhelmed with requests from a broad range of industries to apply the supercomputer's technology to real-world solutions. Researchers were faced with the challenge of getting Watson from a game show environment into what they call Watson at Work, Talbot said. And Watson is being put to work in the health care industry first. Researchers spent six months interviewing some of the largest health care provider companies around the world to find out what pilot applications should be developed. Researchers found that Watson could be used as a tool to provide doctors with accurate and timely diagnostic and treatment information. The application could also help patients become smarter health care consumers by helping them ask questions about symptoms, diseases and treatment options. To improve the system's accuracy, researchers took out irrelevant information such as the works of Shakespeare and movie trivia, and added medical dictionaries, journals and a medical glossary. "It's really exciting to see that we could take this research program and convert it into an industry specific application with fairly promising results," Talbot said. In September, IBM announced that Wellpoint, a major health care solutions provider in the United States, will be using Watson's technology to enhance diagnostic and treatment options. "It was wonderful to have the opportunity to get a glimpse of how artificial intelligence will be used to improve the level of medical care," said Steve Austin, a community member and Jeopardy! fan who became fascinated with Watson after its appearance on the game show. "I'm excited to see if these applications will work in the real world." The Centennial Lecture Series provides perspective on a broad range of contemporary topics that impact society, culture and lives. The series' next scheduled speaker is Herminio Blanco, who will present, "NAFTA at Almost 20 Years - Growth Perspectives" at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 7 in the Undergraduate Learning Center, Room 106. The lecture is free and open to the public. More stories
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]]> Wednesday, Feb.1, 2012 Disenchanted with a corporate structure commanded by the almighty dollar, three UTEP graduates are using the region's oldest educational degree to usher in a new approach to the bottom line.

For Eduardo Andrade, Arturo Romero and Isaac Pabon – graduates of UTEP's undergraduate metallurgical and materials engineering degree program – business is not just about making money.

"It's a triple bottom line," Romero said. "Economics, social, environmental."

And when everything is based on the accumulation of profits, Pabon said, that's when resources get exhausted.

The trio's newest business venture, Pasolus, aims to change that mentality and replace it with more sustainable practices. Those practices include more than just installation of the most energy-efficient technologies and advanced renewable energy technology.

The business uses educational movements explaining to clients exactly where their energy consumptions are going and then provides options for preventing waste.

"It's about solving the energy consumption needs of our clients," Pabon said in describing the goal of the group's consulting business. "Saving energy. Saving money. Saving the environment."

While the El Paso area has businesses focused on energy-efficient practices and technology installations, Andrade said none provide a service similar in scope to Pasolus.

"The environment is very important to us as metallurgists. We're responsible for producing materials in safe and clean ways. Everybody else does not necessarily share in that," Pabon said.

The entrepreneurs can recall looking around at their peers in the UTEP metallurgical and materials undergraduate degree program.

"Take a good look," their instructors noted, "because by the end of this program most of you will be gone."

The trio pushed through the rigors of a major that explores the intricacies of extraction, refinement, processing, testing and evaluating metals, minerals, ceramics, polymers, electronic materials, composites and nanomaterials.

And knowing the history of their degree program – rooted in the very first programs offered at the Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy, now known as UTEP – Andrade, Pabon and Romero said the quality of their education has shined in their employment opportunities.

Today the University has the third largest traditional metallurgical engineering program in the country.

"We can compete with grads from MIT. We can compete with grads from anywhere," said Romero, who after graduation took a job with the Department of Energy and later a consulting firm.

Pabon and Andrade took jobs with Texas Steel Conversion and Alcoa/NASA respectively. But they soon found themselves back in El Paso. Pabon and Andrade are now pursuing their master's degrees in metallurgy at UTEP.

Reconnecting after graduation and sharing their stories of working for firms displaying tunnel-vision on the bottom line, the three friends reassessed their own priorities.

"It's just an incredible story how quickly they came together and are going ahead," said Gary Williams, Ph.D., director of UTEP's Center for Research Entrepreneurship and Innovative Enterprises (CREIE).

Pasolus was established in late December 2011. And the new business already has its first client – Texas Custom Body and Paint.

Andrade, Pabon and Romero stressed the importance of getting established and making contacts with the help of Williams and CREIE.

CREIE is designed to be the vehicle for commercializing research and technology at UTEP and the engine for economic development in the Paso del Norte region. Formed in 2009, CREIE offers workshops and assistance with market research, creating a business plan and developing a marketing strategy.

"(Williams) opened the doors, and we made the moves once we were in," Romero said.

And the trio hopes to leave sustainable marks on more than just their clients.

They intend to use only American-made products, to employ only local El Paso installers for projects and to encourage clients to pursue waste prevention that in the end could create more jobs in the El Paso region.

As metallurgists and engineers, Pabon said he wants to be a part of a movement that creates more engineering jobs for UTEP graduates so they can stay in the region.

"We can honestly say we love the El Paso area," said Andrade. "We want to influence El Paso in a positive way. We want El Paso city to be the model city for the future so the nation can look at us as the foundation for sustainability."

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]]> Wednesday, Feb.1, 2012 The state of Texas has a plan to beat cancer. The University of Texas at El Paso is striving to play a major part in that medical breakthrough.

"All three of us have a novel therapy or drugs in the pipeline," said Marc B. Cox, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at UTEP, speaking on the advancements he and two colleagues have made in developing novel therapies for prostate cancer.

His words of progress came more than six months after receiving an almost $1 million multi-investigator grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) – an institution created by the state to lead the way in groundbreaking cancer research.

On Jan. 27, as Cox officially accepted the grant at a ceremony held at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, he also touched on promising news for the anticipation of commercialization and later job creation stemming from the group's breakthroughs.

"All three of us have independent projects but are synergized to the same goal," said Cox, who is working with Jan-Ake Gustafsson, M.D., Ph.D, from the Center for Nuclear Receptors and Cell Signaling at the University of Houston, and Paul Webb, Ph.D, of Methodist Hospital Research Institute in Houston.

Each year more than 200,000 men in the United States are diagnosed with prostate cancer and about 30,000 die from the disease. After lung cancer, prostate cancer is the leading cause of death for men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.

The estimated cost of all forms of cancer in Texas is $28 billion, according to a 2011 assessment by The Perry Group.

"But more importantly, the cost of cancer is 40,000 Texans a year," said Bill Gimson, CPRIT executive director.

"We all have family members affected by this disease (cancer)," said State Rep. Marisa Marquez during the Jan. 27 presentation ceremony. "(Finding a cure for cancer) is a priority for our delegation."

State Rep. Dee Margo and State Sen. Jose Rodriguez also gave stirring remarks in support of the funding for cancer research and prevention.

CPRIT was established through a Texas voter approved constitutional amendment that authorized the state to issue $3 billion in bonds to fund cancer research and prevention programs and services in Texas.

Since 2010, the institution has funded 364 awards for cancer research, commercialization and prevention totaling more than $599 million.

Research conducted under Cox as the principal investigator is geared toward treatment of prostate cancer. Early-stage prostate cancer grows and survives on male hormones called androgens. Current treatments target the availability of the hormones in the body. In recurrent and severe forms of the cancer, prostate tumors may become resistant to therapy, enabling tumors to spread and limiting treatment options.

Since being awarded the grant, Cox also published a paper in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

The report – titled "Targeting the regulation of androgen receptor signaling by the heat shock protein 90 cochaperone FKBP52 in prostate cancer cells" – details how Cox's promising molecules seem to effectively and efficiently block the stimulation of prostate cancer growth in response to the male hormone testosterone with the possibility of less harmful side effects.

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]]> Wednesday, Feb.1, 2012 Roxana Delgado is no stranger to being in a room surrounded by high-ranking military officials. As an advocate for soldiers who have suffered traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and their families, Delgado has had one-on-one conversations with top military brass, and spoken at several events including last year's Joint Marine Corps and Army Symposium.

But Delgado, a doctoral student in UTEP's College of Health Sciences, was in awe as she sat 100 feet from President Barack Obama in the House Chambers during his State of the Union address on Jan. 24.

"I wasn't nervous, but it was surreal," Delgado said. "It's an experience that you never think is going to happen."

U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, invited Delgado to Washington, D.C., to take the seat of his wife, Carolina, who was unable to attend the speech.

Delgado and her husband, Staff Sgt. Victor Medina, met Reyes and his wife last April when the two couples were flying back to El Paso from Washington, D.C. Their flight was delayed and Delgado and Medina passed the time sharing their story about Medina's traumatic brain injury.

On June 29, 2009, Medina was wounded while serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom when an explosive formed projectile blew up near his vehicle while he was on patrol. The explosion missed his head by about two feet.

"This explosive formed projectile is one of the most powerful IEDs (improvised explosive device). Usually soldiers with that type of IED die, but he made it," Delgado said.

The explosion however, had its physical and emotional consequences.

"The event on 29 Jun 09 changed my life," Medina wrote on his website, TBIWarrior.com. "I had a concussion from the blast. I do not remember losing consciousness, but I do remember waking up … I was confused and extremely slow. It was like that day being in slow motion."

Medina was transported to an aid station and then returned to active duty.

Delgado and Medina would Skype every other day, and she began noticing changes in her husband. His face was drooping on his left side and he had tremors and couldn't think straight, Delgado said.

"He couldn't understand what I was saying," she said. "I found that he wasn't the person he was like a week prior."

Medina's first sergeant contacted Delgado, who said there was something wrong with her husband. He described Medina's symptoms, which Delgado recognized as those of a traumatic brain injury patient.

Delgado, a senior research associate at Samueli Institute on Fort Bliss, was very familiar with TBIs through her work at the institute, which is a military medical research program that focuses on complementary, alternative and integrative medicine.

She sent the first sergeant manuals and guidelines about TBIs from the Defense Center of Excellence, and he immediately sent Medina for a CT scan. Medina was then transferred to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where an MRI showed bleeding in his brain.

After three weeks, Medina was sent home, where the road to recovery has been challenging.

To this day, Medina has problems with his vision, hearing and balance.

Delgado said her husband wanted to tell his story to create awareness about traumatic brain injuries. He created TBIWarrior.com and began to blog about his recovery.

"He said, 'I'm going to be a TBI warrior because this is about TBI and I'm a warrior fighting for my health and the health of others,'" Delgado said.

Through it all, Delgado has been at his side. She also has a blog, TBIArmyWife, on the website where she discusses her experiences dealing with her husband's injury.

"Sometimes we focus so much on the wounded warrior that we forget the family, and we are the backbone of the healing process," she said.

Delgado works with families and has a support group in conjunction with the Warrior Transition Battalion on Fort Bliss, where she helps others cope with their situations.

The couple's mission is to create awareness about traumatic brain injuries, change policy, introduce new programs, and involve family members of wounded soldiers in the recovery process.

"One of the issues Ms. Delgado and her husband faced was lack of understanding about treatment for traumatic brain injuries," Reyes said in a press release. "They worked to increase understanding of this issue and to expand treatment options. Military members from all branches of service have benefited from their efforts, and care for those affected by TBI has been improved by this family and others who have become tireless advocates for those injured in combat."

Delgado received her bachelor's in biology and her master's in epidemiology from the University of Puerto Rico. She is in the final stages of her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Health Sciences from UTEP, where she is about to start her dissertation on traumatic brain injuries.

Sandra Aguirre-Covarrubias, assistant director for Graduate Studies and Research at UTEP's College of Engineering, has known Delgado and her husband for the past seven years. She said her friend has helped educate and comfort others in similar situations with her story.

"I believe she has embarked on a quest to provide the support her husband needs, inform others, but most of all seek the medical help survivors and their families desperately need," Aguirre-Covarrubias said.

Delgado said her invitation to the State of the Union Address has helped boost awareness about TBIs. At a reception hosted by U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Delgado had the opportunity to share her story with the former Speaker of the House.

What hit home for Delgado about the President's speech was when he spoke about how the Navy Seals worked together in their mission to bring down Osama Bin Laden.

"It's true. In the military nobody asks you, 'What is your political party?' We all work together in one mission and we just get it done," she said. "As a spouse, we have our own missions. When the soldiers deploy, we take care of things at home, we never look at political parties or anything; we just get it done."

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]]> Wednesday, Feb.1, 2012
"This is a great opportunity to engage students across UTEP and EPCC campuses in an activity where they will experience the real life challenge of sustaining our lifestyle while minimizing our energy needs," said Richard Schoephoerster, Ph.D., dean of the UTEP College of Engineering. "We are proud to represent the Sun City, and we hope the ideas we come up with will be a model for innovation here in El Paso and throughout the globe.

As part of the competition, the UTEP-EPCC team will design, build and operate a cost-effective, energy-efficient and attractive solar-powered house, which will be displayed at Orange County Great Park in Irvine, Calif. The house will be judged in 10 different categories to include architecture, engineering, energy balance, market appeal, affordability and communications. The multidisciplinary team includes students from the colleges of Engineering, Liberal Arts and Business Administration.

"We look forward to working with our partners, the El Paso Community College and the El Paso Electric Company, to compete against highly ranked schools across the globe," Schoephoerster added.

In April 2011, UTEP received an initial gift of $200,000 from the El Paso Electric Co. to support the team's entry into the decathlon. Richard Fleager, senior vice president for external affairs and customer care at El Paso Electric, said that the company is pleased to assist UTEP's participation in the Solar Decathlon, and it has high hopes for the student team to have a successful entry that will serve as a model for solar home construction in the El Paso area.

"This project once again demonstrates the commitment of UTEP and EPE to the development of renewable energy," Fleager said. "It is our hope that this project will serve as a model for the next generation to learn more about and to advance the technology of renewable energy."

Information: UTEP College of Engineering, 915-747-6444

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]]> Monday, Jan. 30, 2012
"It's an honor that we've been invited twice," said Eric Hagedorn, Ph.D., UTEP associate professor of physics. "The festival is very prestigious. Last year we were in the same area as Iowa State, NASA, and the American Museum of Natural History. And whenever UTEP alumni saw us, they got excited."

The festival, the only national science event of its kind in the country, was developed to increase public awareness on the importance of science and to re-invigorate the interest of the nation's youth in science, technology, engineering and math.

This year's event will take festivalgoers behind the scenes as NASA and industry partners forge a bold new era of space exploration. Lockheed Martin, a leading aerospace company developing NASA's next generation of spacecraft, will host the event.

Last year UTEP students portrayed "Quantum Theater" on stage and an abbreviated "Physics Circus" in the group's booth. This year the University hopes to draw attention with a little bling.

UTEP's booth will include a circuit board where visitors will evaluate the electrical conductivity of different gemstones and pieces of jewelry.

And in a twist, UTEP students will encourage festivalgoers to try on a pair of clip-on earrings with varying masses attached. The visitors will then plot in real time the measurements of exactly how much their earlobes stretched. The latter is an application of Hook's law of elasticity.

"We're just trying to convey that physics is a part of everyday life," Hagedorn said.

The jewelry demonstrations are an attempt to grab the attention of young girls – a demographic shown to be underrepresented in advanced high school physics, according to a recent study by the American Institute of Physics.

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]]> Monday, Jan. 30, 2012
The IIE created the Andrew Heiskell Awards in 2001 to promote and honor the most outstanding initiatives in international higher education by IIENetwork members. The goals of IIE's Heiskell Awards are to foster innovative ideas that will help international education professionals create and sustain new opportunities for students and faculty, to bring international education to the forefront of education policy, and to stimulate public awareness of the benefits of international educational exchange.

The VU/UTEP Global Engagement and Learning Program is a partnership between Victoria University (VU) in Melbourne, Australia, and UTEP that links students, faculty, and staff in both institutions using advanced technology and has led to major innovations in the way both universities operate.

"This recognition from the IIE is a confirmation of the fact that people recognize that our nontraditional, technology-based approach to international partnerships is effective," said Stephen Riter, Ph.D., vice president for information resources and planning at UTEP.

Since the program launched in 2007, first-year students from UTEP have taken freshmen-level seminar classes, known as University Studies 1301, that are linked online to similar courses at Victoria University. They connect with their Australian classmates via video streaming, teleconferencing and social media. This semester, students also are participating in a graduate accounting class and a graduate seminar in health sciences.

Approximately 80 UTEP students have participated in the project.

The IIE recognized three key components of the VU/UTEP Global Engagement and Learning Program, which include the Global Learning Community; Student Employment and Exchange; and Library Exchange.

UTEP's Entering Student Program (ESP) and Victoria University started the Global Learning Community in 2009. Students study joint subjects, learn about each other's countries, and link up via video conferencing and social networking. In 2011, the program was selected as one of 22 national universities to participate in the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Institute for Globally Networked Learning in the Humanities. The two-year institute focuses on helping teams develop online learning models with their international partners.

The Student Employment and Exchange program enables UTEP students to trade positions with their peers at Victoria University. Students from UTEP work and take classes at Victoria University, while their Australian counterparts work and take classes at UTEP during the fall semester. Sixteen UTEP students have participated in the exchange since 2010.

Since 2008, the Library Exchange has fostered several collaborations between the UTEP and Victoria University libraries. Projects include development of the Collaborative Learning Center located on the ground floor of the UTEP library, and the creation of a variety of interactive learning spaces.

"The 2012 IIE Heiskell Awards recognize some of the world's best initiatives in internationalizing higher education," said IIE President and CEO Dr. Allan E. Goodman. "We appreciate the winners' commitment to excellence and applaud their serving as models for other campuses to learn from as they plot their own internationalization strategies. The IIE Heiskell Awards are designed to strengthen international education in the United States and around the world."

IIE will present the awards at a ceremony in New York City on March 9 as part of its seventh annual Best Practices in Internationalization Conference for campus professionals. More than 200 campus leaders and international education professionals in the United States and around the world attend the conference each year.

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]]> Monday, Jan. 30, 2012 The upcoming grand opening of the Chemistry and Computer Science (CCS) Building on the south end of campus added to the reasons to move The University of Texas at El Paso's Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) Department into the nearby Hertzog Building.

University officials decided about a year ago that the move should be made to better serve the growing research needs within the CCS, the Health Sciences and Nursing Building and the Bioscience Research Building (BRB), which opened in 2011 and 2009, respectively.

"The point of this move was to bring us closer to the sciences," said Robert Moss, assistant vice president of EH&S, during a visit to his new offices at the corner of Rim and Wiggins roads. "We will be able to respond faster to their needs and just be more efficient all around. We'll spend more of our time providing our services and less time as part of campus traffic looking for parking."

The responsibilities of the EH&S staff include oversight of the University's chemical hygiene, biological safety training, and the evaluation of fume hoods, bio-safety cabinets and radiation equipment. The staff members also conduct campus fire inspections and are available to offer safety lectures.

Moss' tour did not disrupt the work crews that went about their business in what had been a University records management warehouse. The smell of wet drywall plaster wafted through the air and a chorus of drills played on as electricians and other contractors readied the 6,000-square-foot office space. They expected to have the space ready by Feb. 1. The renovation project, which cost $566,000, began Sept. 20, 2011. The design made the building more energy efficient.

The 15 EH&S staff members and five student work-studies, who had been housed in the Physical Plant Complex on the north side of campus, should move their computers, telephones and office furniture by Feb. 3, Moss said, adding that he does not anticipate an interruption in service.

Kathy Rincon, an EH&S safety manager for the past 10 years, said she looked forward to the move because she often spent at least two hours per day driving to and from the physical plant to the main campus and Campbell Hall (the former off-campus home to the College of Health Sciences and School of Nursing).

The news of the move has generated good feedback among her regular customers, she said after another hectic day of going back and forth to pick up, package and ship out important research lab samples.

Lani Alcazar, a research assistant in the Biosicence Research Building, said she calls on the EH&S team several times per month to help her handle and dispose of radioactive waste and hazardous biowaste products.

"I look forward to having them just down the road," she said.

German Rosas-Acosta, Ph.D., assistant professor of biological sciences, said the EH&S move will speed up processes that in the past used to take longer.

"It will decrease the response time in the event of a chemical spill or the time needed to certify the working condition of a chemical hood," he said. "This will certainly speed up our ability to execute and publish our research, which will enhance our progression toward Tier One status."

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]]> Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012 The tables have turned for faculty artists whose work goes on display Jan. 26 at the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at The University of Texas at El Paso.

A reception at 5 p.m. featuring live music by celebrated Amercian cellist Zuill Bailey will kick off the two-month long exhibition.

The biennial event gives UTEP faculty members an opportunity to showcase their own work, incorporating multiple styles and disciplines such as paint, sculpture, graphic design, photography and performance.

"It's a nice sampling of the current pursuits featuring many of the city's top artists, many of whom still reside here in El Paso and who teach at UTEP," said Kate Bonasinga, director of the Rubin Center.

The year's exhibit, which puts the University's art students face to face with what inspires their professors, is set to feature 27 faculty artists, all of whom were hand-picked by art curator Gwen Chanzit, Ph.D., of the Herbert Bayer Collection and Archive at the Denver Art Museum.

According to Bonasinga, art as a discipline is something that works on a universal plane of inspiration; one that touches both students and faculty.

"It's a wonderful chance for everyone involved to cross over that line and stand in the midst of the center of art and creative design," Bonasinga said.

UTEP has played a large role in the El Paso art scene, said assistant professor and preparator of the Rubin Center Daniel Szwaczkowski.

"There's always been art here in El Paso and UTEP, and it's always been an 'art town,'" he said. "I think more and more students are beginning to take advantage of places like the Rubin Center, providing them a place to show their work."

Szwaczkowski said the key to teaching art requires determination, in addition to technical studies.

"The technical aspect of art is one that is quick to learn and adapt," he said. "Success depends on the willingness and tenacity of our students. We hope that with this exhibit, the students will have become inspired, along with whatever else may inspire them."

Szwaczkowski is one of the faculty artists picked to participate in this year's exhibition.

For Bonasinga, as the University grows closer to becoming a Tier One university, the Rubin Center continues to adapt to the expanding and changing face of UTEP.

"UTEP has been instrumental in teaching some of the city's top artists, and providing a home for the milieu of work developed in the Rubin Center," she said. "By playing host as a venue to commission work from outside artists, as well as showcasing the vast amounts of talent in its students, the Tier One direction we work hard at achieving every day is becoming a reality."

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]]> Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012 The decision by a professor from The University of Texas at El Paso to accept an invitation to speak about his research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) ended up including an impromptu song-and-dance routine.

Jorge Gardea-Torresdey, Ph.D., chairman of UTEP's Department of Chemistry and Dudley Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Science & Engineering, returned recently from a three-day trip to Beijing, where he led interactive seminars about the use of plants to treat environmental problems and the best methods to get published in leading scientific journals.

As part of his duties, he presented awards to a handful of academy members who published top research papers in 2011 during an elaborate Chinese New Year's dinner celebration on Jan. 11. To his surprise, organizers also asked him to address the audience, sing a song and dance.

Gardea-Torresdey, who is known to be able to carry a tune and hoof it when necessary, quickly scanned a list of songs on the band's repertoire and selected "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" from the Tony-Award Winning musical Evita. Afterwards he shed his coat and shared a few dance moves with a Chinese colleague to the applause of his peers.

"It was all a surprise," he said between laughs during an interview in his new third-floor corner office in the new Chemistry and Computer Science (CCS) Building. A few commemorative photos decorate his walls, but several boxes on the floor still needed to be unpacked.

His office has to wait for more pressing needs around the new $69 million building. He stops colleagues in the hallways and contacts others via cell phone with instructions and information he hopes will help contractors to finish the 150,000-square-foot CCS before its March 2 grand opening.

Still admittedly jet-lagged from his return Jan. 13, the professor talked about the trip, including the seeds of collaboration he planted among his Chinese peers with the hope that something would come to fruition.

"The academy has lots of researchers. It's one of the most prestigious (academies) in the world. They treat academics like kings. It's very competitive to become a member (of the academy)," he said. "I was honored to be there."

Gardea-Torresdey was invited because of his international reputation and advances he has made in research in such areas as nanotechnology and environmental chemistry, Z.P. Hao, director of the Nanotechnology Division of the CAS, wrote in an email.

"His work has revolutionized mechanisms by which environmental sustainability can be improved," Hao wrote, adding that the visit spurred the possibility of student and professor exchanges and joint projects in areas that will benefit both institutions and both countries.

The visit solidified the bond between UTEP and the academy and probably will lead to more collaboration, said Mahesh Narayan, Ph.D., associate professor and assistant chair in UTEP's chemistry department.

"It has provided a window from which top scientists half-way around the world can peek into UTEP's achievements," he said. "Simply put, this is a red-letter day in UTEP's ascent to Tier One status."

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]]> Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012 The learning philosophies promoted at The University of Texas at El Paso run strong at a new school on El Paso's West Side because of the number of UTEP graduates on staff.

The Ibero Academy, 5141 Upper Valley Road, opened in August 2011 with an eclectic, multicultural curriculum for a student body of 75 that ranged in age from 1 to 7. The school depends on its teachers to direct highly interactive enrichment programs that promote critical thinking and efficient decision making at an early age.

The school's two administrators, Laura E. Holguin and Adriana H. Muñoz, are cousins who were raised in Juárez, Mexico, and graduated from UTEP in the 1980s. Both praised the University for a solid education and for unlocking their minds to other cultures and perspectives.

"UTEP opened the world to me," said Holguin, the school's administrative principal who earned her bachelor's in computer science with a minor in business from the University in 1986. "That's what we want to do here. I met people from so many countries (at UTEP) and realized how important it was to understand people beyond Hispanics."

The pair worked at the first Ibero campus that opened 21 years ago in Juárez. This is the school's second campus.

Muñoz, the school's academic principal who earned her bachelor's in education in 1983 and her master's in education diagnostician six years later, said she and Holguin have stayed involved with the College of Education by attending its annual Bilingual Educators Emphasizing and Mastering Standards (BEEMS) Conference.

While not a conscious choice to stack the faculty with UTEP alums, it brought a sense of pride and oneness to the school to have so many former Miners on campus. Five of Ibero's seven teachers have graduated from the College of Education since 2009.

The teachers said their common experiences allow them to use an academic shorthand honed at UTEP to share ideas and discuss curriculum.

"We're all on the same page," said Amanda Coyne, a 2011 graduate.

Among the guests who attended the school's grand opening was Josefina V. "Josie" Tinajero, Ed.D., dean of UTEP's College of Education. She was proud of the staff.

"This is a testament to the quality of educators that we produce at UTEP — both teachers and school leaders. I'm extremely pleased to know that administrators at Ibero Academy found our graduates to be the best to staff their school," Tinajero said.

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]]> Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012 Great 21st century leaders must focus their energy and efforts on building enduringly great organizations, said Jerry Porras, Ph.D., the Lane Professor of Organizational Behavior and Change, Emeritus, at Stanford University, during his lecture at The University of Texas at El Paso on Jan. 18.

Students, faculty and staff attended Porra's presentation, "Engineering and Leadership: A 21st Century View," part of the University's monthly Engineering Lecture Series. The UTEP alumnus discussed the characteristics of great 21st century business leaders, and the business acumen, personal behavioral skills and technical education that future engineers need to develop in order to build enduringly great organizations.

"Organizations need to have a lot of different capabilities in order to be successful," said Porras, one of UTEP's 2011 Distinguished Alumni. "Twenty-first century leaders must focus on what those capabilities are and filter them into organizations."

According to Porras, in order to build a great organization, leaders must be able to create the right structure, culture and reward systems, and bring in the right technologies and the right people to execute those technologies to produce an outstanding and enduring product or service.

Porras examined the characteristics of great leaders in his book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, which he co-authored with Jim Collins. The book is based on the results of a six-year research project aimed at discovering approaches and behaviors of visionary companies in the last two centuries.

Traditionally, great leaders are seen as charismatic visionary leaders who can powerfully articulate their vision, and who are passionate, powerful, unconventional, and willing to incur great personal risks, as well as highly motivated to lead. Porras said these leaders, such as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, focus on what he describes as leading their organization – they provide the energy, direction, vision and technical expertise – instead of building it. As such, the organization is dependent on its leader for its success.

However, Porras found that the leaders of the companies that he mentions in Built to Last had some of the qualities of charismatic visionary leaders, but they were also soft spoken, thoughtful, gentle, good listeners, serious, humble and unobtrusive. They also focused their energy on developing the capabilities to make their companies enduringly successful, like General Electric. Porras calls organizations that are not dependent on their leaders' success enduringly great organizations, because they continue to be great after their leader is gone.

"You've got to believe that what you're doing is building something that will be a legacy to you, and if that's important to you, the most important way for it to be done is by focusing on building an organization," Porras said.

Porras received his electrical engineering degree from Texas Western College (now UTEP) in 1960. He worked as an engineer for General Electric and Lockheed Martin for a few years until he decided he wanted to be a manger. He earned his Master of Business Administration degree from Cornell University in 1968. While pursuing his MBA, Porras became passionate about studying human behavior. He went on to earn his Ph.D. in management from the University of California, Los Angeles, and he made the transition from engineering into the field of human behavior and organizational engineering, Porras said.

"I learned a lot of things along the way," Porras said. "It forced me to reflect on what I was missing as an engineering student and as a young person involved in a highly technical field, and what I really need to have in order to be a much more well-rounded and effective member."

Porras believes that for engineering students to become great 21st century leaders, they need to have the proper training and education, which involves understanding people's behavior as individuals, in groups, and in organizations. They also need to develop knowledge about how business works and learn about economics, finance, accounting, marketing, strategy, human resources and entrepreneurship.

Engineering students also should have a strong set of personal behavior skills, which includes building interpersonal relationships, learning how to communicate in verbal and written form, and showing empathy, sensitivity to other's needs, and authenticity.

They also need to have different perspectives on how the world works from a philosophical, sociological, anthropological, political science and historical view to become a more effective problem solver and leader.

Future engineers need a sharp technical education in mathematics, physics, information technology, data analysis, and in their engineering specialty.

Finally, effective future leaders also must have respect for other people, organizations, competitors, and society, as well as compassion.

College of Engineering Dean Richard T. Schoephoerster, Ph.D., said that the University is developing programs in the colleges of Engineering and Science that combine both business and engineering skills that will equip students to lead us into the conceptual age.

"In this conceptual age, engineering graduates will need to learn more about how business works and business graduates will need to learn more about how technology works," Schoephoerster said.

Edgar Lopez, a freshman mechanical engineering major, said that combining his engineering studies with a business education was a "bonus."

"We tend to think about the technical stuff and not the reality about of things," said Lopez, who hopes to work for NASA someday. "Not everyone speaks in an engineering language and not everyone gets it. We have to spend time with other people who are not in our field."

UTEP's Engineering Lecture Series brings speakers to campus to address topics at the intersection of society and technology.

February's scheduled speaker is Simon Lorne, vice chair and chief legal officer of Millennium Management.

The Engineering Lecture Series is made possible by contributions from Bob and Diane Malone and the Halliburton Foundation.

Information: Ingrid Wright, 915-747-5971, or engineeringlectures.utep.edu

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]]> Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012
Talbot's discussion, "Beyond Jeopardy! Putting Watson to Work," is scheduled for 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 24, in the Undergraduate Learning Center, room 116, on Wiggins Road.

The public and members of the media are invited to attend this free event on the UTEP campus. A reception will follow.

IBM Watson is an artificial intelligence system capable of answering questions posed in natural language. Named after IBM's founder and first president, Thomas J. Watson, the supercomputer is one of the most advanced systems on Earth and was developed by an IBM Research team of 25 scientists.

In February 2011, Watson competed on Jeopardy! against the TV quiz show's two most renowned champions. The IBM Jeopardy! Challenge represented a major milestone in the development of artificial intelligence systems, and was highlighted in IBM's centennial celebration last year as a showcase for its commitment to research and tradition of Grand Challenges.

Talbot leads the development of portfolio definition, business planning and successful worldwide introduction of IBM's next generation Power platforms. He has been working on the IBM leadership team responsible for transitioning Watson from the game show circuit to solving real world problems in health care, financial services, government citizen services and many other industries.

Talbot received his master's degree in electrical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and his bachelor's degree from Rice University. He is an IBM Executive and PMI Certified Project Manager, holds five U.S. patents and has received several awards in management excellence, business and technical achievement.

In 2014, UTEP will celebrate a century of access and excellence in education. This not only is a time to honor the University's history, but to contemplate its future and drive to become the first national research university with a 21st century student demographic. The Centennial Lecture Series will provide perspective on a broad range of contemporary topics that impact society, culture and lives.

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]]> Monday, Jan. 23, 2012
The team, which will include researchers from civil engineering and public health sciences, hopes to determine the best, most economical methods to provide water that complies with the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act to residents in rural areas of the Paso del Norte region, said W. Shane Walker, Ph.D., assistant professor of civil engineering and the project's principal investigator.

Walker, who grew up on a cotton farm east of Lubbock, said this research is important to him because he understands the value of water when it comes to land and people. The research will target areas that lack basic infrastructure, where residents get their water from wells that may contain arsenic or micro-organisms or who store their water in tanks, which may become contaminated.

"The opportunity to lead this interdisciplinary project is very exciting to me because it will help people gain access to clean, healthy drinking water," he said.

Walker said the three-year, $498,906 project will be broken into four phases starting in late spring or early summer.

It will include interviews with about 150 people in 12 focus groups to learn who would consider using "point of use" (POU) water treatment devices such as those that use hollow-fiber microfiltration (small straws made of membranes), reverse osmosis or nanofiltration (flat membranes), where harmful particles in the water are trapped.

The second phase involves collection of water samples and studies of the effectiveness of the POU devices. Phase 3 involves volunteers who will use the devices for several months. In the final phase, volunteers will respond to surveys about the water's taste, smell, color and other qualities. The final report will be submitted to the EPA in fall 2014.

Walker's team consists of fellow UTEP civil engineering faculty members Ivonne Santiago, Ph.D., lecturer; and John Walton, Ph.D., professor; and Joseph W. Tomaka, Ph.D., associate professor of public health sciences. Also on the team is Rebecca Palacios, Ph.D., assistant professor of health science at New Mexico State University. Three graduate students – including one from NMSU – will participate in the research, Walker said.

Palacios, who earned her doctoral degree in psychology from UTEP in 2006, has previous work experience working with colonias. She hopes to use her skills as well as her fluency in Spanish to promote the project.

"We want to make sure that the colonias have potable water," she said, adding that regional industries such as dairies and fertilizer plants could contaminate the water table. "We hope this will help (colonia residents) find the most user-friendly (treatment) method."

The research will be coordinated with various local, state and federal health and environmental agencies including the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

"Congratulations to Shane and his team," said Marcelo Korc, Ph.D., sustainable development/environmental health adviser at the PAHO. "We look forward to working with UTEP in such an important study."

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]]> Monday, Jan. 23, 2012

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]]> Monday, Jan. 23, 2012
The spring 2012 semester is shaping up to be a busy few months at The University of Texas at El Paso.

Completed construction projects such as the Chemistry and Computer Science Building will help UTEP faculty and students to attain higher levels of research success among our growing student population, while new developments will enhance the spaces outside our structures.

New academic programs, including those done in partnership with other institutions of higher education at the national and international level, and a growing number of online offerings will assist students to follow their personal paths to a brighter future.

Extracurricular activities such as intercollegiate athletics and mega-community service projects such as Project MOVE on March 3 and UTEP's Opportunity Days conference May 2-3 will keep students excited, engaged and well-rounded.

Here's a rundown of what's coming up:

Opportunity Days

One of the major activities at UTEP this semester will be Opportunity Days on May 2 and 3, an offshoot of the highly ambitious Opportunity Nation conference conducted last November in New York. The two-day event will kick off with a workshop where UTEP students, faculty and staff will join with some of the brightest minds in the region to discuss how grassroots efforts can integrate academic goals and industry needs to create a robust future for residents of the Paso del Norte region and beyond.

Other Opportunity Days activities will include a visit by school children who will experience how UTEP can blaze their path to a bright future, and conclude with a communitywide party tied to the University's upcoming Centennial celebration in 2014.

PeopleSoft

In the cyber world, the University will continue to move forward with PeopleSoft, a state-of-the-art commercial software method that will replace UTEP's current finance and human resources systems. The new arrangement will streamline business processes, increase workflow efficiencies and improve data management as UTEP marches toward national research (Tier One) university status.

The organizational infrastructure system, which is tied to others throughout the UT System, is expected to go on-line during the fall 2012 semester. Organizers plan to configure and develop the system through March, with testing and training occurring in February.

Miner Gold Card

On a similar note, the University's plan to upgrade its Miner Gold Card takes a big step forward this semester. Current staff, students and faculty are encouraged to get their head shots taken at the Miner Gold Card Office in the Academic Services Building or the Carding and Ticket Center in Union East.

The photos will be used on the new cards that will provide online access to Miner Meals and Miner Bucks accounts, enhance access to student tickets to University sporting events, and provide enhanced security options that will support biometrics, among other new features. The new cards will be distributed starting this summer in time for a pilot program. The cards should go into general use at the start of the fall semester.

Academics

Officials from the College of Education expect its faculty and students who specialize in language and bilingual education topics to begin joint research and other collaborative teaching/learning activities with their peers at the National University of Mexico (UNAM) and its research center in the Yucatan Peninsula. UTEP and UNAM officials have negotiated the agreement for two years, said Judith Munter, Ph.D., associate dean of the college.

"This agreement will help UTEP to achieve its vision of being recognized for providing opportunities for our students and faculty to generate and apply knowledge about emergent global issues with a special focus on those having a direct regional impact," Munter said.

The college also announced that its Educational Psychology & Special Services Department would begin to offer its graduate-level marriage and family therapy courses online this semester. The curriculum has been redesigned to include more emphasis on applied evaluation methods to specific family problems. These courses fulfill the requirements for the Texas Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist credential as well as licenses approved in other states.

"The idea behind offering this course online is to reach a larger base of professionals who might want additional training in family therapy but are not able to attend UTEP," said Stephen W. Johnson, Ph.D., associate professor of counselor education. The hope is that the curriculum will attract professionals who need this type of course but lack a university nearby.

Construction

Students will note the completion of some major campus construction projects that will enhance research and their campus experience.

The main jewel that opens this spring is the $69.2 million Chemistry and Computer Science Building at Hawthorne Avenue and Rim Road. Faculty and staff spent much of winter break moving in and preparing research labs, offices, classrooms and a full-service Starbucks in the roughly 150,000-square-foot structure. A grand opening is scheduled for March 2.

Other recently completed projects in the Hawthorne neighborhood should be fully operational. They are the Nanotechnology Fabrication Center, the Biomedical/Bioinformatics Annex, the Center for Space Exploration Technology Research Lab, the Research and Academic Data Center and the W.M. Keck Center for 3-D Innovation. The work cost around $26.5 million and started in early 2010.

Getting to campus should be easier with the improvements to the westbound Schuster Avenue off-ramp along Interstate 10. The $8 million project by the Texas Department of Transportation included a bridge that takes commuters onto University Avenue west of the roundabout, an additional exit lane, and a new westbound entrance to I-10 from University Avenue. It was planned to accommodate the University's anticipated growth to 30,000 students by 2020.

The work by the City of El Paso along Oregon Street south of University should finish the week of Jan. 16. At that time, crews will flip the barricades and work on the other side of Oregon from University to Miner Village. That project should last four months.

Once on campus, drivers with UTEP parking permits can leave their vehicles in the new $12.4 million Schuster Parking Garage. The 244,672-square-foot structure and adjacent surface lots will accommodate approximately 800 vehicles.

Users will notice several road projects during the spring semester that eventually will help make the campus more pedestrian friendly. The first phase of renovations to Hawthorne Street's west curb should be completed in mid-February. It will include wider sidewalks and shaded rest areas. A circular street plaza is planned for Wiggins Road outside the University Library. That work should begin in March and be completed before the fall 2012 semester begins.

Shortly after the spring semester begins, the Miner Nation will be able to experience an enhanced food court on the second floor of Union Building East. It involves new tile, carpeting and dining furniture as well as a Mein Bowl, which will incorporate AFC Sushi. Gone are the opaque glass walls to create a more open space.

After that, contractors will begin to redesign the eating options on the first floor of Union East. The Starbucks and the restrooms will switch sides and a Jamba Juice will be added. That work should be ready for the fall 2012 semester.

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]]> Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012
Judges, who based their decision on six categories, gave the UTEP bridge and its team top marks in four categories – economy, efficiency, speed and stiffness – as well as a second-place in weight. The team competed against nine universities in the Texas-Mexico region and will move on to the national competition May 25-27 at Clemson University in South Carolina. This will be the second year in a row that UTEP's team has competed at the national level.

The 26 team members, who include 14 students from last year's team, range from freshmen to a doctoral student. They worked diligently since August to prepare for the contest, said team captain David Ledesma, who led the UTEP squad to nationals last year and earned his master's in structural engineering from UTEP in December.

"We pretty much swept the table," said Ledesma, who added that the win tasted sweeter because UTEP's name was not called in any category of the competition when he joined the team four years ago. "There's a new sheriff in town."

He said the team, whose faculty adviser is W. Shane Walker, Ph.D., assistant professor of civil engineering, will push itself to do what it can to increase its efficiency and the strength of its bridge to improve its chances of winning nationals.

The achievement is a source of pride to the University, said Richard Schoephoerster, Ph.D., dean of UTEP's College of Engineering.

"This contest provides an opportunity for our students to gain practical experience and display what they have learned in our classrooms. It is critical to their professional development," he said. "Their victory also displays the capabilities of our students, as well as the faculty who teach them. Both are clearly top notch.

" The plan is to display the winning bridge in the near future in the lobby outside the dean's office in the College of Engineering.

The University of Houston hosted the event, which is sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction and the American Society of Civil Engineers.

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]]> Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012 By Joe Velarde

The University of Texas at El Paso welcomed Sir Tim Rice back to campus on Friday, Jan. 13, to give students and faculty in the cast of his latest play invaluable direction and input. Beginning Jan. 27, the UTEP Dinner Theatre will present the outcome of that collaboration when it opens the world premiere of Rice's latest musical, Lute.

"Knowing that (Tim Rice) is here to see how we've developed his play is very nerve wracking," said recent graduate Ricardo Ibarra, who plays the lead role of Blondel (rhymes with fondle) in Lute. "I don't think I've ever worked on a world premiere of anything before, let alone on this scale."

Rice has enjoyed much success on stage and on screen. In 1993, he won an Academy Award for "Best Original Song" with Alan Menkin for "A Whole New World," featured in the Disney movie Aladdin. He also is recognized for writing the lyrics in Andrew Lloyd Weber musicals Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Lute is a "reboot" of Rice's play Blondel, first released in 1983. UTEP Dinner Theatre Director Greg Taylor had asked Rice, a longtime friend, if UTEP could open the 2012 season with Blondel, which it has produced in the past. Rice believed that the show needed to be revamped.

"I felt as though the play wasn't where it needed to be," Rice said. "I wanted to change it up a bit, and as such, give it a new name. From there, I changed a few things around, added a few more songs and completely ran with the idea."

The show's new title is based on the instrument played by the lead character, Blondel. Originally designed as a comedic romp, the show focuses on the changing scope of the political environment during the the Third Crusade in the late 1100s.

"I felt it was time to see the play reach its fullest potential," Rice said.

With Mathew Pritchard filling in for original songwriter, Stephen Oliver, who died in 1992, the production got under way, and Taylor prepared his students for the chance of a lifetime.

"It's been a unique experience for all of us," Taylor said.

According to Taylor, the cast and crew have become privy to the daily re-writes and changes done to the show through email. For a major production, Taylor said that this is a very common practice – especially one that is being performed for the first time.

"This gives our students an amazing opportunity," Taylor said. "Not only do they have the honor to work under the direct and watchful eye of Sir Rice, but they also get to see how a major production is brought to light."

For Rice, he has been very happy with what he has seen.

"I have absolute faith in Greg Taylor, as well as the rest of the talent at UTEP involved with the production. I have no doubt in my mind that (Lute) will have a successful opening," he said.

Tickets are available through the UTEP Ticket Office. Seats range from $14 to $40. Discounted rates are available for students, staff and faculty. The show is scheduled to run through Feb. 11.

For more information, contact the Dinner Theatre at 915-747-6060.

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]]> Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012 By Daniel Perez

While the focus of this year's BEEMS conference at UTEP will continue to be on methods to improve bilingual instruction, it also will break new ground in an effort to inspire teachers who continue to deal with job cuts, diminished resources and a new statewide standardized test.

Organizers of the 19th annual Bilingual Educators Emphasizing Multinational Settings (BEEMS) Conference decided to add a motivational twist to the Jan. 27-28 event in the Undergraduate Learning Center at The University of Texas at El Paso. This year's theme is "The Art of Teaching to Promote Innovative Learners."

"A lot of teachers are under the gun these days, so we wanted to remind them how they could like their jobs more," said Sylvia Luna, a conference coordinator. "We want to pump them up."

Those involved in the planning invited nationally recognized artist and business consultant Erik Wahl to be one of the event's keynote speakers because of his ability to help others tap into their creative sides to achieve a superior performance.

Wahl said that he cherished his opportunities to speak with educators. He said in an email that teachers face their own versions of regulatory changes such as standardized testing and budget cutbacks that can squeeze the life out of the learning process down to the students. The title of his presentation is "The Art of Vision," and he creates a painting as part of his presentation.

"My goal is to inspire teachers to not just educate our children, but to ignite the passion for lifelong learning," he wrote. "I will share with teachers how to do more with less, how to build emotional connections to drive future discretionary effort, and also re-remind them of the heroism of what they do for our kids."

This will be Wahl's second visit to El Paso. He participated in an education event organized by the Ysleta Independent School District in 2011.

"The audience was electric," he recalled. "I appreciated the diversity and energy and look forward to returning."

The conference's other keynote speaker will be James Crawford, author, businessman and longtime advocate for the education of English Language Learners. His presentation is titled "Fostering Bilingualism: A New Paradigm for Advocacy."

Participants will have access Jan. 27 to nearby schools that showcase best practices in dual language education. They also can choose from more than 40 concurrent sessions with a variety of topics including a legislative update, content instruction, teaching strategies, and bilingual education in math, music and science.

One of the guest presenters is Elva Cerdá Perez, Ed.D., associate professor in the Department of Language, Literacy, and Intercultural Studies at the University of Texas at Brownsville. She said she appreciates the conference's friendly atmosphere, valuable presentations, and the professionalism of its organizers.

"I share what I learn at the BEEMS conference with my colleagues and students to keep them abreast of what is happening in bilingual education," said Perez, who has attended 17 BEEMS conferences.

The value of the seminar is in who you meet as much as what you learn, said M. Teresa Cortez, Ed.D., visiting assistant professor of educational leadership at UTEP. She sends her master's students to BEEMS so they will learn the latest trends in bilingual education from a local to national level and meet many educational leaders from around the region and beyond.

"I think that it is important that students who will be leaders to network as much as possible and take the opportunity to attend any educational event that could help them be better educators," Cortez said.

The conference, usually held in March, was moved to January so teachers would not have a conflict with the start of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) standardized testing.

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]]> Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012 By Laura L. Acosta

The earth's rising temperature can be measured through the effects that it is having on the planet's fragile ecosystems.

For the past three years, Vanessa L. Lougheed, Ph.D., associate professor of biological sciences, and her team of student researchers have trekked to Barrow, Alaska, to study the impact of climate change on Arctic tundra ponds.

With Arctic air temperatures warming faster than any other place on the planet, Lougheed is checking to see if the ponds are acting to store carbon or release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which may have implications for climate change.

"If there's more dioxide being released, then that could amplify the effect of climate change because carbon dioxide is a main greenhouse gas. But if there's more carbon dioxide being taken up by Arctic ponds, then that could moderate the effect of climate change," Lougheed said. "We're looking at how much carbon is being taken up by these aquatic plants and algae and how that differs from 40 years ago.

Scientists first studied the ponds 40 years ago. Their findings were published in the book, The Limnology of Tundra Ponds, and Lougheed is comparing her research with theirs to see how much the ecology and energy flow of the ponds has changed during the last four decades.

Students collect water and algae samples and use aerial photography to determine differences among sites and through time.

Christian G. Andresen, an environmental science and engineering doctoral candidate, is studying the hydrology of the ponds to see if the wetlands are increasing or diminishing in size. Andresen attached a point-and-shoot camera to a kite to take photos of the plants from up in the air. He is comparing the photos to historical imagery from the 1940s to see how much the area has changed over time.

Andresen's interest in climate change was piqued the first time he traveled to Barrow to study the ponds in 2008 as an undergraduate research assistant.

"That research is pretty significant in terms of impact," Andresen said. "As soon as I saw how things were changing, I got more and more interested in (climate change). I witnessed those changes. I was like, 'Wow this is really happening.'"

In addition to her field studies, Lougheed is also rescuing valuable historic data. One of her students, environmental science major Gabriela Contreras, is transferring data that Lougheed received from her predecessors into a database to make it accessible to other scientists.

All of Lougheed's research assistants have been recruited from UTEP's undergraduate research programs. Lougheed serves as the director of the Undergraduate Research Mentoring (URM) program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and provides research and mentoring opportunities to undergraduate students interested in environmental sciences and ecology.

For more information on UTEP's Aquatic Ecology Lab, visit ael.utep.edu.

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]]> Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012 By Joe Velarde

Technology involving printable biomaterial such as skin cells seems like something out of a science fiction novel or a film. However, Thomas Boland, Ph.D., professor of metallurgical and materials engineering, has been involved in this breakthrough in biomaterials research at The University of Texas at El Paso.

The implication of this research is invaluable, said Laura Bosworth-Bucher. She, along with her company Tevido Biodevices, is looking into advancing Boland's technique to make it commercially available.

"Chronic non-healing wounds are becoming more frequent," Bosworth-Bucher said. "Foot ulcers affect approximately 10 to 15 percent of patients with diabetes throughout their lifetimes, and by 2025, it is estimated that 300 million people will have diabetes."

Ultimately, the goal of Boland's research is to create a wound care material that integrates with the host tissue – skin – which is considered the largest organ of the human body.

"We have been investigating a biodegradable hydrogel which is derived from natural proteins and carbohydrates, creating a scaffold to use as a substrate to grow cells," Boland said.

According to the research abstract, this hydrogel is a unique composite of gelatin and alginate, both materials with very high biocompatibility, promoting cells growth and vascularization.

The actual machine used to create this material is a basic HP Deskjet 340 printer that uses HP 33 cartridges modified to control temperature and deposition. An aluminum plate was adapted to the printer using the paper feeding sensor and two switches along the y-axis of the machine to evenly distribute the gelatin into the form.

"The use of precision printers allows us to build vascularized channels into the scaffolds, which we hypothesize will improve the integration of the engineered skin with existing tissue," Boland said.

Boland said he hopes his research will provide better outcomes for patients with peripheral neuropathy and vascular disease.

"(These) conditions reduce the normal pain sensations and healing of minor traumas, allowing the development of chronic non-healing ulcers, often preceding lower-extremity amputation (when the ulcer becomes infected and gangrenous)," Boland said.

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]]> Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012 By Laura L. Acosta

Adriana Ochoa Valle was born and raised in Bahía de Lobos, a small fishing village off the Gulf of California in Sonora, Mexico. Her grandfather, a fisherman, taught her to care for the ocean and respect the marine life that helped sustain her family.

"My grandfather would always say the ocean is something to respect," Ochoa wrote in her blog for Rare Conservation, an international nonprofit environmental group.

As an adult, protecting the ocean would become Ochoa's mission.

After receiving her communication degree from the University of Sonora in Hermosillo, Sonora, the aspiring conservationist applied and was accepted to Rare's master's degree program at The University of Texas at El Paso.

Launched in 2008 in partnership with UTEP's Sam Donaldson Center for Communication Studies and Rare, this first-of-its-kind master's in communication for conservation practitioners offers international students a communication master's degree with a focus on environmental communication and social change.

The two-year training program prepares students to develop location-specific social marketing plans called "pride campaigns," which are designed to help conservation organizations in more than 50 countries engage community members in conservation practices.

"Within our department, we're very much driven by issues of social justice, the environment and social change, and I think that those goals that we reflect as a faculty are amplified when we work with Rare, because they have the same kind of perspective on how things should be, or how we can make the world a better place," said Frank G. Pérez, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of UTEP's Communication Department, and one of five UTEP faculty members involved in the program. The other members are Arvind Singhal, Ph.D., professor of communication, and communication associate professors Stacey Sowards, Ph.D.; Kenneth Yang, Ph.D.; Sarah Ryan, Ph.D.; and Roberto Avant-Mier, Ph.D.

Training is administered in four languages by regional university partners Georgetown University McDonough School of Business in Washington, D.C.; ITESO (Instituto Técnico de Estudios Superiores de Occidente) in Jalisco, Mexico; Bogor Agricultural Institute in Bogor, Indonesia; and Southwest Forestry University in Yunnan Province, China.

According to Rare's website, participants, known as campaign managers, learn how to change attitudes and behaviors; mobilize support for environmental protection; and reduce threats to natural resources. Campaign managers receive 17 weeks of classroom training, and then spend the remaining 84 weeks at their site implementing the campaign.

From October 2008 to August 2010, Ochoa partnered with CONAP, Mexico's National Council of Protected Areas, to organize the campaign "Por una mejor pesca, Respeta, Participa y Organízate," in the San Pedro Martir Island Biosphere Reserve, a small island located in the Gulf of California. The campaign aimed to implement a fisheries management system and train local fishers in sustainable practices such as respecting no-take zones and selective fishing methods to reduce overfishing.

The reserve is home to 30 species including coral forests, marine bird species, one of the largest sea lion reproductive colonies in the Gulf of California and sperm whales.

Ochoa and her team of volunteers designed posters, caps, buttons and coffee cups, and organized festivals and soccer tournaments with local fisherman to promote sustainable fishing practices and create awareness about conservation efforts. Ochoa also created a black sea turtle mascot named Marina to help create pride in the community.

"The idea is that by building pride in the community, people will hopefully abandon any bad or negative behaviors and they'll be more invested in taking care of the community, from an ecological perspective," said Pérez, who is the lead instructor for the Latin American section of the UTEP/Rare master's program and Ochoa's mentor.

Ochoa completed her degree last spring.

"Her campaign did really well," Pérez said. "She internalized all the ideas that were presented to her both from the social change perspective from us, and the pride campaign aspect from Rare."

UTEP faculty members visit their site at least twice a year to meet with students, check on their progress, and evaluate assignments.

Over the past three years, Stacey Sowards has traveled to Indonesia with 24 UTEP students to study the kinds of activities that campaign managers use to engage their local communities in conservation efforts. Students participate in forest learning activities at the Gunung Walat Education Forest, in West Java, in collaboration with the Bogor Agricultural Institute. They have seen orangutans, toured rain forests, ridden elephants, met with local community leaders, studied organic farming, and learned about conservation efforts, Sowards said.

"This program offers an innovative way to team university researchers and students with those doing field work," Sowards said. "We learn about their campaign activities on the ground, and they learn research methods, behavior change theories, social marketing techniques, and leadership skills from the program."

Davi Kallman, a graduate student in the Department of Communication, traveled with Sowards and UTEP graduate students Anthony Jimenez, Lucía Murgía and Lorena Mondragón, to Indonesia for six weeks in the summer of 2010.

The trip afforded Kallman the opportunity to study abroad in Jakarta, Bogor and Bali. She observed the different kinds of conservation campaigns that were being implemented in the villages they visited and the response to the campaigns from community members. The group also visited three national parks to check on the progress of campaign managers who were working on conservation projects with Javan Rhinoceros in Ujung Kulon National Park and with orangutans at the Samboja Lestari reforestation project.

For Kallman, the Rare experience also offered her a lesson in humility. Besides environmental conservation, she experienced first-hand how other people live around the world in conditions where food was scare and there was no bathroom or running water.

"These are things that these people don't live with and they don't complain," she said. "They're happy to be alive and we were so appreciative that they gave the little food that they had to us. I think that (Rare) is something that every student should be able to do because something like this, it's not for the pleasure of it, it's a learning experience."

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]]> Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012 The University of Texas at El Paso's new parking garage is scheduled to be open for business on Jan. 17, in time for the start of the spring semester.

Construction on the $12.4 million Schuster Parking Garage began in October 2010 and was funded by bonds that will be repaid through revenues generated by parking. The garage will provide 736 new parking spaces, including several for individuals with disabilities.

"The new garage will help tremendously with the influx of new activity in the area," said Parking and Transportation Director Paul Stresow. "The addition of the Health Sciences and Nursing and the new Chemistry and Computer Science buildings; along with the College of Business Administration and the College of Engineering make this area a coveted parking area for students in those disciplines. It will be a great complement to the south side of campus."

Permits for the new garage are now available for purchase. Current UTEP permit holders who wish to upgrade to the new garage may do so by turning in their current permit at the Parking Office in the Academic Services Building, room 122. Annual contract parking rates for UTEP faculty, staff, and students for January through August 2012 will be prorated: $245 for faculty and staff; $171 for students. The permits are valid through Aug. 15, 2012.

The main entrance to the new garage is located on Schuster Avenue. The Miner Metro Campus loop shuttle that services that area will have a stop near the new garage.

Information: parking.utep.edu

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]]> Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012
The awards, which were first given out in 1994, honor the efforts of teachers, researchers and staff members who best serve the University and its students. Recipients will be recognized during the annual Spring Honors Convocation on April 15.

Nominees are requested in five categories: Distinguished Achievement Award for Research, Distinguished Achievement in Teaching, and three honors for Distinguished Achievement Award for Service to Students by a Faculty Member, Member of the Classified Staff, and Member of the Professional Staff.

University employees, students and alumni may submit nominations. Faculty and full- and part-time staff members who have completed seven years of employment when the nominations are made are eligible for the awards. The form, instructions and guidelines can be found at 2012 Distinguished Achievement Awards Guidelines Nomination Form.doc. The nomination should be accompanied by an abbreviated copy of the nominee's resume or vita.

The information can be mailed to Distinguished Achievement Awards, President's Office, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas 79968, or hand delivered to the President's Office, Suite 500 in the Administration Building.

Nominations will be whittled down to three or four finalists, who will be given a deadline to submit additional information to support their candidacy. The award recipients will be selected based on the initial nominations and the support material.

There is one winner in each category if there are qualified candidates. The honors for teaching excellence and research come with $3,000 prizes; the rest will earn $1,000.

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]]> Friday, Jan. 13, 2012