Symposium reaches new heights

Last Tuesday, giant papier-mache puppets paraded around PlainsCapital Bank El Gran Salón during the “Transforming Our World Strategic Initiatives Symposium.”

The symposium was also held last Wednesday on the Edinburg campus.

“I want to welcome all of you here today,” said Patricia McHatton, executive vice president for Academic Affairs. “We will be celebrating some work that has been done by our faculty and our wonderful students. It’s all about some strategic initiatives.”

McHatton said the university developed a strategic plan “a while ago” and wanted to give faculty, students and staff an opportunity to think about some projects that they would like to put in place.

“That is what you will be seeing today, the fruits of that work, which I am very proud,” she said. “It spans a wide range of disciplines, a wide range of research methods, and includes community, faculty, students, staff.”

Mark Kaswan, an associate professor of political science, worked closely with McHatton to put the symposium together and showcase the work UTRGV has done.

“We’ve been working closely together this past year and he has been instrumental in putting the symposium together,” McHatton said when she introduced Kaswan.

Kaswan said he finds the projects really inspiring and they reflect the mission, values, core priorities and other areas of focus for UTRGV.

“It’s really inspiring when you think about the way these projects represent the breadth and the depth of the work being done in UTRGV,” he said.

McHatton introduced the first presentation of the symposium, “Giant Puppets,” and said that every time she sees these puppets, she feels like she is 5 years old.

“When you watch these videos [videos of the giant puppets presenting with kids] and you see these little guys, probably 5 or 6 years old, sitting on the floor and their face when these puppets first come out, seriously, it gives you chills,” she said. “It is just so heartwarming. I am so excited. I love these; they are great.”

After the parade by “Lucero and the Giants: Giant Mexican Puppets,” Lucero Rodriguez, president of the Latino Theatre Initiatives and a graduate student at UTRGV, presented the mission of the puppets and what they have achieved throughout the years.

“It basically started about 10 years ago and it started as a project to bring more Latino theater to our department,” Rodriguez said. “There wasn’t much around and we had a lot of Latino students who probably didn’t feel identified with the projects that were being done in the [theatre] department.”

She said they started by building their own mojigangas, the Spanish name for the giant puppets, and presenting children’s plays at schools across the Valley.

“We saw that they would parade them [giant puppets] on the streets and people would just have fun with the music and they would dance,” Rodriguez said. “We found out that there is not just one place where they are done. They are done in the states of Jalisco, Veracruz, Guanajuato, Morelos, Oaxaca, and they’re handmade.”

Some of the plays are performed completely in Spanish and include original music.

“We try to do productions that help or emphasize problems in our communities,” Rodriguez said. “[We] did a play called ‘Crawling with Monsters’ and it emphasized the problems drug cartels have [caused] in border cities. We interviewed people from across the border. We put these interviews together to create a documentary drama.

“It was very successful. We even took it to New York City, Chicago, New Orleans and San Diego. It impacted so many people.”

Other projects presented were the “Tackling a Turtle Tumor Threat,” presented by Nicholas Blackburn, assistant research scientist; “Proyecto Transformar: Transcending Language Boundaries,” presented by Alma D. Rodriguez, dean of the College of Education and P-16 Integration, Sandra I. Musanti, an associate professor, and Alyssa Cavazos, interim associate director; “Transformations: Sing Your Story,” presented by Daniel Hunter-Holly, an associate professor in the School of Music and Maria Alejandra Mazariegos, counseling specialist; “Community Resiliency from Hurricane Disasters,” a project by Dean Kyne, an assistant professor for sociology and anthropology; and “Establishing a Butterfly Garden at UTRGV,” a
project by Lucia Carreon Martinez, a biology lecturer.

“Community engagement involves student success,” Kaswan said. “The way research is being done
by people in the university is working to transform the Rio Grande Valley and have an impact on the people, on the ecosystem and on the community in general.”