Meet Katrina Newell

Name: Katrina Newell

Position: Communication lecturer

Degrees: Master’s and bachelor’s degrees in communication from UT Pan American

Where are you from? “I was born and raised in Michigan, but I moved to Texas in 2000, unsure of my life kind of thing. I have family who are Winter Texans and that is what brought me down here and, in fact, I have brought more family down and more of them are now Winter Texans. Little by little, we have migrated this way. I started here as an undergrad student in 2003. I was actually a transfer student because I went to school in Ohio for a couple years. I graduated, finally, in 2007 with my bachelor degree in communication from UTPA. I went right into grad school the following semester and finished in 2009 with my master’s degree from UTPA. I worked at [South Texas College] for a little bit as an adjunct instructor and then they hired me here full time and so I am a lecturer and I have been here since 2010 as an instructor. I am a graduate of the undergrad and master’s program here in this department, but now I, of course, I work here for UTRGV. So, I have stayed on through UTPA, now UTRGV. So, I’m from here, sort of a product of our department.”

How do you like the Valley? “I joke that it is like quicksand. It sucks you in and then you don’t want to leave. I like the slower pace of life. I love the weather, the heat doesn’t bother me. You won’t find the culture and the food anywhere else. It’s just such a unique place. I love the identity of the Valley. I have a daughter and she is 11, so this is definitely her home as well. The things that people complain about, like the heat, etc., I find amenable and they are things that I like, especially since I came from Michigan, from a freezing cold climate. So, yeah, I love the Valley.”

What made you pursue teaching? “Actually, it wasn’t until I was wrapping up my undergraduate degree. I was working full time as a service manager at Texas Roadhouse in McAllen and feeling like I was going to get sucked into food service and managing that restaurant and that was going to be my career path, but I felt like it took up too many hours of my day. At the time, my daughter was 2 and as a single parent I didn’t want to be away from her for that long. At that point, I thought, what if I went back? And so I came back that following semester for my master’s degree and got hired as a graduate assistant, and that was my job at the time. I got to sit in and help teach some of these classes under Dr. [Timothy] Mottet, who was a professor here at the time, and I just fell in love with teaching. Something I thought about as a child and then hadn’t thought about in all these years growing up, and then once I started doing it here as a graduate assistant, it was just so fun. I think I found my passion because I get really excited and really motivated. I feel like teaching is more than just imparting knowledge, but in helping students learn how to think, helping them see their lives and shape their lives in the context of a broader society, and understanding and taking responsibility for what they do and it’s exciting to see students. It feels like I am a cheerleader, and a teacher and a mentor and all of those things wrapped into one. And so I get a lot of personal satisfaction in having the ability to help students learn or understand that they can do something. So, that’s kind of what sucked me in and I kept going.”

What brought you to UTRGV? “So, I graduated from UTPA and stayed. I like the culture. I like the unique aspect of the students. There are a lot of nontraditional students; students who live at home, or commute, or have families already, and I think that brings a lot of diversity into my classroom. People have all these unique experiences. If I ever left to teach somewhere else I would miss that aspect of teaching here. I don’t know if you would find another university with so many students who are parents already, how that informs their life choices makes a difference. When you are a parent, you are suddenly motivated because of your children. It really has been enriching for me as well.”

What classes do you teach? “So, I teach Research and Theory; I teach a Training and Development course where students become corporate trainers in various contexts. I teach the research class, which includes statistics and methods. Theory is really fun as well. It’s really good for persuasion and mass comm. I teach the Lying and Deception course, which has been incredibly popular with outside majors, especially the criminal justice majors. I teach interviewing in the summer. I teach an Introduction to Speech class oftentimes. I have taught almost everything in our department, but now I am pretty consistent with what I teach. I teach Lying and Deception, Interpersonal, Research and Theory, most falls and springs.”

What was the last book you read and what are some of the songs on your playlist? “Right now, I am obsessed with listening to Fleetwood Mac. I know it’s very old, but I love it. It’s kind of my summer playlist. The last book I read is a book by Nicolas Carr called “The Shallows,” and I am not even quite finished with it, but it’s the last book I have been reading. It’s about how the internet is changing our brains. It’s looking at how we don’t actually retain as much information as we used to because information is readily available at our fingertips. It actually reshapes the neural network in our brains. It involves neurology plus social change and I find it fascinating. I mean, it looks at the introduction of maps in society and how that changed people’s brains because we didn’t have to think about how to get to somewhere anymore since we have maps. Also with the introduction of clocks, we do not have to think about where the sun is in the sky to tell the time. It talks about how each of these new technologies created a shift, and he argues how the ubiquitousness of the internet means we remember less and use that reliance for information and then our neural networks change again. I think that is very interesting, and it makes us shallow is what he says.”

Would you like to add anything else? “Take me for class! We have a lot of fun! Try a communications course; it can only help.”

–Compiled by Lesley Robles