Welcome Aboard

Staff Changes

On July 1st, the following staff changes were made: Valerie Hooge, (former Director of Careers Services) assumed the duties of  part-time Coordinator of Support Services for Students with Disabilities in order to purse her private practice. Valerie has been with UIW since 2000.

Connie Kuwamoto, Director of Career Services

Connie Kuwamoto, is the new Director of Career Services & Career Education. For the past year, Connie served as Director of Support Services for Students with Disabilities. She has been a UIW employee since 1999. Congratulations to both employees on their new positions.

Joffrey Workshop Celebrates 25 Years

This Saturday, July 12, the Joffrey Workshop presented a gala performance to finish an exciting 25 year summer intensive program. Dancers from all over the United States performed classical and contemporary ballet works. The program included the following Workshop faculty pieces:

Tribute by Trinette Singleton with music by Bach

Cinderella Suite by Alexander Filipov with music by Prokofiev

Celebrate! To music by Offenbach, Waldteufel & Struauss,

and I Vespri Siciliani with music by Verdi by Susan Trevino

Artistic Director Eleanor D’Antuono restaged an exciting version of the classic ballet, Paquita. Leading roles were performed by Workshop (and UIW) alumni Martina Chavez, and Joshua Trader. Ms. Chavez now dances with the Washington Ballet (Wash. D.C.), and Mr. Trader with the Tulsa Ballet.

Special guest artists from the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago were Mauro Villanueva, who was trained in the UIW Dance Dept., and Emily Patterson, trained at the Nutmeg Conservatory.

Win a 2003 Harley Davidson V-ROD!

The PR Office is once again raffling a 2003 Motorcycle. Tickets are only $25, and only 2000 tickets will be sold. All proceeds go to scholarships to benefit the National Hispanic Fund, The San Antonio Education Partnership Foundation and the Endowed Scholarship Fund. Official drawing will take place on September 27th.

Call 829-6001 for your ticket to ride.

$25 per ticket

In June Associate Professor Margaret Mitchell and George Burnette attended the Prague Quadrennial, the most prestigious international theatre design and architecture competition held every four years in Prague. A large theatre conference was held in conjunction with the exhibition. Professor Mitchell was one of the curators for the U.S.A. National exhibition, and the U.S.A. won a prize at the PQ for including international designers. There were 52 countries represented, and nine prizes were given.

For the first time, U.I.W. was represented in the Schools of Scenography exhibition. Our own alum, Arnulfo Maldonado, exhibited his theatre design work from U.I.W. in the U.S.A. student section, which was funded by the Tobin Foundation. Arnie was a McNair Scholar and is studying theatre design at Tisch School of the Arts. He is a Vilar Fellow, and N.Y.U. sent him to Prague to attend the PQ. U.I.W. was also represented at the front entrance of the PQ in an advertisement as a possible future sponsor for hosting a Czech theatre design exhibition, entitled "Metaphor and Irony", which is a retrospective of twentieth century Czech design.

John M. Velasquez, Ph.D., was contracted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to act as a “Technical Consultant” for the Hispanic Serving Institutions Assisting Communities (HSIAC) grant that is awarded out of the Office of University Partnerships. Dr. Velasquez was chosen for this role given his successful administration of the UIW/Presa Community HSIAC grant (2001-present). Dr. Velasquez was sent to Northern New Mexico Community College in Espanola, New Mexico to assist that college in writing a successful HSIAC grant.