5 | Arts & Life
7 | Sports
‘South Texas Life and Visual Culture’
Vol. 65, Issue 4
Volleyball goes 2-1 in Roadrunner classic
THE PAISANO Est. 1981
September 20 - September 27, 2022
Independent Student Newspaper for the University of Texas at San Antonio Community /PaisanoOnline
/ThePaisano
@PaisanoMedia
@ThePaisano
www.Paisano-Online.com
New African-American studies major aims to develop research skills By Riley Carroll Arts & Life Editor Previously just a minor, African-American Studies (AAS) has made its way to becoming a full-fledged major at UTSA. Falling under the department of Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality Studies at UTSA, AAS was officially instated as a major in August 2022. “For about 10 years, AfricanAmerican Studies kind of floundered at UTSA,” AAS Program Coordinator Dr. Jasmine Harris said. “It was a minor but didn’t have a lot of stability among students because it didn’t have a department and sort of moved around different colleges depending on who was [in] the program at the time, and finally found a home in the Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality Studies department.” As the new program coordinator for AAS, Dr. Harris created eight new courses to satisfy curriculum requirements for the major: AAS 3013 Black Communities and Culture, AAS 3023 Global Blackness and Afro-Latinidad, AAS 3113 Doing Black Studies Research, AAS 4043 Intersectionality, AAS 4103 Writing Black Lives, AAS 4113 The Black Church and Social Change in the 20th-Century, AAS 4133 Black Social Movements and AAS 4213 Senior Capstone. “When I came in last year as the new program coordinator, my job was to take three pages of ideas and turn it into an actual major with a full curriculum,” Dr. Harris said. “For me, the
important blue line across these courses was a focus on the development of skill sets that students would be able to utilize in the labor market,” Dr. Harris said. “I know as someone who majored in sociology and women’s studies as an undergrad, and my Ph.D. is in sociology as well, that it’s hard to explain to your family what you’re going to do with these kinds of majors that seem practically focused on [a] particular skill set … All of these courses are going to focus on the production of knowledge about Black communities and about African-American studies.” The goal of AAS is to build and fine-tune specialized research abilities surrounding “Black lives and communities with an intersectional lens.” “We’re focused on developing research skills,” Dr. Harris said. “The cool thing about that is that it kind of crosses a lot of industries. I have students who work for nonprofits, I have students who are working in D.C. in governance positions [and] I have students who have gone on to graduate school to become either a professor like myself or to get more engaged in research development. My hope for African American Studies is to be able to create that kind of postgraduate success amongst our majors here, as I was able to do in my last position.” For more information about AAS, visit the UTSA catalog at https://catalog.utsa.edu/undergraduate/educationhumandevelopment/raceethnicitygendersexu alitystudies/#degreestext.
enhance safety,” Calucci said. Along with these specific changes aimed at improving security following the incident, the university already has safety measures in place for its housing areas. One of these measures, as mentioned previously, is the key card access system, which aims to restrict access to dormitories. This requires that resident students swipe their key cards to enter dormitories. Kaelyn Coggins, a digital communication and environmental science major, identifies the access system as an important part of dormitory security. “I live in Guadalupe, so … to enter the building you have to have a key card … so, I feel really safe about that,” Coggins said. This access system also enables the university to record card swipe activity, which can be beneficial if the university needs to go back and review entries into any of the dorms, Gockley explains. While Calucci does not directly oversee budgetary matters, he also explained that a large part of the access service budget goes towards ensuring security measures utilize the latest technology. Read the full article https://paisano-online.com
The 2022 Higher Education Social Media Engagement Report, produced by Rival IQ, recorded data from June 1 of last year to May 31 of this year. The report ranks UTSA as No. 5 in the nation for its Facebook engagement rates using the @UTSA handle and No. 11 for its overall engagement on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and Twitter.
Texas On Friday, Sept. 16, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of a Texas law that targets major social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, who have been accused by Republican lawmakers of censuring conservative speech. The law was originally signed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott last year. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court has the final say on the matter.
U.S.
Riley Carroll/The Paisano
Dormitory safety Social contract between measures include UTSA and the Westside improved lighting, encourages community camera surveillance engagement
By Gauri Raje News Editor Safety concerns about dormitories are of increased importance to students living on campus, with UTSA Police Department (UTSAPD) and Housing Services playing an important role in ensuring housing areas are safe for students. Despite having a multitude of security measures in place, dorm security has remained a high concern, especially after the break-in at Chisholm Hall last semester. Dan Gockley, executive director for housing services, explained that since the incident, the university has “updated key and access card procedures, secured master access cards within electronic key boxes, updated cameras at Chisholm Hall, and updated building perimeter doors and access controls,” in an effort to improve dormitory security. According to UTSA PD Captain Tom Calucci, lighting has also been an important aspect that has undergone changes since the incident. “So after that incident over at Chisholm Hall, one of the things we did [was a lighting survey] for Chisholm Hall and the activities center. And based on the results of that report, we made some changes in lighting over there to increase the lighting to
UTSA
By Mason Hickok Editor-in-Chief The Casita Project is the latest initiative to come out of the Urban Future Lab (UFL), a think tank and teaching lab founded by UTSA Assistant Professor, Dr. Antonio Petrov. Started in 2016, the UFL is housed at the UTSA College of Architecture, Construction and Planning. In 2021, Dr. Petrov led a multidisciplinary team of interns in conjunction with UTSA vice president for university relations, Teresa Niño, in developing a research initiative “to propose a strategic plan that outlines possible future relations between UTSA and the Westside,” according to the strategic plan for the project. Dr. Petrov was selected as a Next-Gen Faculty Leadership Fellow, and The Casita Project was born out of Dr. Petrov’s fellowship and a special topics course he was teaching at the time. Those interns were: Kelsey Brown, who graduated from UTSA with a master’s in architecture and a certificate in historic preservation; Luis Escalante, a master’s student in the urban and regional planning program; Nicole Chavez, a graduate student at St. Mary’s University, studying public administration who also works as the public
affairs coordinator for the UFL. A fourth intern, Karla Ruiz, was also a part of the team. Unfortunately, she was unable to make it for the interview. Chavez spoke about the historical and cultural significance of the casitas. “We call them casitas, but more formally, they’re known as Accessory Dwelling Units — or ADUs,” Chavez said. “They’re really characteristic in San Antonio’s housing landscape. They are something we see naturally occurring here in San Antonio.” Chavez described the projected future of the casita in San Antonio. “On the Westside … the casitas, they could support families with residual income. The casitas could help homeowners gain additional income and also establish those ties with the university, with the [university] students, in the form of a ‘social contract,’” Chavez said. “They’re really a long-term economic development strategy.” For this project, the casita would act as an alternative housing option for students taking classes at the Downtown campus... Continued on page 2 See “All of this is about community engagement and the connection and partnership between UTSA and the Westside...’
Health authorities have lifted the water boil advisory in Jackson, Mississippi that was issued in late July after the water supply was found to have high levels of turbidity, a cloudy appearance that indicates a higher risk of water-borne disease. “We can now announce that we have restored clean water to the city of Jackson,” Gov. Tate Reeves said in an article shared by the New York Times. Gov. Reeves expressed his vigilance, however, as the water systems in Jackson remain troubled. He explained that further interruptions should not be completely ruled out as the infrastructure has proven unsustainable in the past. According to NPR, a “huge chunk” of the coast along western Alaska is under flood and storm warning. These warnings were issued as a cautionary measure, as a Pacific typhoon referred to by meteorologists as Typhoon Merbok makes its way across the Alaskan coastline from the Bering Sea.
World While speaking to reporters outside of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization event in Uzbekistan, Russian President Vladimir Putin vows to attack Ukraine as he sees no need to revise his original goal of liberating Ukraine. The comment was made after Russian forces were forced to retreat from northeastern Ukraine last week. Moreover, Putin has threatened to limit Ukrainian grain exports to European countries. Typhoon Nanmadol has showered Japan with torrential rain and landslides, resulting in evacuation orders for over eight million residents. The typhoon has resulted in a small number of injuries thus far, but no deaths have been reported.