Month: May 2017

Julián Castro, former Mayor of San Antonio and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), will serve as commencement speaker as OLLU confers degrees for more than 500 undergraduate and graduate students during commencement exercises on Sunday, May 14, at Freeman Coliseum. Additionally, Castro’s mother and OLLU alumna, Rosie Castro, will be receiving an honorary doctoral degree during the ceremony.

Castro was raised on the West Side of San Antonio by his mother, Maria del Rosario “Rosie” Castro, along with his twin brother, U.S. Congressman Joaquin Castro who represents the 20^th District of Texas. He attended Jefferson High School, earned a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

During Castro’s tenure as Secretary of HUD, the Federal Housing Administration lowered mortgage insurance premiums to make homeownership more affordable for responsible families. In July of 2015, President Obama helped launch one of Secretary Castro’s signature projects, ConnectHome, which accelerated Internet adoption in 28 communities, providing broadband and electronic devices to children living in public and assisted housing.

During his tenure as mayor of San Antonio, Castro became known as a national leader in urban development. In 2010, San Antonio launched the “Decade of Downtown,” an initiative to spark investment in San Antonio’s center city and older neighborhoods. This effort attracted $350 million in private sector investment and produced more than 2,400 housing units in the area.

Castro gained national attention in 2012 when he was the first Hispanic to deliver the keynote address at a Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. In addition, he was named to the World Economic Forum’s list of Young Global Leaders in 2010, and, later that year, Time magazine placed him on its “40 under 40” list of rising stars in American politics.

Previously, Castro worked at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld before starting his own law practice. Castro and his wife, Erica, have a daughter, Carina, and a son, Cristian.

Maria Del Rosario “Rosie” Castro rose from humble beginnings on the West Side of San Antonio to become a distinguished community organizer, city leader and inspiration to many in South Texas and beyond.

The daughter of an orphaned Mexican immigrant who had a fourth grade education, Castro, as a young girl, observed the stark inequalities between living conditions on the West Side and those in Alamo Heights, where her mother worked as a maid and cook.

After attending Little Flower Catholic School and earning a scholarship to Our Lady of the Lake College, Castro organized the “Young Democrats” on campus. She advocated for better education, political representation and city services in predominantly low-income neighborhoods.

She graduated from OLL in 1971 with a bachelor’s in Spanish, and in 1971 became one of the first Chicanas to run for City Council. She served as Bexar County chair for a new political party, La Raza Unida, and gave voice to many Mexican Americans. Rosie earned a master’s degree in environmental management from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

In 1974, Castro gave birth to twin sons, Julián and Joaquin, raised them as a single mother and took them to political rallies. The twins grew up on the West Side, graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School, not far from OLLU, earned undergraduate degrees from Stanford and graduated from Harvard Law School.

She served her community in many ways: as an adjunct professor at UTSA; as a consultant for the Annie E. Casey Foundation; as Ombudsperson/special assistant to the CEO of the San Antonio Housing Authority; and as interim Dean of Student Affairs and Director of the Center for Academic Transitions at Palo Alto College. She retired in 2013.

Presently, Rosie continues to serve her alma mater. She is a member of the executive committee for the 2018 national symposium commemorating the 50th anniversary of the historic 1968 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Hearings, regarding issues faced by Mexican Americans in the Southwest.

Graduation celebrations and preparations begin Friday with Ring Blessing and Graduation Liturgy.

The schedule of events is as follows:
Friday
Ring Blessing – 12 p.m. – Sacred Heart Chapel
Students will have the opportunity to have their rings or other items individually blessed. Graduation regalia are not required.

Graduation Liturgy –3 p.m. – Sacred Heart Chapel
Graduating seniors and their families and friends are invited to celebrate Mass. Graduation regalia are required.

Sunday
Commencement Ceremony – 4:30 p.m. – Freeman Coliseum
3201 E. Houston Street, 78219

After review of bids from potential food sevice vendors, the OLLU administration has decided that Chartwells will be OLLU’s new food service vendor.

The meal plan rates for the 2017-2018 academic year have been determined:

• Plan A – $1,900 + tax (per semester)
• Plan B – $1,800 + tax (per semester)
• Plan C – $1,300 + tax (per semester)
  • This meal plan is available for International Students, Bexar County residents and residents of the new residence hall only
• Plan D – $500 + tax (per semester)
  • This meal plan is available for commuter students only

Five OLLU faculty members have been named as recipients of the “At Home—In the World Course Internationalization Grants Program.” As part of the of the program, the faculty members will be redesigning their courses to more intentionally include international course content and global learning outcomes in their course lectures, assignments and assessments. The grant recipients are:

• Loranel Graham, PhD, professor of psychology – Dr. Graham will be internationalizing the Health Psychology course. The course will incorporate global health concepts such as: determinants of health, measurement of health status, the importance of culture to health, the global burden of disease, risk factors for health conditions and health disparities in both developed and developing countries.
• marcela polanco, PhD, assistant professor of psychology – Dr. polanco will be internationalizing the Psychosocial Support in the Borderlands course. This course will introduce students to alternative perspectives to the conceptualization and practice of Eurocentric models of behavioral health services. Such alternative perspectives will be presented by Latin American grassroots developments and non-Western perspectives.
• Casey Taliancich-Klinger, PhD, assistant professor of communication disorders and Patricia Kimes, MEd, assistant clinical professor of communication disorders – Dr. Taliancich-Klinger and Professor Kimes will be internationalizing the Clinical Methods Practicum and Policies course. Through this course, they will be offering graduate students the opportunity to travel to a Spanish-speaking country to provide evaluation and therapy services to pediatric populations with communication disorders. This would give more students hands-on experience in serving CLD populations and developing clinical skills within another culture.
• Deborah Vasquez, MFA, assistant professor of art – Professor Vasquez will be internationalizing the Barrio Art and Popular Culture course. This course will include a faculty-led study abroad component to Cuba. In spring 2018, Professor Vasquez will take her students to Cuba to focus on barrio art and popular culture in various areas with large enclaves of people creating barrio art. Her research into the Afro-Cuban experience will help broaden students’ comparative understandings of the African diaspora in Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and Latin America.

The At Home—In the World Grants Program is funded by the Higher Education for a New America (HENA) initiative at OLLU, made possible by a generous grant from the Impetus Foundation. The courses administered through this grant will further the mission of the Impetus Foundation and HENA to enhance the academic success and intercultural competence of OLLU students.

In fall 2016, Sister Ann Petrus, CDP Superior General, began conversations with the OLLU Board of Trustees to discuss the transfer of responsibility of Sacred Heart Chapel and Chapel Auditorium to the university. In recent years, the Sisters’ daily use of these facilities has decreased while university use has increased.

This transfer of responsibility has now been approved and will be official this summer. “This is a wonderful option for the Congregation,” said Sister Petrus. “The Sisters will still have the use of the building, which occupies a very significant place in their history as a community and personally. At the same time, the Chapel does not become a museum, but actively serves the Church.”

To read more about the transfer and the estate sale planned by the Sisters, click here to see the story that ran in the Sunday, May 7, Faith section of the San Antonio Express-News.