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A Message From Our Chair
Dear Fellow Longhorns,
Ah, the feeling of autumn is finally in the air, and we're collectively anticipating glorious colors of the fall foliage: reds, golden leaves, burnt orange. Coincidence that our beloved alma mater's color is one of the most beautiful hues in the fall? I think not. Mother Nature is definitely a Longhorn.
Hope you enjoy this edition of our newsletter and see that your HAN is achieving much, staying busy, and continuing to build relationships and alliances. Speaking of which, HAN recently collaborated with the Perry- Castaneda Library honoring the Perry and Castaneda families celebrating the 40th anniversary of our trustworthy building of books, the PCL. Click on the link below and read more about this scholar we named the PCL after.
Last month at the Texas Exes Chapter and Network Leadership Conference, I had the delight and pleasure of meeting a young law student, Roel Torres; his profile is a great testament to family ties and high expectations. Roel is a first generation law student, and his twin brother is applying to medical school. Two boys in the family, one a lawyer and the other a doctor? I knew we had to profile this young man and am sure you'll enjoy reading his compelling journey.
We successfully held our annual Leadership Retreat last month and measured our successes and areas for improvement. Two specific areas we have been trying to develop are Major Fundraising and Community Projects/Outreach. Building on our commitment to raising additional scholarship dollars and engaging more alumni, I am thrilled to introduce two new officers, Julie Baez Prebula, our new Fundraising Chair and Roxanne Saldana Jones, our new Community Projects Chair. More will be written in the next few months on their strategies, and we're excited to see what future plans they have for HAN.
We're proud to be highlighting literary works from some of our distinguished alumni authors: Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Liza Treviño, and Olga Campos Benz.
On behalf of our network, a letter was sent to President Fenves recommending the national search for the Vice-President of University of Texas' Division of Diversity and Community Engagement (DDCE) consider a qualified, credentialed Latino candidate for this significant role. Click here to read the letter.
Finally, and certainly not lastly, I hope to see many of you at our upcoming annual FIESTA fundraiser on Friday, Oct. 20th. Registration link is below. Come on over, bring a few friends, and have a great dinner while playing Loteria. We'd love to see you there!
HAN's mission is to connect Hispanic alumni, the Texas Exes, and the Hispanic community on campus. If you have any ideas on what we can do to better connect with one another, feel free to contact me at [email protected].
I'm grateful to be serving your Hispanic Alumni Network as Chair, and my continued commitment to you is to exemplify value, respect, and excellence in our actions and best practices in the years to come. See you at one of the games or tailgates!
Hook 'em, Horns!! Casilda (Casi) Clarich, HAN Chair
Chair, Texas Exes Hispanic Alumni Network
ALUMNI CELEBRATIONS
Alumni Authors Debut New Novels
Stephanie Elizondo Griest
BJ '97, Phi Beta Kappa, Magazine Journalism & Post-Soviet Studies
All the Agents & Saints
It explores the ramifications of having an international borderline split your ancestral land in two, as experienced by Tejanos down south and Akwesasne Mohawks up north.
Stephanie will be a featured author in the 2017 Texas Book Festival.
Liza Treviño, Ph.D.
BS '93, MA '95, Radio-Television-Film
All That Glitters: A Tale of Sex, Drugs and Hollywood Dreams
Winner of the Mariposa Award for Best First Fiction from the 2017 International Latino Books Awards, and named the July 2017 Las Comadres and Friends National Latino Nook Club Selection
"In this book, I wanted to explore Hollywood glamour - both its magic and its darkness. And, I wanted to create a Latina heroine that was a blend of Jackie Collins' famous Lucky Santangelo character and the tragic Maria from Joan Didion's classic, Play It As It Lays. Alexandria Moreno is a character with ambition and confidence to spare, but who also exhibits nearly clinical depression. How does a woman like this come to be? And how does she cope with the internal and external pressures she encounters in a place like Hollywood?"
Olga Campos Benz
BS '77, Radio-Television-Film
It's News to Me
The book is best classified as contemporary fiction. The main character is a fierce Latina anchor/reporter engaged in suspense, humor, and a little romance - all set against the backdrop of an Austin television news station.
Olga will be a featured author in the 2017 Texas Book Festival.
STUDENT PROFILE
Roel Torres
University of Texas School of Law
Roel Torres, a first year student at the University Of Texas School Of Law, is a first generation college graduate. Born in the Detroit, Michigan area, Roel and his family, including his twin brother, moved to Texas and they have made it their home since.
In his own words...
My parents are both from a small town called General Treviño in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. As a boy, my father would travel throughout the Mid-West and California with his family, going from farm to farm to look for work. He would later continue to go back and forth from the Mid-West and Mexico as a young man working as a day laborer during the warm seasons. My mother, on the other hand, stayed in General Treviño and worked as a teacher for the local school. After having two daughters, my parents decided to move to Detroit, Michigan where my father had succeeded in finding permanent work as a construction worker.
In 1993, my mother gave birth to a set of twins, which were my brother and I. My father was ecstatic since he wanted a son to become a baseball player, and now he had potentially two baseball players for sons. Unfortunately, neither of us were too good at the sport, but we did grow up playing a lot of little league baseball. When we were not playing baseball, my mother would use the skills she learned as a teacher to encourage my brother and I to focus on school and try to strive for something more than just graduating from high school and entering the workforce.
In high school, I didn't know what it was to be a first generation student or the difficulties we face. My parents did not attend college, and my older sisters went to community colleges and ended up finding work before graduating. I had no idea how important the ACT was or when or how to apply to college. I was just told that I would do the same as my sisters and go to a community college.
After graduating from high school in 2011 we moved to Houston, TX where my oldest sister had recently given birth to her own set of twins and needed help to care for them. That same year my brother and I both enrolled into the local community college and we had to find something we were interested in. I ended up taking some paralegal courses since I had an interest in the legal field when the drug war in Mexico had begun to intensify. Every year we used to travel to General Treviño, but we had to stop since the violence had begun to affect my parent's hometown. I felt like I needed to do something about it. My brother found an interest in nursing after taking biology courses.
After about a year and a half at the community college and interning as a paralegal at a law firm, I realized that what I wanted to do in life could not be achieved being a paralegal; I had to become a lawyer. This brought another set of problems for a first generation student. How was I to become a lawyer? No one in my family or anyone I knew was a lawyer or a college graduate. I had no idea where to begin. After doing some research and talking to my paralegal professor, I realized that the first step I needed to do was transfer to a university to get a Bachelor's degree.
Luckily, I found a great school counselor who explained the transfer process, and soon after I was accepted to the University of Houston (UH). During orientation I met my advisor who told me that if I was interested in law school I needed to have a high GPA. So, that became my objective during my time at UH. When it came time to choose a major I decided to go with history. In high school I took AP History, and it was favorite course, so I thought I would enjoy college history classes and I also thought the reading and writing for the degree may help with law school. It turns out the courses I took for my degree did more than that - they expanded my understanding of the world. I learned about the history of foreign lands, and how the decisions we make in U.S. can affect the world in a variety of ways, and they made me appreciate diversity.
After my first semester at UH, my brother wanted to transfer, too. He wanted to become a doctor, and since I had recently gone through the transfer experience the year before, I was able to help my brother go through the process smoothly and answer his questions.
After graduating from UH in May 2015, I began my applications for law school. I had the GPA needed for law school, but now I needed to take the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) and it was unlike anything I've had ever faced. Again, I had no one to turn to for advice, so I essentially had to try to learn the test on my own. The law school admissions process was even more confusing, since I didn't go through the typical college admissions process 4 years before.
While I studied for the LSAT and applied to law schools I worked at Best Buy. It was at Best Buy where I met other First Generation students and became good friends with a DACA recipient. I tried to encourage all of my first generation coworkers to start school, or continue their studies. I became living proof for them that success is possible for a first generation student, when I got accepted to The University of Texas School of Law.
At Texas Law, I plan on doing pro bono work for immigration rights and DACA recipients. I also plan to be involved in student organizations, such as the Chicano Hispanic Law Student Association (CHLSA), and help under-graduate students apply to graduate school.
FIESTA!
2017 Hispanic Alumni Network Fiesta
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20
6:30 - 9:30 p.m.
Doors open at 5:30 p.m.
ETTER-HARBIN ALUMNI CENTER
2110 San Jacinto Blvd, Austin, TX 78712
Come celebrate our 16th year of our signature annual fundraiser, FIESTA!. This year, with our "Sweet Sixteen" theme, there will plenty to celebrate! Dinner, silent auction, Longhorn Band, UT's Mariachi Grupo, and a traditional favorite, LOTERIA! DJ music played for the after party, so remember to bring family and friends, but hurry and register now as we sell out every year and early bird prices end Oct. 9th! PCL'S 40TH ANNIVERSARY
Perry Castaneda Library (PCL) Celebrates its 40th Anniversary
HAN joined the University of Texas Libraries by honoring both the Perry and Castaneda families of the Perry Castaneda Library (PCL) as it celebrated its 40th year the weekend of Sept. 7th-9th. Beginning with a welcome reception for the Perry and Castaneda extended families on Thursday, September 7th, the anniversary celebrations included exhibitions, a panel discussion about the contributions of Perry and Castaneda, a timeline of the Libraries history, a distinguished leader dinner at the UT Club on Friday, Sept. 8th, and the weekend culminated with a tailgate on Saturday, September 9th with a UT's Mariachi performance and a half-time spotlight during the Texas and San Jose State Game (W, 56-0).
Dr. Carlos Castaneda was an esteemed Latin American scholar and one of the driving forces behind the development of the University's Latin American Collections.
Click here to read more about the PCL. STUDENT OUTREACH
Connect with UT students
Interested in connecting with current UT students as a mentor or to provide encouragement as students navigate college life? Maybe you want future longhorns to know you're able to answer questions as they consider where to apply for college. If your passion is working with students and helping bridge that transition into college, then your help is needed with our committee. Please sign up today. For questions, please email Leticia Acosta at [email protected].
UT HISTORY
History on UT's Integration Graduate Study
Marisol Sanchez, a graduate student in the College of Education in Educational Policy & Planning, will conduct research on the history of UT's integration. For this particular project, she requires images that can go along with the content. There's information on UT's integration with regard to African Americans. However, she is also interested in what this looked like for Mexican Americans and Latinos. She is looking for historical information on Mexican Americans and their struggle to attend the university.
And finally, she is also interested in adding information on East Austin youth and the effects of integration efforts with them being across the highway from the 40 acres.
If you are interested in participating in this study or know of others in the community that can lead her to archives, libraries (outside of the University) you may contact Ms. Sanchez at [email protected].
HAN SCHOLARSHIPS
Texas Exes Hispanic Alumni Challenge Grant Scholarship
As a member of the Texas Exes Hispanic Alumni Network, you know the powerful impact your financial support can provide to our students. Please consider a donation or contribution to the Texas Exes Hispanic Alumni Network and/or to our Scholarship Endowment, the Texas Exes Hispanic Alumni Challenge Grant Scholarship. Our scholarship is designed to award deserving Hispanic student who are incoming freshmen at the University of Texas at Austin and demonstrate academic excellence and financial need. Recipients are eligible to receive the scholarship for four years of undergraduate work while maintaining a minimum grade point average.
Click here to donate!
NEWSLETTER SUBMISSIONS
Submit yourself for a HAN Profile
We want to feature you in our next newsletter! Did you get promoted, receive an award/recognition, retire, get engaged, married, have a baby, randomly met a fellow HAN member? We want to hear your stories and share your pictures! The Alumni Outreach Committee is always looking for amazing Hispanic alumni to feature in future newsletters or articles of interest to our members. For submissions please contact Cynthia Ramos, Alumni Outreach Chair at [email protected].
VOLUNTEER CALL-OUT
Help out the HAN!
See the list below of Committees and their respective Chairs. If you're interested in volunteering, contact the Chair directly. We're always looking for new, innovative ideas and welcome your time and commitment. We hope you do get involved!
• Alumni Outreach - Cynthia Ramos ([email protected])
• Fiesta Committee - Ara Wisnoski ([email protected])
• Major Fundraising - Julie Baez Prebula ([email protected])
• Membership - Amalia Rodriguez-Mendoza ([email protected])
• Scholarships - Mark Trevino ([email protected])
• Service Project Outreach - Roxanne Saldana Jones ([email protected])
• Student Outreach - Leticia Acosta ([email protected])
FOLLOW US
If you wish to get involved with the network, please contact Casilda (Casi) Clarich, HAN Chair, at [email protected].
Leave Your Mark on the Forty Acres! A personalized tile, prominently displayed on the Alumni Center’s plaza, symbolizes a steadfast commitment to The University of Texas. Personalize your tile here! See them here!
THE ALCALDE
Inside UT's New 430,00-Square Foot Engineering Education and Research Center
“This space is all about reinforcing the relationship between the building and the community and engineering,” explains project designer Alex O’Briant, associate partner of Ennead Architects. Read here.
FAN MAIL
Longhorns on Camelback
Alyssa O’Reilly Constant, BBA, MPA ’01, and Stephanie Hill Rogers, BS ’00, Life Members, are freshman-year roommates who celebrated 20 years of friendship together by hiking Camelback Mountain in Scottsdale, Arizona. See more here!
Email your fan photos to us at [email protected], and check out Fan Photo Fridays on our Facebook page.
2110 SAN JACINTO BLVD. AUSTIN, TX 78712
TEXASEXES.ORG
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