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Faculty Award Winners, Retirees Honored On Friday, April 29, downtown El Paso’s historic Camino Real Hotel was the setting for EPCC administrators, faculty, family, and friends to recognize the winners of several awards given to honor excellence in teaching. Following a social hour and dinner buffet, Celeste Favela, Faculty Development Coordinator and mistress of ceremonies, introduced Dr. William Serrata, president of EPCC and Mr. Steven Smith, Vice President of Instruction & Workforce Education, who presented the awards.
Minnie StevenS PiPer ProfeSSor, faculty achieveMent, & niSoD awarD winnerS
Left to right below are Dr. Serrata, NISOD and Faculty Achievement Award winners Christian Servin (Computer Science VV) and Virginia Madrid (Nursing RG); Piper Professor Jose Pacheco-Lucero (Biology NW) and Mr. Steven Smith. Pictured on page 2 is Michelle Conklin.
faculty newSletter May 2016
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aDjunct faculty achieveMent awarD
Robert Moreno Angela Morgan-Thorton Katharine Whipple Chemistry NW Music VV Nursing RG
retireeS Eleanor Barber Leon Blevins Jesus DeLeon Margarita Gonzalez Maureen Henry Steve Kahoe Mary Lyons Stephanie Martinez Claude Mathis Joe Old Bobby Ortega Frank Ortiz Ruth Peña Peter Phung Stella Steagall Julieana Toth Margie Trimble Judy Valdez Alberto Villegas Patricia Winstead
Congratulations, all!
Pictured at left is NISOD and Faculty Achievement Award Winner Michelle Conklin (Education NW).
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Faculty in the news……………………………….. Besides being a Mass Communication instructor for EPCC at Valle Verde, Alexandra Hinojosa, a.k.a. Alex Hinojosa, is also a freelance journalist for the online El Paso Herald-Post (elpasoheraldpost.com), recently reporting on Pope Francis’ visit to Juárez, with a total of four stories to her credit. She also took videos of different aspects of the event. Alex also reported on Chelsea Clinton’s visit to El Dorado High School. To read her stories, access www.elpasoheraldpost.com and under “News,” click on Pope Francis’ Journey to Paso Del Norte. Scroll down for the videos when you follow the link. Alex has had her hand in journalism since high school, then editing UTEP’s student newspaper The Prospector and taking various positions in Los Angeles while working on her Master’s degree. In 2010, she began writing for the El Paso Times and began teaching at EPCC. Besides teaching, she also serves as the EPCC Pulse Radio Advisor. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Minerva Laveaga (English VV) has co-founded the literary press Veliz Books in collaboration with poet Laura Cesarco Eglin and EPCC instructor Trevor T. Duarte. This is an independent literary press based in El Paso dedicated to discovering, publishing, and promoting work from emerging and established authors. Laveaga says, “We are invested in fostering a community of readers and writers passionate about words and language, regardless of where they live. We offer a vehicle where contemporary literature can travel.” To date the press has published The Dead Will Rise and Save Us (Collection of short stories, 2015) by Paul Pedroza; Travelers Aid Society by Jeff Sirkin (Poetry, 2016); and Touching the Light of Day: Six Uruguayan Poets translated from the Spanish by Laura Chalar (Translation, 2016). For more about the press, submission guidelines, etc., contact www.velizbooks.com or [email protected] On April 21, Armin Harrison (Music VV) was invited to rehearse and conduct, in concert, a group of about 65 of the Ysleta Independent School District’s finest guitar students. The concert featured a performance of guitar ensemble pieces by Jean Mouret, Andrew Forrest, Joey Hirsh, Alan Hirsh, and traditional Gaelic and Tin Whistle tunes arranged by Alan Hirsh. This special honor has in years past been conferred on notable guitar ensemble directors from around the country. During the concert, Harrison was awarded a plaque in recognition of his contributions to the YISD Honor Guitar program.
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__________________________________________________ Manuela A. Gomez (Philosophy VV) has become a part of an interdisciplinary community of educators who practice and teach “Mindful Meditation” in the community. They presented the 4th annual symposium at UTEP on April 25 entitled “Creating the Space, Culture, and Anchors for Interdisciplinary Research and Education (IDRE)” at the Blumberg Auditorium. The group seeks to learn how to incorporate mindfulness in our various classrooms that can be helpful not only to our students but all members of an educational setting, including faculty, staff, administration, and others. The only representative from EPCC in the local group, Gomez joins educators from colleges such as Georgetown University, Rice University, and Brown University in the U.S. and the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in the U.K. which have established Mindfulness programs, including degrees, centers, and courses. Established research shows that mindfulness improves cognitive functions such as working memory and concentration, as well as improving emotional intelligence and general well being by reducing psychological distress and anxiety. The group seeks to foster inter-campus collaboration among EPCC, UTEP, and UACJ. Gomez is pictured below on the right wearing glasses.
“Associations,” a solo exhibition by Isadora Stowe (Art Northwest), utilizing traditional painting with the incorporation of drawn wall installation with sound and video, opened April 22 and runs through June 6 at the Juarez Contemporary. The exhibition reflects Stowe’s interest in visual narratives, created out of symbolic code, or personal syntax, that explore memory as it relates to the construction, negotiation, and interpretation of the sense of self. Symbolic codes are repeated in juxtapositions that reinterpret and transcend their meanings. The narrative codes are painted directly on the gallery walls, along with the placed clusters of paintings, from two inches to three feet in diameter, with video projections of the symbolic drawings and accompanying sound. Growing up on the New Mexico-Texas-Mexico border, Stowe credits those experiences with a heightened awareness of geographical and political boundaries.
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On April 18, students, faculty and members of the community attended the Reflections Art Gallery/ Creative Writing showing and ribbon cutting ceremony at the Jenna Welch and Laura Bush Community Library at the Northwest Campus. The Reflections Project, a service learning and honors project, developed and implemented by faculty Lorely Ambriz, Michael Duncan, and Dr. Barbara Yancy-Tooks, involved students from 1301 and 1302 English courses creating narratives about the lives of residents with Alzheimer’s and Dementia at Sun Ridge Senior Living Communities. Students visited these senior living communities and conducted interviews which were then developed into creative narratives about important moments in the lives of residents. The event showcased poster boards created by the students. Live music and food were provided to community and campus guests during which students Cassandra Duenas, Clyde Tims, Johanna Vasquez, Paulina Duran and Jorge Dominguez gave moving speeches about their experiences conducting interviews with the residents. *************************************************************************
Christian Servin (Computer Science VV) attended the 47th Association for Computing Machinery’s Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education in Memphis, Tennessee, this spring. He was part of the Committee of Computing Education in Community Colleges, which joins experts from both academe and industry to define the core IT learning outcomes and the accompanying assessment rubrics which should be common to all associate-degree Computer Science and IT programs. Servin also participated in the 13th International Sun Conference on Teaching and Learning at UTEP where he presented a novel teaching technique in computer science which he developed at EPCC. The Computer Science and Information Technology Club, with Servin as advisor, showcased the work developed by EPCC students in the computer science program to more than 5,000 students from many schools in El Paso at the STEM Fiesta. This year, students demonstrated applications with the Oculus rift and the 3D printer machine programs.
Dr. Christian Servin
Mary L Mooney (Sign Language Interpreter Preparation Program VV) authored an entry in the SAGE Deaf Studies Encyclopedia entitled “National Multicultural Interpreter Project,” a summary of the EPCC grant project. Glenn B. Anderson contributed to the article.
Seventy-five EPCC students and faculty received an intellectual “shot” on April 13 in the Jenna Welch & Laura Bush Community Library at the Northwest Campus. The Glass Menagerie, a student-driven academic society and club dedicated to promoting learning across a variety of disciplines, sponsored a literary symposium on the book Nemesis by acclaimed author Philip Roth. The novel describes the main character’s crisis of faith and identity as he deals with the events surrounding a 1944 summer wartime polio epidemic in Newark. Presenters Michael Duncan, English instructor, Crisol Escobedo, philosophy instructor, and Paul Hotchkin, biology instructor, addressed the novel’s central issues from a multidisciplinary approach.
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With the sponsorship of the Arts Student Society and support of Sarelah Aguilar (Art VV), four EPCC art instructors gave talks about their work on March 22 during an event called “Artist on the Inside,” which took place at the cafeteria annex at the Valle Verde Campus. Jackie Mitchell showed her abstract expressionist paintings. The energy of the work explores the realm of minimal poetic symbols to express her life events. They are like a painted diary in a haiku format. Isadora Stowe’s work wove a thread to connect the familiar and personal, negotiating her deeply personal life experience in a complex code of elements from our everyday world. Christian Gerstheimer’s “Neo dada, street, site specific art” tethered itself to the viewer’s negotiations of his constructed art objects in an out-of-the ordinary experience. These works are political and subtly pull a response from the viewer, making them question prevailing social structures. Frank Rimbach, who organized the event, talked about the way in which his family and the sentient world allow him to express his thoughts and feelings, both in abstract and figurative terms.
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Read more about Pathways on the next page!
The El Paso County Community College district does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, gender, age, disability,
veteran status, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
Will computers ever gain consciousness? The answer to this question was discussed at “Unraveling Consciousness: The Rise of Artificial Intelligence,” a special topics symposium held in April on the Northwest Campus. Students and faculty gathered to learn about the nature of consciousness and contemplate the possibility of sci-fi movie scenarios involving A.I. ever becoming a reality. Presenter Crisol Escobedo (Philosophy NW) lectured on Alan Turing’s Imitation Game and why, despite the modern technological and computing advances, the complex components in consciousness have hindered its computability. Student presenter Juan Isasi lectured on the mind-body problem and why it is necessary to define mental states as functions, while student presenter Gerardo Muela lectured on the use of fuzzy logic in the development of smart technology. Cristian Servin (Computer Science VV) lectured on the problems with computing consciousness as addressed by David Chalmers, the OOP Paradigm, and the programming of simulated reality. The event was sponsored by The Glass Menagerie, a student driven academic society and club dedicated to promoting learning across a variety of disciplines.
Faculty Development Week 2016 is August 15-19.
Faculty Development Office Valle Verde Campus, Room A 2419
Phone: 915-831-2201 Email Ana Resendez: [email protected] Spring Newsletter Editor: Ruth E. Vise
915-831-8841 [email protected]
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