Contact:
HSI Institutional Transformation Partnership
About the Project
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) launched its strategic plan in 2016, a year after it was created as a bilingual, bicultural, biliterate university. Its name reflects the geographical area of its location in the Rio Grande Valley. It also symbolizes that it aims to “serve” the surrounding community. Part of the history of the Rio Grande Valley (1850s – late 1900s) is one that marginalized its residents, predominantly of Mexican or Mexican American descent, from social mobility due to the institutionalization of deficit thinking systems and policies, especially in education. One major factor that caused the marginalization of families from the community was the limited funding available for infrastructure and programming for higher education.
In 2015, the creation of the new university, UTRGV, the second largest Hispanic-Serving Institution in the United States, allowed for a substantial increase in available state and federal funds. Since then, UTRGV has accomplished many milestones in enrollment, research, programming, investment, and partnerships, but it needs additional intellectual and financial resources and internal transformation to reach its goal to be the “leading, premier” HSI that contributes to a highly skilled and diverse workforce in STEM fields.
In 2021, the National Science Foundation awarded UTRGV researchers a five-year, 3-million-dollar grant to enhance undergraduate STEM education at the largest HSI in the state of Texas.