Planning the Next 50 Years

Laredo Morning Times | lmtonline.com | Sunday, August 23, 2020 | E7 50th Anniversary For more information on TAMIU’s 50th anniversary, follow TXAMIU on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Spotify, use the hashtag #TAMIU50 and visit the school’s website at 50.tamiu.edu . Alumni and students With another 50 years on the ho- rizon, TAMIU staff and leaders can- not change the university by them- selves. The goal of improving the community can only start and end with everyone in the community giving input and coming together to advance the university. As Arenaz regularly meets with student govern- ment to cooperate in the planning, he said that their input was added to the Academic Innovation Center. With that in mind, students, staff and alumni have also stated what they believe the university can add and where it can improve. The ad- ditions may take months of plan- ning or years of implementing, but the university has the next 50 years to improve and become a university worthy of a major 100-year anniver- sary. Rebekah Maria Rodriguez said she hopes to see an expansion of stu- dent services such as health services and student counseling, as those ser- vices helped her throughout most of her college years. She believes they are important services, but due to the lim- ited number of counselors and a grow- ing population of students, an expansion would benefit the students in a greater ca- pacity. Mindy Lee would like to see the com- m u n i c a t i o n coursework be added into the core curricu- lum as opposed to having just English coursework. “It is so im- portant for stu- dents to learn basic commu- nication skills and strate- gies,” Lee said. “Many students are completing their degrees without learning skills vital to being a com- petent communicator.” Ryan Duncan-Ayala said he would like to see a larger focus in the arts and hopes to see an improve- ment and expansion on the current theater program. On the flip side, Miguel Inclan hopes to see more un- dergraduate and graduate programs involving local government like city planning, sustainability and water/ environmental policy, homeland se- curity and emergency management, and more. As an example of life’s unpredict- ability, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 changed the way the people of Laredo will remember the year. De- spite the uncertainty and fear, people persevere for the hopes of a better future. Fifty years ago, TAMIU stu- dents and staff could probably not imagine what the university would be like today. As a cornerstone of the Laredo community, it has evolved from a simple university to a beacon of a grander future for students of all generations. With the support of an experi- enced staff, cooperation between them and their students and with strong leadership, TAMIU is striv- ing to continue molding incoming students into nurses, doctors, teach- ers, scientists, artists, dancers, musi- cians, engineers and so much more. In 50 years, who knows what the university will evolve into, but it is already working on it. Photo Courtesy of TAMIU A TAMIU graduation ceremony held at the TAMIU Kinesiology and Convocation Building.