TAMIU Annual Report 2019

2019 Annual Report / AWORLDOF DIFFERENCE Dr. Norma E. Cantú, ’73… Leader, Researcher, Teacher andWriter. What University course would you take all over again today? I lovedmy Shakespeare courses atwhatwas then-Texas A&I at Laredo… also Children’s Literature. Who was your favorite professor and why? Dr. Allen Briggs because he was a mentor unlike any other who saw potential in me and made me feel smart. But there were others who also inspired me like Dr. Hal Kanter. When did you know that your hard work had paid off and your degree hadmade a “World of Difference” for you? As soon as I graduated I knewmy hard work and sacrifice—I worked full time except for the last semester—had paid off. It made a world of difference as without it I couldn’t have gone on to get my MA and eventually my PhD. What would your advice be to today’s students as they make their way through their University experience? Stay focused on your dream and don’t give up! Work hard—read widely and travel. What’s your proudest accomplishment to date? Perhaps I ammost proud of my students who have gone on and achievedgreat things. As awriter,my booksmakeme proud, but they are secondary to the “work” of teaching. Tell us what you’re doing today career or life-wise and what you look forward to each day: I amawriter andan endowedprofessor at TrinityUniversity where I teachChicanx and Latinx Studies. I travel all over the world giving talks and reading from mywork.What I look forward to eachday is meetingmy students and engaging with the world, making a difference. I work hard, but because I love it I don’t consider it work; it’s life. And it’s a wonderful life full of surprises and rewards from an email from a former student to a poemthat appears almost bymagic on the pages of my daily journal. A former LSU and TAMIU faculty member, Dr. Cantú’s latest novel is Cabañuelas (University of New Mexico Press). Her previous novel was Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera, first published by the University of New Mexico Press in 1995 and updated in 2015. She has earned the Américo Paredes Prize from the American Folklore Society, the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies Scholar Award and induction into the Texas Institute of Letters.