TAMUK Offers Free Lunch to Students through June 30

Press Release 

Texas A&M University-Kingsville and their food service provider, Aramark, will continue to provide a free lunch to students beginning during intersession Saturday, May 16, through Thursday, May 28, and continuing through Tuesday, June 30. The meals are provided on a to-go basis only at the Javelina Dining Hall in order to ensure social distancing.

Free lunch will be provided from 11 a.m. to 1 p,m. Monday through Sunday at the dining hall. Students must show a valid A&M-Kingsville identification card. Meals must be to-go only and all social distancing guidelines will be followed.

Students from the Irma Rangel College of Pharmacy also are welcome to use their ID cards to get a free lunch.

The free lunch will be served daily except Saturday, May 23, through Monday, May 25, when the dining hall and the university are closed in observance of Memorial Day.

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TAMUK Guidelines for Recreation Center and Wellness Department

Press Release

The Student Health and Wellness Department (at Texas A&M University-Kingsville) remained open throughout the Spring semester and will remain open throughout the summer from Monday-Friday 8:00 a.m. – 5 p.m. and welcomes all phone calls / emails inquiring about services for the summer and upcoming all semester. Student Health and Wellness will only provide health care and Tele-Mental Health counseling services throughout the summer for students enrolled in summer courses.

The Student Recreation Center is tentatively scheduled to re-open June 1 with specific social distancing and sanitation procedures in place. Facility members must reserve their time (not to exceed 1.25 hours) in the Rec Center online and can do so beginning May 15.

For more information about the reopening, visit

https://recsports.tamuk.edu/

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TAMUK Business students extend tax prep deadline.

Press Release

Students from the College of Business Administration at Texas A&M University-Kingsville have extended their income tax preparation through Friday, July 15, the new due date for federal income taxes.

They offer free income tax preparation through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. VITA provides free basic income tax preparation for taxpayers with incomes below $56,000.

Because of the social distancing restriction, income tax prep is all strictly drop off at both locations. The days and times remain the same with a 48-hour turnaround on all returns.

This year volunteers will be at two different locations. Monday and Tuesday, taxpayers may visit room 107 of the College of Business Administration building from 4 to 8 p.m. Free parking is available in the lot north of the building.

The second location is at the Texas Community Federal Credit Union, 605 E. Caesar Ave. in Kingsville. Volunteers will be at the credit union from 1 to 8 p.m. Thursdays and from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays.

Citizens should bring their tax information, photo identification and Social Security card.

For more information, call 361-593-3787.

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Texas A&M-Kingsville students are top flag football officials

Press Release

Two Texas A&M University-Kingsville recreational sports student officials represented the university at the National Intramural and Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA) Championship Series. The invitation from the NIRSA, put Jaime Villarreal and Ruben Mendiola among the top 46 flag football student officials in the nation.  

Villarreal, a senior, and Mendiola, a fall graduate, each officiated several games at the series including a semi-final co-rec game, according to Ian Brown, director of recreational sports at Texas A&M-Kingsville. “Their clean, crisp mechanics, rule knowledge and penalty enforcement continued to impress the evaluators at the tournament,” Brown said. 

Both Villarreal and Mendiola worked as officials for rec sports for several years working multiple sports including flag football, basketball and soccer. They applied and were selected to work on-campus intramurals, but the off-campus tournaments are more competitive, Brown said.  

“They applied to each tournament’s officials committee and they were selected by those committees,” he said. “In the case of nationals, they had to receive a bid from a regional flag football tournament. 

“This means they were one of the top three or four officials at one of the regional tournaments and that regional committee recognized their talent and sponsored their application to the national tournament. This is truly a top honor in extramural sports,” Brown added. 

“The combined effort of student officials and players from Texas A&M-Kingsville continue to put this institution on the map as a great place to develop individuals and have fun along the way,” Brown said. 

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TAMUK'S Special education master's named one of Most Affordable

Press Release

Texas A&M University Kingsville

The special education master’s online degree program at Texas A&M University-Kingsville joins the ranks of the nation’s best as it was ranked 24th by Online U in their Most Affordable category. The program, part of the teacher and bilingual education department in the College of Education and Human Performance, joins two other online programs at Texas A&M-Kingsville as Most Affordable.  

Coming as the number two most affordable online program in the nation is the industrial engineering master’s degree in the Frank H. Dotterweich College of Engineering. The online sports management program, in the kinesiology department, also in the College of Education and Human Performance, comes in at 11th in the nation as most affordable by Online U. 

To be considered for these subject rankings, schools need to be regionally accredited and need to offer at least one fully online degree in the subject for the degree level of the list. 

Schools with programs that require some on-campus coursework were still considered for the rankings if the amount of in-person work required was limited to two weeks or less. This allows students to retain their current employment or other personal responsibilities. 

To help people make this decision, Optimal (formerly SR Education Group), published their 

2020 Best Value Colleges

 rankings on Guide to Online Schools for 121 programs. The rankings are based on degree-level and program-specific tuition rates and 

PayScale

 salary data. 

The methodology for the rankings incorporates a return on investment formula to show accredited programs with the best value.  

Since the cost and return of a college can significantly vary by the degree, tuition rates and salary numbers are specific to degree-level and major. All tuition rates were manually researched on official school websites in order to ensure accuracy. Salary figures were reported by PayScale and reflect earnings of students 10 or more years after graduation. In order to select the best options for value in each major, Optimal researched over 78,000 online programs 

About Optimal™

Optimal helps prospective students make informed, data-driven decisions to improve their collegiate experience and their post-college careers. The company provides over 85,000 in-depth student reviews and college rankings for every major based on alumni salaries and manually researched tuitions. Optimal’s tools and services provide accessible and transparent financial data regarding cost and earning potential that give students educational paths that lead them to success, without burdening them with insurmountable debt. 

http://www.optimal.com

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TEXAS A&M-KINGSVILLE - Health and Kinesiology Department

KINGSVILLE (Feb. 25, 2020) — Representatives from the health and kinesiology department at Texas A&M University-Kingsville attended the annual meeting of the Texas Regional Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine (Texas ACSM) and brought home their share of awards.

Alyssa Fick

Alyssa Fick, a senior exercise science/pre-physical therapy student from Corpus Christi, won the Undergraduate Scholar Award as the top undergraduate exercise science student in Texas. Fick also is the Exercise Science Major of the Year for the department of health and kinesiology and the American Kinesiology Association Undergraduate Scholar. She will be entering the Doctor of Physical Therapy program at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston in fall 2020.

This is the sixth time a Texas A&M-Kingsville student has won this prestigious award since 2010. Dyana Bullinger won in 2010; Ricky Balderas in 2011; Samantha Cantu in 2015; Joel Perez in 2016; and Meagan Cantu in 2017.

No other university in Texas has had their students receive this award more times than Texas A&M-Kingville.

Fick was not the only winner at the Texas ACSM meeting. The Texas A&M-Kingsville Student Bowl team placed third for the second year in a row. And for the second year in row, the team of Javelinas finished higher than any other team from the Texas A&M University System.

Members of the team are Isabel Soto; Kadi Shipman; Alyssa Fick, captain; Blessing Tamez, alternate; and Jessica Hinojosa, alternate.

The Texas ACSM Student Bowl is an annual event where teams of undergraduates from universities all over the state compete in an academic quiz bowl devoted to exercise science and sports medicine topics.

A&M-Kingsville students were not the only ones coming home with honors. Dr. Robert Kowalsky, assistant professor and pre-physical therapy program coordinator, was elected to the Board of Directors of the organization by the membership. He will serve a three-year term as a non-medical representative.

About Texas Regional Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine (Texas ACSM)
Texas ACSM is one of 12 regional chapters of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). ACSM is the largest exercise science and sports medicine professional society in the world with over 50,000 members. Its members are dedicated to advancing and integrating scientific research to provide educational and practical applications of the exercise sciences and sports medicine.                                                

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MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER SERGIO TINOCO TO VISIT AREA GEARUP STUDENTS AT H.M. KING HIGH SCHOOL

Texas A&M University-Kingsville's Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) students will listen to Sergio Tinoco, author of Proud American: The Migrant, Soldier and Agent. He will speak about his struggles as a young migrant worker and how he strives get an education. The GEAR UP program is designed to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in post secondary education. 

GEAR UP provides six-year grants to states and partnerships to provide services at high poverty middle and high schools. Currently, GEAR UP is serving class of 2020 and 2021 at the following three schools: Mary Carroll High School, H.M. King High School, and Roy Miller High School. 

WHEN: Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020 

9:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.     

H.M. King High School  

2210 Brahma Blvd. 

Kingsville, TX 78363

 ABOUT SERGIO TINOCO Tinoco started his journey to America as a poor migrant worker of Mexican descent, having to pick crops for a living at the age of seven. To break from the family cycle of farm labor and depending on government welfare programs, he joined the United States Army and served 10 years on active duty. He now serves as a Border Patrol agent and writes columns for Homeland Security Today about conditions, challenges and humanity of the situation on the southwest border. 


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STUDENTS RALLY TO SAVE LIVES WITH MARROW DRIVE

Press Release:

KINGSVILLE (February 10, 2020) — Texas A&M University-Kingsville students can potentially save the life of a cancer patient by joining the Be The Match Registry during GenCure’s fifth annual Be The Cure On Campus marrow registry drive Feb. 17-19.

The drive is in honor of Lou Gonzalez, an A&M-Kingsville student who passed away in his junior year after a long battle with leukemia.

“Lou is no longer here, so this is my mission,” said Cindie Barrera Deleon, Lou’s mother. “I don’t want any other parent to feel the way that I did.”

GenCure, a subsidiary of San Antonio-based BioBridge Global, works with Be The Match to find potential donors in South Texas.

Every person who joins the Be The Match Registry gives hope to blood cancer patients. For many patients fighting leukemia, lymphoma, and other blood cancers and blood diseases, a stem cell or marrow transplant is their best hope for a cure. Just 30% of patients find a match from within their family.

Most patients turn to the Be The Match Registry in hopes of finding an unrelated donor who closely matches the genetic tissue typing of their immune system, which is inherited from a person’s ethnic background. However, only 7% of the current registry is made up of donors who are of Hispanic descent, leaving many Hispanic patients, including Lou, with no available matches on the registry.

https://bethematch.org/

“Having a child go through this battle and to never get the news that he had a match, it’s devastating,” Deleon said.

Instead, Lou received a matching cord blood transplant, which includes stem cells collected from umbilical cord blood. He relapsed soon after and received a 50% matched marrow transplant from his father. After two years of battling cancer, Lou passed away in June 2018.

Texas A&M-Kingsville students can join the registry by visiting one of GenCure’s sign-up tables from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday through Wednesday, Feb. 17-19. Tables will be located at:

• Memorial Student Union Building (First Floor)

• Outside the Javelina Dining Hall

• Outside the Jernigan Library

• Dotterweich College of Engineering Building

• Fine Arts Quad

Since the program began at A&M-Kingsville in 2016, more than 1,700 students have joined the Be the Match Registry. This year’s drive aims to add 300 potential marrow or stem cell donors to the registry.

For Deleon, every person who signs up for the registry fulfills her mission.

“I want anyone fighting this to hear that wonderful, amazing news that ‘We found a perfect match for you,’” she said.

Potential donors must be between the ages of 18-44 to register, in general good health, and have no history of or current serious illnesses. Those who sign up will be on the registry until they are 61. More information about the registry is available at GenCure.org/BeTheMatch.

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GEOPHYSICS LECTURE

PRESS RELEASE:
KINGSVILLE (February 3, 2020) — The 2020 1Q/2Q Distinguished Lecturer from the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), Dr. Sergey Fomel, will be making a stop at Texas A&M University-Kingsville with his presentation Automating Seismic Data Analysis and Interpretation. Fomel will present his lecture at 4 p.m. Monday, Feb. 10, at Peacock Auditorium in the Biology and Earth Sciences Building. “Recent developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning can automate different tasks in data analysis,” he said. “I will discuss the quest for automation by tracking the development of automatic picking algorithms, from velocity picking in seismic processing to horizon picking in seismic interpretation. We will search the limits of automation to discover the distinguishing qualities that separate human geophysicists from machine.” 
About Dr. Sergey Fomel 

Fomel is the Wallace E. Pratt Professor of Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin and the director of the Texas Consortium for Computational Seismology (TCCS) in Austin. At UT Austin, he is affiliated with the Bureau of Economic Geology, the department of geological sciences and the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences. He received his doctorate in geophysics from Stanford University. For his contributions to exploration geophysics, he was been recognized with a number of professional awards including SEG’s J. Clarence Karcher Award in 2001 and the EAGE Conrad Schlumberger Award in 2011. Fomel has served SEG in different roles including most recently, vice president of publications. He also serves as the project manager for Madagascar, an open-source software project for geophysical data analysis.

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TAMUK - Department of Music

PRESS RELEASE

KINGSVILLE (February 3, 2020) — After a nearly two-year process, the Department of Music at Texas A&M University-Kingsville has earned the designation School of Music. The process started with Dr. Paul Hageman, Regents Professor and Chair of Music, making the request to university administration and ended with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board approving the new designation.  

Hageman said a School of Music is usually a larger, more comprehensive unit than a Department of Music.

“It may often have more internal structure and be divided up into areas of teaching, performance and ensembles. Becoming a School of Music allows us to be recognized as a comprehensive music program and allows us the structure to continue to grow and expand our offerings.

“A School of Music is usually thought of as a larger entity. If you look just even at the state of Texas, the largest programs are Schools of Music, like University of Texas, Texas Tech, Baylor, West Texas A&M,” Hageman said. “We have joined the ranks of those groups in some ways and we feel we are ready to do that.”

The news comes as 275 music majors began classes this month in the new 90,000 square foot Music Education Building. An official ribbon-cutting celebration of the new building is scheduled for April.

“We have grown over the years and we currently have 275 majors and as we go into our new building, we anticipate continued growth,” Hageman said. “Even with our new building, we are looking to the future and what we have built will be able to house 450 to 500 majors. That is where we would like to get one day.”

The recommendation to pursue the designation was made in the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) 2017 Visitor’s Report, Hageman said. “It all started with our accreditation visit from the NASM. Every 10 years, we get reaccredited. The last suggestion in the report was to work toward becoming a School of Music.

“The initial work on becoming a School of Music began with our Music Council. The Council conducted extensive research and examined policies, procedures, and organizational structures that we thought would make it appropriate for us to become a School of Music.  We produced a comprehensive proposal that included input from our music faculty and other entities.  Our music faculty voted to accept the proposal and become a School of Music.  We then sent the document forward to our campus administration for their perusal and approval,” Hageman said.

“We are growing and we certainly feel like we have the student body to do this. Our students are just fantastic young men and women. They work very hard and they have accomplished a lot. We have been winning awards at the national and international level. This is a good way to help springboard them to their future if they can say they came from a School of Music,” he said.

The new designation elevates the reputation of an already stellar music program, said Dr. Jaya Goswami, associate vice president for academic affairs.

“It certainly makes the program even more attractive to future students and faculty,” she said. “The School of Music also opens doors to prospective donors and other funding sources to help students and faculty in the program. This designation is most timely, given the brand new building to house the program.”

“I feel like it gives me a stronger foundation when I look for a job,” said Olivia De La Rosa, a senior music education major from Kingsville. “A lot of great educators come from this program.

“The School of Music title matches what has been on-going, like the way the professors train us and everything is very professional and it prepares us for everything,” she added.

Although David De La Rosa, a sophomore music education major from San Benito, has a couple of years before he starts looking for a job, he agreed with Olivia De La Rosa. “For later in the future, when I am looking for a job, I think it will help me on my resume.

“I will come from a more prestigious school. When they see that on my resume, they will see that I came from a School of Music rather than a Department of Music,” he said.

“The university administration supported it. The last two steps was for it to be approved by The Texas A&M University System and then by the Higher Education Coordinating Board.

“Right away students shouldn’t see any changes other than the name. We will continue to be one of the programs in the College of Arts and Sciences. We answer to the dean just like we always have done,” Hageman said. “There will be no change in our structure now. In the future, this will allow us to grow a little bit more.

Music degrees offered at A&M-Kingsville include:  Bachelor of Music in the following areas:  Teacher Certification, Performance, Performance with an Emphasis in Piano Pedagogy, and Performance with an Emphasis in Jazz Studies; Master of Music in the following areas:  Music Education, Performance, and Conducting.

About the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM)

The National Association of Schools of Music is an organization of schools, conservatories, colleges and universities with approximately 639 accredited institutional members, according to its website. It establishes national standards for undergraduate and graduate degrees and other credentials for music and music-related disciplines and provides assistance to institutions and individuals engaged in artistic, scholarly, educational and other music-related endeavors.

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