Our Wildcats continue to achieve great heights in every sense. High jumper Edgar Rivera-Morales, a former Wildcat hailing from Agua Prieta, Mexico, has been named a Capital One Academic All-American for the second-straight year. Photo credit: Errol Anderson.
Internationally noted physician-scientist, health administrator, scholar and educator Dr. Joe G.N. “Skip” Garcia is joining the University of Arizona as senior vice president for health sciences. Hailing from the University of Illinois where he served as the vice president for health affairs, Garcia takes the lead of various health colleges, clinical partners, and two colleges of medicine.
The Association of American Universities has named the UA as one of eight U.S. institutions funded under a nationwide initiative to improve STEM education. Faculty involved hail from fields such as chemistry and biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology, physics, astronomy and chemical and environmental engineering. Members of the UA Office of Instruction and Assessment and Student Affairs also are involved.
The UA football team holds the top spot in the Pac-12 for academic progress during the past year, according to an NCAA report released Tuesday. With a score of 980, Arizona beat out UCLA and Stanford. That's from the NCAA's annual Academic Progress Rate report, which is based on player eligibility and graduation and retention rates. In men's basketball, Arizona scored 1,000, sharing first place with three other schools. Go Cats!
Photo © Arizona Athletics.
Number one-ranked high jump champion and Pac-12 candidate for the NCAA Woman of the Year Brigetta Barrett has taken the USA Championship title with a soaring personal-best jump of 6-8.25 (2.04m), the second highest in U.S. history.
Every Wildcat fan's heart swells when the "Bear Down" fight song plays in McKale Center. Now, that spirit has been measured. A recent study by Emory University Sports Marketing Analytics found that the University of Arizona men's basketball fan base ranks No. 2 in the nation and No. 1 in the PAC-12. Go Cats!
For a soldier returning from the field, finding the way back into civilian life is no easy task. The University of Arizona listened closely to this unique group of students, and based on their needs, created a now nationally recognized program offering community, support and a targeted curriculum, all to increase graduation and retention rates.
UA music graduate Gabriel Ayala is a member of the Pascua Yaqui tribe, born and raised in Texas. He’s also a classical guitarist who has performed for President Obama and Pope Benedict. His award-winning ninth album – Shades of Blue – showcases his own compositions of jazz-flamenco fusion. And he plays Bach at Native American powwows.
It's that time of year again. The UA spring undergraduate and master's commencement ceremony will take place at Arizona Stadium on Friday, May 10. Doctoral degree candidates will be honored at a separate ceremony at Centennial Hall on Saturday, May 11. Join the celebration!
The new UA STEM Learning Center aims to raise the profile of STEM activities at and beyond the University, and build partnerships between educators, families, organizations and industry. Also tasked with supporting pre-kindergarten to college STEM education pathways and workforce development, this interdisciplinary center will serve as a national model.
Forget everything you think you know about people in wheelchairs and play. Special education sophomore Chelsea Falnes is captain of the UA quad rugby team. Playing this sport also known as wheelchair rugby, Falnes has suffered multiple concussions and nearly broken wrists and fingers – all in the name of having fun and being tough. Strap yourself in; this is one bumpy ride.
In a world dominated by emails, tweets and one-liner updates, where do we slow down and find meaning? Professor Daniel Asia teaches music composition; his creations are played in music halls throughout the world. He has a deep understanding – as an academic and an artist – of what makes for beauty. And that understanding brings students like Aaron Mobley to study with this unique talent.
UA psychology major Rhiannon Miller had the idea to train psychiatric service dogs for veterans living with post-traumatic stress disorder. Her idea led to the creation of Operation Wolfhound, which has been placing dogs with veterans across the nation.
Education isn’t all about classrooms, labs and lecture halls. Under the direction of Executive Chef Kevin Lau, the kitchens of the Arizona Student Unions bring incredible learning opportunities for student employees. Here, they get fed some of life’s most important lessons, from managing schedules to building productive team relationships to how to prepare the perfect cinnamon bun.
Be Kind Step Up, a collaboration between UA Athletics, UA Campus Health and local nonprofit Ben’s Bells, rewards intentional acts of kindness. The idea is to promote pro-social behavior on campus and in the wider community. Cross-country runner and Honors College senior Megan Meyer is a leader in the program, and she’s on the lookout for good deeds.
Emile Brink Gordon came to the University of Arizona on a scholarship to study political science. Today, having completed an impressive triple-major in microbiology, molecular and cellular biology, and human anatomy and physiology, he works doing research at the National Institutes of Health. An unlikely path? Maybe, but he says the UA paved the way.
Building a championship baseball team takes more than a great coach and great players. It takes a special blend of the two and a laser focus on even the smallest every-day details to achieve excellence. And that is what 3-time championship coach Andy Lopez brings to his players and the ball field.
The experience of art is personal. But when artists display their work, it’s purely public: they must break the confines of comfort zones if they want to connect with audiences. It’s School of Art Galleries Curator Brooke Grucella’s challenge to help artists see their work from the point of view of the other, and test themselves to make those connections happen.
Do you think of hip-hop as just catchy dance music with some rap thrown in for good measure? A new concentration in hip-hop studies in the UA’s Africana Studies program — the first hip-hop minor in the United States — challenges students to explore hip-hop as a worldwide phenomenon through which people explore identities, claim territories, protest injustice and change their worlds.
On November 30, 2012, Ann Weaver Hart will be inaugurated as the 21st president of the University of Arizona. All are invited, campus and community members alike, to come and participate in marking a new era as Arizona’s land-grant university moves into a future full of promise and opportunity.