The College of Incarnate Phrase introduced the arrival of Richard Pineda final week as its new director for the Liza and Jack Lewis Heart of the Americas, a task that seeks to determine and preserve relationships with different nations within the Americas.
Pineda moved to San Antonio from his native El Paso, the place most not too long ago he served as director of the Sam Donaldson Heart for Communication Research on the College of Texas at El Paso — a campus that has a pure circulation of worldwide college students, guests and workers attributable to its location on the border with Juárez, México.
He grew up on this border area and after leaving to pursue his greater schooling levels, which embrace a bachelor’s in political science from Baylor College, a grasp’s in communication from UTEP and a doctorate in communication from Wayne State College in Detroit, Mich., he returned residence and spent 21 years at UTEP.
His analysis and schooling pursuits embrace politics, media, well-liked tradition, Latinidad and different subjects that tightly knit the sister cities of El Paso-Juárez and their practically 3 million residents collectively.
Whereas at UTEP, he led examine overseas applications in Brazil, Costa Rica and México, in addition to annual pupil journeys to Indonesia.
“When this chance opened at UIW, the place the Lewis Heart’s mission is to extend understanding of the Americas from Canada all the way in which right down to the Southern Cone, I assumed, ‘That is it! That is my likelihood, within the second half of my profession, to essentially advance common information about some issues which can be actually urgent,” Pineda mentioned.
Connecting the Americas
Established in 2019, the Lewis Heart‘s aim is to advertise relationships with México, Canada, Central and South America. The director function was beforehand held by Rafael Hoyle, who led the middle since 2021.
Pineda now hopes to make use of his expertise selling and main worldwide applications and conversations inside and outdoors the college to proceed Hoyle’s work and create new alternatives for college kids.
“One factor that I discovered over my time at UTEP is that I had the flexibility to take tutorial ideas and concepts and translate them to the broader public,” Pineda mentioned. “And to have the ability to flesh out these concepts with out taking a place, bringing a good perspective and a analysis perspective.”
Over his 20 years instructing at UTEP, Pineda additionally served as chair of the Communication Division and as a tenured school member, introducing greater than 3,000 college students to communication and the function it performs in society.
Marcos Fregoso, vice chairman of worldwide affairs, oversees the Lewis Heart and mentioned a part of the middle’s aim is to showcase its work and actions to a broader viewers.
For Pineda this implies persevering with to convey audio system and occasions from these nations to the group, but additionally in search of new methods to attach San Antonio residents to worldwide subjects.
On the prime of his record is persistently publishing well-researched articles, or coverage overviews, that concentrate on subjects that impression town of San Antonio and the area.
From commerce, to workforce, to immigration, there are lots of connections between the nations that transcend what we eat through social media or nationwide information, Pineda mentioned.
“It’s not about advocacy — though I feel information by itself is advocacy. It’s about saying, ‘Here’s a snapshot of this situation,’” Pineda mentioned.
Ideally, Pineda needs to see UIW college students from all fields of examine with an curiosity in subjects associated to the Americas join internships and fellowships on the heart.
With the suitable funding, Pineda additionally hopes to determine worldwide management coaching alternatives for UIW college students who need to journey to different nations beginning with México, the place UIW has two campuses, one in México Metropolis and one in Irapuato, Guadalajara.
“I feel that worldwide journey is totally one of the essential issues {that a} pupil can do,” Pineda mentioned. “Particularly for college kids who’re first era, as a result of the entire concept of being in a college and in a spot that your dad and mom or grandparents by no means had the chance to be in, is maximizing each alternative.”
