18 | UTSA | AGENTS OF CHANGE
UEI
TOP SUCCESSES SINCE 2020 by Nicole Foy
The Urban Education Institute (UEI) was launched in 2019 as a presidential initiative within UTSA’s strategic plan. President Taylor Eighmy announced the downtown institute, directed by Dr. Mike Villarreal, as a key component in UTSA’s growing urban-serving mission. The UEI produces improvement-focused, collaborative research to raise educational attainment, advance economic mobility and help people reach their potential in Bexar County and the surrounding 23-county area in South/Central Texas. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, the UEI pivoted and began research into how distance teaching and
Teaching & Learning in the Time of COVID-19 For the Teaching & Learning in the Time of COVID-19 project, researchers interviewed 3,000 college faculty, public school teachers, parents and older high school students. The UEI hired 27 UTSA students, trained them in qualitative research methods and paid them for their work. Many of them had lost their own jobs during the economic downturn. It was experiential learning at its finest – training students and serving the community during a time of intense need. The Urban Education Institute has produced a number of Research Briefs to share their work with the community. These include briefs on: u
School Mobility
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Improvement Science
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College Access
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Youth Employment
For more information on these reports, please visit: https://uei.utsa.edu/
learning were reshaping Texas’ then-virtual classrooms, public school systems and the Alamo Colleges District. The four resulting reports were (and are still being) used by school, college and community leaders to plan, act and respond throughout the time of transition and tumult.
