For approximately half a century, it was accepted that classes began at the Texas School of Mines (now UTEP) on September 23, 1914. The histories written for the school’s 50th and 75th anniversaries mentioned the 23rd, but a closer reading reveals that the authors harbored some questions–questions that would not be answered until the 100th anniversary.
First Histories
In his narrative of the events of 1914 for the 50th anniversary, English professor Francis Fugate noted that after Worrell arrived in El Paso “It was soon announced that the school would open on September 23” (pp. 11-12). Fugate did not cite a source, but must have discovered one of the announcements in the El Paso Herald (May 4, p. 3) or El Paso Morning Times (May 5, p. 3; Aug. 30, p. 24) that did in fact mention September 23. Yet, when it came time to describe the opening, Fugate said only “The doors of the school opened on September 23, as scheduled” (p. 14), hinting that he was unable to confirm the school’s opening date and simply followed the announcements.
A quarter of a century later, Nancy Hamilton tried to retrace Fugate’s steps. Her research took her to the city’s newspapers where she came up short of a confirmation, reporting “The opening of the School of Mines was not even mentioned in the September 28 El Paso Herald account of a meeting of the Board of Regents.” She therefore relied on Fugate to write that “Twenty-seven students entered the School of Mines on opening day, September 23” (p. 19). Clearly, Hamilton was looking for corroboration but the only answer was silence.
A New Question
In August 2013, while preparing for the new tradition of New Miner Convocation, I asked P. J. Vierra, a doctoral students working in UTEP’s Centennial Office, to verify the number of students enrolled at TSM on the first day of class. He came back with some published numbers that contradicted each other–21 here, 24 there, 29 in another spot–but it was the source for one of the numbers that startled us most:
“The El Paso School of Mines opened Monday for its initial session.”
—El Paso Herald, Sept. 30, 1914, p. 6
The El Paso Herald was published in the evenings, Monday through Saturday. This story, published on Wednesday, September 30, stated that classes began on September 28!
The Hunt for Confirmation
The first task at hand was to verify the newspaper’s report. The Herald had already published September 23 as the start date and this particular article even contradicted itself, stating in one paragraph that 24 students were enrolled and then later listing only 21. We were not ready to rely on the word of the Herald alone.
At first, all we could find was context. The El Paso Morning Times (published the morning after the Herald) confirmed that Worrell had spoken to the press the day before, stated the date for the first football practice, cited 29 students–but no first day of classes. On September 28, the Herald ran a report of the first day of class at the University of Texas (in Austin) but did not link to TSM. Bulletins published in subsequent years confirmed that TSM opened in “September” (no date) 1914 and that it eventually adopted the UT start date of September 28 as an annual tradition, but they did not confirm that it actually happened that way in 1914.
More disconcerting were the silences. There was simply nothing at all about the school in the El Paso Morning Times from September 1-30. The minutes of the meetings of the Board of Regents (three of them that year) discuss deeds, appropriations, and expenditures but no start date. Various state and local newspapers noted the school’s opening, but none mentioned a date for the first day of class. Did UTEP’s Special Collections department have a collection of newspaper clippings? No. Any special set of papers related to the school’s founding? No again.
There was only one remaining hope, but it was a hopeless one. The minutes of the October 27 meeting of the Board of Regents cited a letter from Worrell dated September 22. Its purpose was to identify faculty whose salaries should be paid. The minutes did not reproduce the letter; they only mentioned it. Did the letter still exist somewhere? If it did, could it be found? If it were found, could answer the question? Since Worrell was writing on the eve of the first day of class, would he not have mentioned something about the events of the next day? But where was the letter? No collection of Worrell’s personal papers has survived, neither at UTEP nor in Austin. Some of his correspondence has been recovered in the collections of other persons, but to track it down that way would take another century.
Then we remembered an anomaly. A few weeks earlier, while looking at the inventory list for the collection of UT Presidents Papers at the Dolph Briscoe Center in Austin, P. J. had discovered two boxes of papers related to the Texas School of Mines. Could these boxes contain the September 22 letter that Worrell sent to the Regents? Possibly. Were the papers accessible? Sort of. The papers are stored off site and require 3-5 days to retrieve. Would the archivist call up the boxes and look for a specific letter? Yes. All we could do was wait.
“registration begins with us tomorrow”
–Dean Steve H. Worrell, September 22, 1914
Confirmed, in black and white, by none other than the dean himself. Registration on September 23, first day of classes on September 28, 1914. A century later, UTEP is an aspiring tier-1 public research university. Every day, somewhere on campus, a discovery is made by one of UTEP’s faculty and student researchers–from cancer treatment to space travel to water desalination to frog species. This time, the discovery happened to be about our own history. It is a humbling and exciting time to be a Miner.
References
Bulletin of the University of Texas, No. 312 (Jan. 20, 1914): Catalogue 1913-1914, p. 4; No. 5 (Jan. 20, 1915), p. 451; No. 1723 (Apr. 20, 1917): Catalogue 1916-1917, p. 522; No. 1925 (May 1, 1919): Catalogue 1918-1919, p. 304.
El Paso Herald, May 4, 1914; September 15, 16, 21, 28, 1914.
El Paso Morning Times, May 5, 1914; August 30, 1914; October 1, 1914.
Fugate, Frontier College, (1964), 11-14.
Hamilton, UTEP: A Pictorial History (1988), 19.
“Minutes of the Meetings of the Board of Regents,” April 28, 1914, pp. 347-348; June 8, 1914, pp. 397, 401; October 27, 1914, p. 414.
Worrell, Steve to President of University of Texas, September 22, 1914, UT President Papers, Box VF 8/A.a “College of Mines and Metallurgy (El Paso), 1913-1927.”
UTEP 100 Años de Historia: PARTE I, Inicios
KINT News,11/11/2013 5:12 PM
El Paso, Texas (Entravision).- 100 años, cuatro nombres diferentes y dos mascotas.
Se dicen facil, pero pocos saben realmente los inicios de la que hoy lleva por nombre la Universidad de Texas en El Paso.
UTEP inicio en el año 1914 bajo el nombre de Escuela de Mineria del Estado de Texas y era solo para hombres, dos años despues se brindo la oportunidad de ingresar a las mujeres.
Un grupo de 27 jovenes, dos de ellos provenientes de Mexico, se convertirian en los primeros estudiantes. Ellos dieron a conocer a sus lideres estatales su idea de construir la escuela, que se convertiria en la primer universidad de la ciudad.
En primera instancia, la universidad estaba ubicada cerca del aeropuerto y Fort Bliss, pero un voraz incendio destruyo el edificio principal…
Y fue en 1917, que la legislatura del Texas destino 100 mil dolares para iniciar con la construccion de los primeros edificios donde actualmente esta la univesidad, siendo el Old Main el primer edificio.
Pero UTEP no seria la misma sin una mascota que la identifique, fue en 1919, que se eligio a un burro como la mascota oficial.
Para 1920, se cambio el nombre a Colegio de Mineria del Estado de Texas y se eligio el primer himno denominado The Eyes of Texas.
Como muestran las imagenes, la arquitectura de UTEP es casi identica a la arquitectura de Bhutan que se localiza cerca de las montañas del Himalaya.
Y es que en este entonces, Kathleen Worrel, esposa de Steve Worrell, el primer rector de la universidad, vio una revista de National Geographic, donde encontro unas fotografias de edificios de Bhutan y le gusto para implementar la misma arquitectura en UTEP.
Para 1949, se cambio el nombre por tercera vez a Colegio del Oeste de Texas.
En 1966, fue la epoca donde UTEP se dio a conocer a nivel internacional, gracias a que gano el campeonato de basquetbol del Oeste de Texas.
Un año despues, por cuarta y ultima ocasion se le cambio el nombre a la escuela, conocida como la universidad de texas en el paso…
Al paso del tiempo, el burro ya no fue una mascota tan agradable para los estudiantes y en 1973, un joven quien estaba en una clase de historia, dibujo este minero en su cuaderno, el cual gusto tanto, que desde entonces se adapto como el simbolo de la universidad.
En 1980, la universidad opta por cambiar el himno de la escuela y se elige la cancion Fight Song, que es la que escuchamos en cada evento academico o deportivo de la universidad.
Sin duda alguna, una parte muy importante en la historia de UTEP es su actual presidente quien desde 1987 funge como la cabeza de la universidad.
Published at http://www.kint.com/2013/11/11/utep-100-anos-de-historia-parte-i-inicios/
November 28, 2012
Teaching and Learning History: Teagle Foundation to Support a New AHA Initiative
By Julia Brookins
What are the best practices for teaching history to undergrads? How can history departments better work with teaching and learning centers at their institutions? What does a graduate student in history need to know about the latest pedagogical theories, practices, and debates?
The American Historical Association, with the help of a grant from the Teagle Foundation, hopes to address these questions over the course of the next two years. Assembling a team of leading experts in history teaching and historical thinking, the AHA will explore ways to more effectively integrate the scholarship on teaching and learning into graduate history education.
The project will start with a look at the required pedagogy course for history doctoral students at the University of California, Berkeley. An advisory panel with expertise in the scholarship of teaching and learning will assist the Berkeley history faculty in focusing their course on giving graduate students a deeper understanding of how undergraduates learn history, and instilling an openness to developing their full potential as teachers through engagement with scholarship on teaching and learning history.
The project will continue with the AHA Teaching Division developing activities for our 2014 and 2015 annual meetings in Washington, D.C. and New York with the help of an expert advisory panel. We aim to create and implement a coherent and concentrated series of annual meeting sessions—presentations and hands-on workshops—that demonstrate the utility and benefits of teaching and learning research for graduate training, and subsequently for undergraduate teaching. These sessions will be geared toward directors of graduate study and future faculty, with at least one joint session.
The advisory team members for this initiative will include Lendol Calder (Augustana College), Keith Erekson (Univ. of Texas El Paso), David Jaffee (Bard Graduate Center), Mills Kelly (George Mason Univ.), David Pace (Indiana Univ.), Leah Shopkow (Indiana Univ.), Sam Wineburg (Stanford Univ.), and Laura Westhoff (Univ. of Missouri-St. Louis). At Berkeley, faculty member Maureen Miller, who serves as vice-chair for graduate affairs and head graduate advisor, will coordinate the history department’s part in the grant work.
The Teagle Foundation provides leadership for liberal education, mobilizing the intellectual and financial resources that are necessary if today’s students are to have access to a challenging and transformative liberal education. The foundation’s commitment to such education includes its grantmaking to institutions of higher education across the country, its long-established scholarship program for the children of employees of ExxonMobil, and its work helping economically disadvantaged young people in New York City—where the Foundation is based—gain admission to college and succeed once there.
Source: AHA Today Blog
The University of Texas at El Paso turns 100 years old in 2014 and will mark the occasion with an epic celebration.
Keith Erekson’s job is to make sure the party goes off without a hitch. Although wrapping a century of history into a yearlong celebration is daunting, he may be the perfect person to get people excited about the university’s history.
Erekson’s an assistant professor of history at UTEP, but he isn’t strictly interested in history; he studies what makes people passionate about history and helps teachers teach history in a more interesting way.
Perhaps it stems from having had bad history teachers in high school, but Erekson, 36, began his career in the automotive industry in Brazil. He went to the South American country as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In the 1990s, he worked for Johnson Controls in Brazil, building seats for GM, Ford and Toyota, but left in search of purpose.
“It was boom times, but I had a moment – I actually remember the day – when I woke up and I thought, ‘You know, there are 1,237 more seats in the world because of me. Who cares?’” Erekson says.
So he decided to try history. He earned a master’s degree in history from Brigham Young University, loved it and went on to earn a doctorate in history from Indiana University.
Erekson, who is married with four daughters, joined the UTEP faculty in 2008 and is the founder and director of the university’s Center for History Teaching and Learning.
In 2011, he received the University of Texas System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award.
Erekson is the author of “Everybody’s History: Indiana’s Lincoln Inquiry and the Quest to Reclaim a President’s Past,” and editor of “Politics and the History Curriculum: The Struggle over Standards in Texas and the Nation.”
Erekson sat down with El Paso Inc. and talked about why the big celebration is so personal to so many people, what Abraham Lincoln and Pancho Villa have in common, and what he sees in UTEP’s future.
Politics and the History Curriculum
The Struggle over Standards in Texas and the Nation
Edited By Keith A. Erekson
“What’s the matter with Texas? Outsiders too often dismiss it as an overgrown and ignorant child, shrouded in right-wing politics and fundamentalist religion. But that view is itself a gross caricature, as this close study of history and myth-making in Texas demonstrates. Rooting their story firmly in the social and political history of the Lone Star State, Keith A. Erekson and his colleagues bust a few big myths themselves. Read this book if you want to understand why Texans continue to contest their shared past, and why the rest of us should stop condescending to them.” – Jonathan Zimmerman, professor of Education and History, New York University
“In these behind-the-scene essays, history educators and all citizens interested in history education will find chilling accounts of how the conservative Christian right played power politics to ensure that young Texans learn a largely white-washed U.S. history while remaining uneducated about world history. The essays in this important book give voice to teachers and history professors who were steamrollered by the Texas Board of Education.” – Gary Nash, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, UCLA; Director, National Center for History in the Schools
View more Praise about this book
The politicians and pastors who revised the Texas social studies standards made national and international headlines. However, much of that coverage was sensational and squeezed the process into a narrow ‘culture war’ storyline. Politics and the History Curriculum sets the debate over the Texas standards within a broader context by exploring the tangled and powerful mixture of politics, religion, media, and education. This volume provides a clear analysis of what happened and why, along with sensible recommendations for teachers and policy makers
ISBN: 978-1-137-00893-0 || $85.00 hc || Available June 2012
[Cross-posted from transformations.utep.edu]
In December 2011, UTEP President Diana Natalicio appointed me as her special assistant for centennial program implementation, a job description that includes supporting the 2014 Commission, carrying out historical work (researching, writing, speaking), and overseeing internal coordination (planning, budgeting, and following up). For the internal work, I will seek to:
- Integrate centennial activities into the daily work of the university, whether the participants are staff (merit evaluation), faculty (tenure and promotion), or students (grades).
- Encourage self-interest by not inviting “service” but rather helping participants ask “How can I use the centennial to accomplish the work I already do in _________________?”
- Welcome all contributions from all contributors, from paid employees to passionate volunteers. I hope people will ask “What can I do better and with more passion than anybody else?” and then do it.
- Organize skills and interests into project-specific teams, from oral history to museum exhibits to opera performances.
In crafting this implementation philosophy I am explicitly taking a page from the work of the Lincoln Inquiry, a group of over 500 Americans who studied Lincoln’s Indiana boyhood nearly one hundred years later during the 1920s and 1930s. I wrote about them in Everybody’s History and now I am trying to apply their work to my situation today. The Lincoln Inquiry organized hundreds of volunteers on the basis of skills, enthusiasm, and urgency (chapter 1). Its participants pursued oral histories with those still alive who had known Lincoln (chapter 3) and crafted a well-researched narrative (chapter 4) that they defended in public (chapter 5). I don’t foresee the need to compete with other historians and biographers to tell UTEP’s story (chapter 2) and I really hope to avoid their greatest shortcoming–the inability to integrate their research findings into a coherent synthesis suitable for a wide range of public audiences (chapter 6).
I will talk about the book and its application to centennial planning this Friday, February 24, at 3:00 p.m. in room 323 of the Liberal Arts Building on the UTEP campus.
