AUSTIN, Texas—The 17th annual Américo Paredes Distinguished Lecture at The University of Texas at Austin at 6 p.m. on May 2 will feature a panel of presenters from the Llano Grande Center for Research and Development, a place where high-school students are involved in the decision-making and in the design process of its various projects.
The multifaceted presentation, titled “Teaching and Learning in a Community Context,” is free and open to the public. The lecture in the Bass Lecture Hall of the LBJ School of Public Affairs will include audience interaction with the panel of presenters and a screening of the documentary film “Edcouch-Elsa.” Free parking is available in the parking lot of the LBJ Library and Museum on Red River Street.
The Américo Paredes Distinguished Lecture was established by the university’s Center for Mexican American Studies in 1987. The series honors Américo Paredes, who before his death in 1999 was the Dickson, Allen and Anderson Centennial Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and English at The University of Texas at Austin. The film screening is co-sponsored by the UT Valley Horns, a student organization from the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
The Llano Grande Center for Research and Development was established in 1997 with the assistance of an Annenberg Foundation Rural Challenge Grant. It is a school and community-based nonprofit organization at Edcouch-Elsa High School in Elsa, Texas, and is operated by public-school teachers, students and other community members.
An integral part of the philosophy of the Llano Grande Center is to involve the high-school students in the decision-making process and in the design process of its various projects in the belief that the process is as important as the result and that an array of important skills and knowledge can best be developed through participation in process.
Llano Grande Center has trained students to document the historical contributions of the people of Mexican descent who have pioneered, settled and worked in the area. It also has succeeded in its college-placement program and has contributed to the revitalization of the region’s educational, cultural, civic and economic life.
For more information contact: Jordana Barton, Center for Mexican American Studies, 471-4557, or Robert D. Meckel, Office of Public Affairs, 512-475-7847.
