Academics

Latina/o students’ math and reading Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test scores improve when urban schools increase operating expenditures, decrease student-teacher ratios and increase the number of bilingual certified teachers, says a recent study from The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Education.

Cockrell School of Engineering Professor Alan Bovik has been awarded the highest technical honor collaboratively given by the Society for Imaging Science and Technology (ISandT) and SPIE, two of the largest academic and industrial societies in the world.

Christian Rabeling (Ph.D. 2010), an alumnus of the graduate program in Ecology, Evolution and Human Behavior at The University of Texas at Austin, has been awarded a Junior Fellowship from the Harvard Society of Fellows beginning in July 2011.

The University of Texas at Austin has selected U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, philanthropists Joe and Teresa Long, university Senior Vice President Shirley Bird Perry and Ransom Center Director Tom Staley to receive the prestigious Presidential Citation for 2010.

The Texas Center for Education Policy (TCEP) will host its annual state conference, “Leading the Nation: A Texas Retrospective on Educational Reform” on Feb. 9 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Austin Hilton downtown.

Robert M. Metcalfe, Internet pioneer and newly appointed professor of innovation at The University of Texas at Austin Cockrell School of Engineering, will present “Enernet: Internet Lessons for Solving Energy” on Jan. 20 from 4-5 p.m. in the Avaya Auditorium of the ACES building (room 2.302).

Event: Inaugural Forum on Productivity in Public Education, hosted by The University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Public School Initiatives and the newly formed Institute for Productivity in Education.

Tom Edgar, professor of chemical engineering in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, accepted the F. J. and Dorothy Van Antwerpen Award for Service from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) recently at the association’s annual meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Holly Williams, professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at The University of Texas at Austin, has been selected by the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board to receive a Fulbright Specialists grant for a project in Finland at the Turun Ammattikorkeakoulu Taideakatemia, the Turku University of Applied…

Lawrence (Larry) Speck, distinguished professor and former dean of the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin, has been awarded the Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architecture Education, the highest honor awarded to an architectural educator, from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA).

Sophomore Armando Vera used an Undergraduate Studies grant to teach Peruvian children English … and the “Hook ’em, Horns” hand sign.

The full Q-and-A with Armando Vera, the inaugural recipient of the UGS Exploration Experience Grant.