Citizenship and Immigration Forum in Kingwood
A Citizenship and Immigration Forum will be held at Lone Star College-Kingwood on Saturday, August 27th to assist folks through the process of becoming U.S. Citizens. Volunteers are welcomed and should arrive at 8AM for training; 8:30AM if you have already been trained before.
Check in is at the registration table outside of the LSK-Gym; Parking in Lots C & D; Dress comfy; and here’s a map.
Endorsements for City Council
Criselda Romero, who is running for the new District J seat announced that she received the endorsement of HOPE–the City employees union–SEIU 1, and the AFL-CIO. All are organizations that represent some hard-working people; not to mention folks who are known for their campaign ground game
As always, Kompadre Kuff has the running tally of endorsements, as well as interviews.
Houston Turns 175
There’s a celebration this Sunday to celebrate Houston’s birthday. Out of those 175, I’ve been in Houston (as of September 1st) for 13 years. Other than the first 18 years of my life in Crystal City, TX, Houston comes in 2nd for time spent in a city. Not bad! I think I’ll stay a little bit longer.
Texas State is the Best
I’m unapologetic about my pride in Texas State (formerly SWT) and 16 years after graduating I still like to tell kids that it is the best school in Texas. Why? Because it really is. TXST President Denise Trauth gave her Convocation presentation last week and the news is awesome:
We set another enrollment record last fall and will do that again this fall. We are expecting about 34,000 students. Thirty-five percent of our student body was ethnic minority last year, and we expect that to be about the same this fall. We reached our goal of becoming a Hispanic Serving Institution – an HSI – last fall, two years ahead of our goal. Only four of the 10 largest universities in Texas are currently HSIs, and Texas State is the largest one of those.
We all know that the 34-thousand number is not the most important one. Many others like our graduation rate are of greater consequence. I want to add a new one to the numbers we consider very important. This fall 95 percent of our 4,600 freshmen will live in our residence halls. This percentage has risen from 80 percent, where it was in the 1990s, and 90 percent, where it was five years ago. Ninety-five percent is an important number because it tells us that increasingly young people come to us wanting the whole rich residential experience that is uniquely Texas State.
Our students are now enrolled in 97 undergraduate fields, 88 master’s degrees and nine doctoral fields. This fall we are adding two more doctoral programs – a Ph.D. and an Ed.D. in developmental education.
I’m looking forward to visiting during Homecoming ’11. Thanks to my good friend, fellow SWT Alum, and the State Director of LULAC Joe Cardenas, he acquired the one and only copy of our LULAC ’94 scrapbook, so my scanner is going to work to digitize it. Here’s one pic that is my favorite–more to come!
