Constructive conversations — even when you disagree, PG 18
St. Edward’s alumni help Austin’s new soccer team put down roots, PG 26
AN UNUSUAL WEATHER pattern last fall created spectacular fall foliage in Central Texas.
In recent years, warm temperatures throughout autumn have kept leaves green because they continue to produce the pigment chlorophyll. Then, at the first freeze, the leaves turn brown and begin to fall. In 2022, a cold snap at Thanksgiving triggered the trees to stop producing chlorophyll, but because temperatures didn’t drop below freezing, the leaves didn’t turn brown. Instead, the green color faded, and other pigments — carotenoids (yellows and oranges) and anthocyanins (reds and purples) — became more visible.
The leaves of the Sorin Oak did not change colors, but the tree received a different kind of attention: it won 2022 Austin Tree of the Year in the “Large Tree” category. The honor, given by the Austin Parks and Recreation Department and the nonprofit TreeFolks, was awarded based on a citywide popular vote.
In February, a winter storm damaged trees citywide as limbs snapped beneath the weight of accumulated ice. Campus arborist and grounds supervisor Roy Johnson says that extreme summers and winters have stressed and weakened the trees. To create a more resilient campus tree canopy, the university is planting new trees that are native to Central Texas and hardier in extreme weather. The project will allow environmental science faculty and students to study an urban forest’s resiliency amid climate change.
Meanwhile, the university’s Food Forest Guild is planting an edible ecosystem near the campus garden. The project will include loquats, figs, peaches, pomegranates, persimmons and pecans. The group broke ground in November; more trees will be added once irrigation is established.
“Right now, you kind of have to squint your eyes and imagine a little bit” to see the forest, Johnson says. “But in two years, you won’t have to use your imagination at all.”
In the face of climate change, the St. Edward’s community works to build a more resilient urban forest.
BEST
& BRIGHTESTPublic speaker and international scholar Alexis Reed ’23 uses her own story of activism to inspire her peers.
BY STACIA MILLER MLA ’05
FIVE YEARS AGO , cheerleading captain Alexis Reed ’23 stood at the 50-yard line before the first football game of the season. The high school senior from New Orleans didn’t intend to raise eyebrows for anything except her team’s amazing basket toss. But as the opening lyrics of “The Star-Spangled Banner” floated through the stadium, Reed decided to raise her fist in the air. She felt compelled to protest the social injustices she had observed firsthand as a young Black woman growing up in a state with the nation’s highest incarceration rate, where Black people are sent to prison nearly four times more often than white people, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.
Her actions ignited controversy among some high school administrators, parents and alumni, but she didn’t back down — she and a friend continued their peaceful protest at every game. Reed’s tenacity would eventually land her an interview with sports journalist Dave Zirin for his book The Kaepernick Effect and an appearance in a Showtime documentary about the history of Black athletes and protest.
But as a high school senior in the thick of the college search, she was intent on finding a campus that shared her commitment to social justice. She was primarily considering universities in the Washington, D.C., area when her high school’s college counselor mentioned St. Edward’s University. “She told me, ‘It’s small, it’s personal, and they care a lot about the issues you care about … There’s just one thing. It’s in Texas,’” Reed remembers. “Texas was not even on my radar!”
After meeting with a St. Edward’s admission officer and connecting with Sydney Wade ’20, then-president of the Black Student Alliance (BSA), Reed was sold. “I got that feeling they say you’re supposed to get, like I had found my place,” she says. “Everyone consistently said that St. Ed’s cares, that they give students a platform for their voices that is supported on all levels, all the way up to the administration. I was still growing into my voice and beliefs and wanted an atmosphere that would encourage, support and respect my journey.”
That’s just what she found when she moved into Dujarié Hall in the fall of 2019, declaring Sociology as her major and
minoring in Criminal Justice with a prelaw focus. “It’s been a perfect fit,” she says. “I’m getting to learn about things on an academic level that I was already passionate about and already experiencing.”
She also took on leadership roles in BSA, serving as event coordinator her sophomore year, vice president her junior year and president her senior year. She met with Black prospective students at events like Brunch with BSA and participated in call nights to answer their questions about St. Edward’s.
When campus reopened in Fall 2021 after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, she and fellow BSA leader Courtney Reed ’22 (a good friend who coincidentally shares her last name) decided to highlight the topic of social justice by organizing a Power to the People symposium. Zirin’s book featuring Reed had just been released, and once the St. Edward’s community learned her story, it became clear that she should speak at the event.
“Let’s say you’re nothing like me — you’re not outspoken; you’re not 20; you’re not Black. You have completely different life experiences,” she said in her keynote speech at the symposium. “You don’t have to be like me to be an activist. What you do have to be, though, is willing. Willing to commit, to listen, to learn, to be criticized. Willing to sit in your discomfort and dissect it. Willing to try again and be better.”
Reed has heeded her own advice time and again during her four years on the hilltop. Commit and listen: She collaborated with others to expand the Power to the People symposium in its second year. Dissect and learn: She won a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship from the U.S. Department of State to travel to South Africa and learn about powerful social movements there. Keep trying: The activist framework she created for BSA and the Power to the People event will continue to guide students long after she graduates.
“Take on your world — they preach that at St. Edward’s, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to do,” she says. “I want all of these events and all this momentum to be carried on and pushed beyond this campus, into Austin and even farther. I want it all to ripple out.”
Editor Kat Braz
Creative Director Helen Elliott
Art Director
Kathia Ramirez
Photographer Chelsea Purgahn
Designer
Marissa Nicholas
Writer Robyn Ross
Vice President for Marketing and Communications
Christie Campbell
President Montserrat Fuentes, PhD
On the Cover
Through the St. Edward’s student experience — one rooted in a Holy Cross education — graduates acquire memories, connections and skills that weave throughout their lives.
Illustration by Brian Stauffer
St. Edward’s University Magazine is published by the Marketing Office for alumni and friends. ©2023 St. Edward’s University. Opinions expressed in St. Edward’s University Magazine are those of the individual authors and do not reflect the views of the university. Inquiries to the Editor: editor@stedwards.edu.
“ALL RISE!” The 15 students in the Breaking the School-toPrison Pipeline course stood as Judge Bradley Temple strode into the room. No trial was underway, but an air of formality pervaded the courtroom at the Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center in Austin. Temple had offered to answer questions about the judicial process before the students toured the facility. A student raised her hand. “What kinds of referrals do you get from schools?”
Temple sighed. “As a former juvenile defender and as a judge, it’s frustrating when schools don’t deal with disciplinary issues on campus and instead refer kids here,” he said. “A lot of times, kids need mental health services; they don’t need to be arrested. Or, say, a student in special ed gets in a triggering situation related to their disability and hits a teacher. I recently had an 11-year-old special ed student in my courtroom for a hearing. That kid never should have been here.”
The premise of the “school-toprison pipeline” is that schools are designed to serve kids who learn by reading, listening and sitting still and that students
who don’t fit this model are more heavily disciplined. These can include students of color, LGBTQ students, people with disabilities, low-income students and those who have experienced trauma. Such students often experience disproportionate rates of suspension and expulsion. Students with disabilities, like the one in Temple’s courtroom, may act out for reasons connected to their disability and receive punishment rather than support. Zero-tolerance policies and the presence of school police reinforce the pipeline.
Assistant Professor of Social Work Natalie Beck Aguilera developed the course using information and connections from her years working in public schools, alternative schools and juvenile justice centers. Students in the course visit the Travis County Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program for kids who have been expelled from public school. They meet with a school social worker and guest speakers who share their personal experiences with juvenile and adult criminal justice systems. To balance out the often-discouraging information they learn, they research alternatives
to the pipeline that have been successful in other communities.
Criminal Justice major Maya Smalls ’23 had already been to Gardner Betts many times. She and four other St. Edward’s students intern there as mentors, helping young people detained at the center with life skills activities and — just as importantly — listening to them.
Smalls wasn’t surprised that most of the people she mentors at Gardner Betts are students of color. In class, she learned that Black students across Texas are far more likely than white students to receive out-of-school suspension or interact with the juvenile justice system.
“Every single time we go there, there are parallels between what I learn in this class and what I’m seeing before my eyes,” she said. Smalls is considering becoming a juvenile attorney, but she suggested college students with all kinds of career ambitions should take the class.
Beck Aguilera sees it the same way. “We all have a stake in this, and I want people to grapple with this, even as a community member,” she said. “This is happening with our tax dollars, in our schools.”
His journey to St. Edward’s: Epau is the university’s first Moreau Scholar from Holy Cross Lake View school in Jinja, Uganda. Because of the pandemic and visa-processing delays, he spent his freshman year studying remotely, persevering despite the ninehour time difference and a week when the country’s internet was cut off.
When research changes direction: As the winner of a Portz Interdisciplinary Fellowship
from the National Collegiate Honors Council, Epau returned to Uganda last summer to research social media use in rural Africa. But Epau, who grew up in a city, discovered that rural Ugandans didn’t use social media because they could not afford smartphones. He returned to St. Edward’s even more committed to using his education to help Uganda. “I want to create more opportunities and chances back home,” he says.
The mind and the heart: Ligotino helped Campus Ministry restructure its Pierle Scholar position, an opportunity for a student to research “respect life” issues with the guidance of a mentor. An independent study: Her thesis examines the philosophical and political context for two 19th-century realist art groups — the Macchiaioli of Italy and the Peredvizhniki of Russia. Although they were responding
to different political realities, both used art to advocate for social change.
Passion and pragmatism: Her research and internships introduced her to an array of careers in art. “At St. Edward’s, I’ve been in a community that supports pursuing whatever you’re passionate about,” she says. “I’ve found that being pragmatic doesn’t mean that you have to abandon your passions.”
At home in the lab: Cárdenas is conducting neuroscience research in the lab of Professor of Biological Sciences Andrea Holgado, whose team manipulates mutations in C. elegans, a microscopic roundworm with some structural resemblances to humans, to learn about neurodegenerative disease development in people. “Research has
helped me to actually think like a scientist,” he says.
On the air: Cárdenas has his own show on Topper Radio, the student-run station. It’s a mix of whatever music he’s listening to that week — be it punk, jazz or Björk — and commentary about thesongs and bands.
A student and a teacher: Cárdenas works as a supplemental instructor, leading
review sessions and offering extra help to students in Organic Chemistry. He says SIs have supported him through tough science courses in the past, and he’s glad for the chance to encourage other students.
“It’s a different perspective to think of the class not as a student, but as a teacher or tutor, where you’re helping others understand,” he says.
“I’ve found that being pragmatic doesn’t mean that you have to abandon your passions.”
GIANNA LIGOTINO ’23
BY ROBYN ROSS
IN SIXTH GRADE, Ethan Tobias ’23 planted his own garden and set up a compost bin in his backyard. “As I grew up, I knew I wanted taking care of the planet to be part of my career,” he remembers.
Now a senior at St. Edward’s, Tobias is majoring in Political Science and Business Administration with the goal of shaping environmental policy in Texas.
Tobias puts his values into practice by serving as the president of Students for Sustainability (SFS), which helps clubs, university departments and individuals live more lightly on the Earth. The group hosts forums about environmental justice and climate change, picks up trash and organizes hikes.
SFS runs the campus garden, a beloved space where experienced gardeners teach newbies how to cultivate crops including spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, jalapeños and sunflowers. Tobias’ twin brother, Luke Tobias ’23, is the garden director, and the two pass along the skills they learned years ago in their backyard garden.
“An important part of SFS’ mission is community building — bringing together people who are advocating for good change,” Tobias says.
He also works as the sustainability intern in University Operations, helping with initiatives such as recycling, composting and reducing the university’s
carbon footprint. Working alongside university leaders has helped him see issues from the perspectives of both a student activist and an administrator who makes long-term financial and logistical decisions.
Tobias is taking a mix of business and political science courses, as well as art history and religious studies. By far, his favorite class is The U.S. Congress, taught by Associate Professor of Political Science Nicholas Long. “The class is like a conversation,” Tobias says. “I love discussing my opinions and ideas with other students and the professor, but I also really like learning what they think.”
Tobias serves as director of the University Programming Board, which organizes entertainment for the whole campus: a comedy night, silent disco, movie screenings and Hillfest, a carnival with live music. He’s also the program director of The Big Event, an annual service extravaganza where students volunteer in parks, schools, animal shelters and food banks across Austin.
In rare moments of free time, Tobias goes hiking at St. Edward’s Park, a “hidden gem” in northwest Austin with flowing water and challenging hills. “Austin has so many trails and outside experiences,” he says. “No matter whether you’ve lived here five, 10 or 20 years, there’s new things to do.”
TAKE ON YOUR WORLD
ON A WARM October day, a group of students hiked to a research site on a rocky ridge at Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve. They got to work measuring 30-foot transects extending in each cardinal direction, noting the nearby species of trees and measuring each trunk’s diameter. They placed hula hoops on the ground and recorded the percentage of the enclosed area covered in vegetation, rock and soil. Raising the hula hoops above their heads, they estimated the proportion of the area covered by tree canopy.
climate change, so we need to go out into the environment and study it in person.”
The course is a component of the university’s new Environmental Biology and Climate Change major, a degree that prepares students to understand the forces that are remaking ecosystems around the world. The program dives into ecological theory, how climate change affects different organisms, how scientists study these impacts and the social justice dimensions of climate change.
BY ROBYN ROSSThe students’ work might appear tedious, but it’s critical to understanding the impact of climate change on Central Texas ecosystems. By recording today’s baseline conditions, the students provided measurements that later researchers can compare with data collected decades in the future. And by collecting the data themselves, the students in Kim O’Keefe’s Environmental Conservation and Climate Change course learned valuable field research skills.
“The best way to learn about something is to do it,” says O’Keefe, an assistant professor of Biological Sciences. “We’re learning about how the environment is changing with
Eve Dean ’23 says the major combines her loves for the outdoors, data and ecology. Plus, “It’s really hard to study any part of an ecosystem without the context of climate change,” she says. “Nothing is going to matter or make sense without that context. So in every class, we talk about: How are these species changing? What repercussions will this have on humans?”
Students in the program develop data science skills and conduct field research at Wild Basin, Spicewood Ranch and Blunn Creek Preserve. Together, these experiences will prepare them to develop data-driven solutions to the world’s most pressing environmental problem.
A new major prepares students to tackle the world’s most pressing environmental problem.
This year, freshmen at St. Edward’s participated in a Black Austin Tour, given by native Austinite Javier Wallace, that focuses on the significant contributions African Americans made to the city.
GEORGE FLOYD’S MURDER in 2020 sparked a national conversation around race, spurring many individuals and institutions to examine their own ties to racism in America. This year, freshmen at St. Edward’s also contemplated and discussed race through the university’s common theme, Reckoning with History.
As part of the Freshman Seminar, all incoming students read the book How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith, which explores how slavery continues to shape America today. Students also participated in a Black Austin Tour created by native Austinite Javier Wallace, who earned a PhD from The University of Texas. The downtown walking tours focus on the significant contributions African Americans made to the city.
“There was a time, in Travis County, that 40% of this population were enslaved Black people,” Wallace says. “The building blocks of this entire city and what it becomes to this day, it’s still off of Black people’s labor, expertise, knowledge, love, hopes, dreams.”
The tour begins at the State Capitol, built with granite and limestone quarried by prisoners entrenched in convict leasing. The brutal practice implemented after slavery involved mostly African American prisoners who were contracted out to perform cheap labor across the state. On the Capitol grounds, Wallace stops at the Texas African American History Memorial, which recounts African American history dating back to the 1500s. Several important leaders, such as U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan and Texas Revolution fighter Hendrick Arnold, are recognized.
When the Texas Governor’s Mansion was built in 1856, slavery was still legal and widespread across the state.
Before integration, some establishments on Congress did not allow African Americans inside unless they were employees. Students from area universities, including St. Edward’s, picketed in front of the historic Paramount Theatre and forced its desegregation. Students continued to protest, ultimately leading to the desegregation of lunch counters and stores.
The tour ends on Sixth Street, where historic Black businesses are spotlighted. In 1906, Black Austinites refused to ride streetcars, which ran on Sixth Street, after city officials announced they would be segregated. Wallace also highlights the music scene. His uncle opened the now-defunct Catfish Station in 1987. The Black nightclub was influential in the South by Southwest Music Festival’s decision to showcase R&B and hip-hop.
Following Emancipation, African Americans began to establish a life for themselves. Before the Austin History Center was built south of the square, two historically Black churches were established along the same block. Paul Quinn College, the first HBCU (historically Black colleges and universities) west of the Mississippi River, was founded on the same site in 1872.
The renaming of Doyle Hall to Equity Hall in 2022 represents one way St. Edward’s continues to reckon with its own history. The building is now home to the Office of Equity and Employee Relations and displays faculty and student work focused on equity and justice.
As part of the first-year experience, students explored the history of Black Austin.
In June 2022, 10 students and two professors spent more than a month absorbing the sights, sounds, smells and tastes — le vin! le fromage! — of Paris. Rescheduled after a two-year pandemic delay, The Art of Travel combined an art class taught by Professor of Art Hollis Hammonds and a travel journalism course taught by Professor of Journalism and Digital Media Jena Heath. The young artists and writers, most of whom did not speak French, visited the Louvre,
the Musée d’Orsay, the Centre Pompidou, Versailles and Giverny. But they did more than play tourist. Their assignments challenged them to chronicle their experiences through different media including daily Instagram posts, reported essays, sketches, watercolor and collage. These creative projects helped them capture memories while adding to their professional toolkits. The following excerpts offer readers a chance to travel vicariously to the City of Light.
Calista Robledo, June 4
It was so sweet to catch my last Texas sunrise for a while. I was intrigued by the shift in time zones, and how we were going to essentially fly into the sunrise in Europe.
THE CONCERT
Calista Robledo ’22 made a habit of ducking into churches. Every time she passed one — which was often, in Paris — she took a few minutes to light a candle, say a prayer and marvel at her surroundings.
The Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis church would become her favorite. Small chapels lined the sides of the nave, filled with statues of saints and paintings of biblical scenes. Robledo walked slowly toward the altar, craning her neck to gaze at the soaring ceiling. On her way out, she spotted a flyer promoting a Saturday-night concert at the church: Vivaldi, Mozart, Bach, Pachelbel.
Robledo grew up studying ballet in her hometown of Weslaco. She loved classical music, particularly strings. She decided to go.
On Saturday evening, Robledo took a seat in the third row. The acoustics were magnificent. The musicians’ bows moved in unison, catching the light. When the vocalist sang “Ave Maria,” she directed her gaze toward the gold-crowned statue of the Virgin Mary set into an ornate reredos. Tears tugged at Robledo’s eyes. As a Catholic with a strong devotion to Mary, Robledo’s heart was overflowing.
The assignment to post about her experience daily on Instagram made her feel a bit exposed at first, but she knew that social media was an important tool for a writer’s personal brand. She knew that travel journalists often documented their trips in blogs and videos as well as in their articles. Robledo had decided that she would join their ranks for her five weeks in Paris. She took out her phone and began to record.
Calista Robledo, June 8
On the way to Victor Hugo’s apartment we came across Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis church. The peace I felt when I walked in was surreal. Seeing these beautiful works of art represent the divine in this place of worship invoked the refreshing spiritual connection I think I’ve needed.
The Marché aux Puces de Paris SaintOuen boasts the title of the largest flea market in the world. The streets are lined with stores, and beyond them is a massive collection of warehouses filled with priceless antiques.
I wandered down hallways filled with mid-century loveseats and 1970s art and wardrobes that looked straight out of a period film. I began to imagine each item’s past: a shag rug that once belonged to an eccentric couple; a tall, metallic lamp that resided in an artist’s studio; and so on. Flea markets give used items a second chance, but the first one is what usually interests me the most.
Kessly Salinas, June 15
Had a picnic at Parc des Buttes-Chaumont and then walked over to Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. Giselle and I decided that we want a huge tombstone when we pass away, one that makes people think, “Wow, she must have been important if this is what her tombstone looks like.”
FROM
Over the summer, Kessly Salinas ’23 had packaged riblets at the Cargill meat processing plant in her Panhandle hometown. Her fingertips froze, even though she wore cotton gloves underneath her latex ones, but the icy air conditioning was a welcome contrast from the heat outside. The heat was what she remembered most about her childhood summers, when her family worked in the fields and she waited, sweating, in the truck.
Friona, population 4,100, was a friendly and supportive place. Salinas had watched older kids leave for a community college or a state school within an hour’s drive and then return after graduation. Some became teachers, and others worked at the Cargill plant, the largest company in town.
As the conveyor belt flowed past, bringing endless containers of riblets that Salinas labeled and boxed, she knew her future would look different. Going to college eight hours away at St. Edward’s initially struck her family and friends as far-fetched, but she’d gotten there with the help of the College Assistance Migrant Program.
She majored in Global Studies and imagined becoming a travel writer.
Now that she was in Paris, she wondered: What was I thinking? She was from a small town, out of her element navigating the Métro and ordering unfamiliar foods in a language she didn’t speak. You don’t belong here, she thought, as her class explored the Saint Ouen flea market, a sprawling complex that was more upscale vintage shop than rummage sale. You should be back at Cargill, working like everyone else.
Overwhelmed by the heat and the endless array of goods, Salinas ducked into a smaller shop devoted mostly to men’s clothing. She stood alone among the wares, listening to Frank Sinatra playing in the background. As she scanned the rows of nearly identical denim shirts and camouflage jackets, a sign on a nearby table caught her eye: Place des bon garçons. Suddenly, strangely, she felt less like an impostor. I’m here with two great professors, and I’m making friends, she thought. You can find a sense of belonging anywhere. It’s up to me.
THE FLEA MARKET
By Kessly Salinas
The shop didn’t look like much from the outside. Inside, a familiar smell wafted through the air: dust and old clothes, the smell that exists in thrift shops. There were furs, wicker baskets and camouflage/earthy toned jackets inside.
In the far-left corner of the shop, I spotted an American flag, which I hadn’t seen since I left the Rick Husband airport in Amarillo. The place made me think of hunting or camping clothes. The black sign on the table said “Place des bon garçons,” which translates to “place of good boys.” In that second, it all made sense to me. It’s not just clothes; it’s uniforms. It’s belonging.
The digital age has brought forth an overabundance of information, all readily accessible with the touch of a few buttons. The rate at which content is produced also means that ideas and memories can become buried by a never-ending stream of new information. Preservation becomes neglected.
The Albert-Kahn Museum and Gardens are a perfect example of the successful preservation of history, culture and memory. The museum is dedicated to Kahn’s Archives of the Planet, an expansive photographic catalog of culture from 1909 to 1931.
Kahn began working as a bank clerk at 16 and eventually amassed his fortune. Wanting to preserve cultures he believed would soon face extinction, he sent photographers to different regions of the world. The project resulted in almost 75,000 images of people and landscapes and 100 hours of film, some of which are on display in the museum.
The Archives of the Planet conserved different cultures by photographing mundane, everyday moments that were equally captivating and relatable. It is worth taking the time to follow in Kahn’s footsteps and remember the past as it slowly slips away.
Albert Kahn’s photographers documented everyday moments to guard against the forgetting of entire cultures. Like Kahn, Andrea Cardenas ’23 gravitated toward the everyday sights and places of Paris.
Her classmates ribbed her for not wanting to visit the Eiffel Tower or linger on the Champs-Élysées. But in a way, she felt like she already had been there: The internet was bursting with images of Paris’ iconic sites. Cardenas wanted to explore places that were more out of the way, less commercial and closer to the everyday life of Parisians.
She trained her attention — and her camera — on details: the dog waiting for his person to emerge from the cigarette shop. The hands of a waiter gathering a precarious tower of dishes. Two middle-aged men slumped on a couch at the Galeries Lafayette shopping center, their eyes closed — a scene re-created by countless American
fathers wearily waiting for their progeny to finish at the Gap. “Dads sitting in the mall transcends culture,” Cardenas captioned the image.
Later, when she was back home in Laredo, she would scroll through her Instagram photos and remember the moment when she took each one. The study abroad program’s emphasis on observation and documentation forced her to pay attention and form clear impressions and memories. Every night, she took time to reflect on each day’s events — including, shortly before her departure from Paris, her single visit to the Eiffel Tower. As the late-evening sun sank toward the horizon, she sat on the grass with classmates and soaked in the golden hour.
BY THE EIFFEL TOWER, she captioned the photo. The Art of Travel is the best travel experience of my life.
Kessly Salinas, June 18
I didn’t bring a book with me from back home, so it was nice flipping through some pages and attempting to understand the French words I was reading. I learned that resistance fighters used to hide out in libraries during the Nazi occupation of Paris.
A lone duffel bag – not mine – remained on the endlessly looping luggage-claim conveyor belt. I could no longer ignore the bitter truth: my suitcase had not arrived.
I exited the airport with only a small carry-on containing my laptop, some toiletries, a pair of white Converse sneakers and yoga pants. What else could I do? Choosing to sulk would only further sully a trip I had eagerly anticipated for months.
My lost suitcase did not ruin my trip. I was too engrossed in my environment to have any thoughts about my appearance. It was easier to focus on a different struggle: getting a
French waiter’s attention. Toward the end of my trip, while sitting at a café, I looked down at my once-white, nowbeige sneakers. They looked as though they had been to hell and back. But I did not complain. I didn’t even have time to — our elusive waiter was finally approaching the table. I studied the two empty glasses of Kir Royal before me and thought hard about my next decision. “Another one, merci!” I told the waiter with a smile.
For dreams to come true, we need to step out of our comfort zones.
My experience of Paris was the duality of loving every stroll along the Seine — and completely missing Lady Bird Lake. I giggled over trying escargot for the first time — while longing for a quesadilla. By the middle of the third week, I grew accustomed to this tension.
I wanted to experience life as a young writer in Paris. And this existence meant observing old women sketching outside of cafés, trying an Aperol spritz and getting tired of French food. It meant debriefing a night out over fresh
croissants and espresso at 5 in the morning before going to the Eiffel Tower. It meant finding a love for collage and watercolor after years of fearing drawing. It meant feeling in awe of castles that are actually called châteaux and feeling drained in the city but refreshed in the countryside.
Every piece of wonder on this trip was accompanied by something unsettling. But I think that’s how dreams work. In the end, I wouldn’t change anything about my Paris dream come true. It was refreshing to live this dream in all of its uncomfortable fullness. And I’m ready for the next one.
Today we visited the Grande Mosquée de Paris!! I’d never been inside a mosque, nor did I know much about Islam before today. I think my favorite thing that I learned here was how significant intentionality is in the Islamic faith. Our tour guide spoke of people's intentionality when washing themselves before praying, during prayer and in how they live.
In Spring 2023, the School of Arts and Humanities launched a Digital Storytelling and Content Creation degree program designed to help students hone their storytelling skills in the digital space. The 30-hour major combines design, data, video, audio and writing in a crossdisciplinary approach to help students master highly marketable digital skills.
stedwards.edu/digital-storytelling
The Opera! Countless operas and ballets have been performed here since 1875. The golden rooms had me imagining post-show socials in magnificent gowns surrounded by miraculous talent.
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IS CIVIL DIALOGUE POSSIBLE IN THE FACE OF DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSING VIEWS?
HILLTOPPERS SHARE THE TOOLS THEY USE TO ENGAGE IN CHALLENGING CONVERSATIONS AMID DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRIAN STAUFFER
it’s hard to have a constructive conversation with a person who holds different views. And with many of us sorting ourselves into like-minded groups —in our neighborhoods, churches and social circles — sometimes our only interaction with people who think differently is online, or with aggressive Uncle Jake over Thanksgiving dinner.
St. Edward’s is breaking the impasse by building graduates’ ability to hold peaceful, respectful conversations with those who disagree. On these pages, we spotlight five members of the university community who are helping Americans replace toxic conflict with constructive disagreement.
Four days after the 2016 presidential election, Chris Collins ’04 stood on a San Francisco sidewalk, stunned at the result. He had lived in the Bay Area for five years, and nearly everyone he knew shared his shock. A stranger approached, and Collins instinctively smiled at the woman. When she reached Collins, she said, “I dare not say anything in this city, but I’m happy about the election. Trump’s election was about economics. It wasn’t about race. Racism isn’t as bad as it was in the 1960s and ’70s.”
Collins took a breath. They were both white. “As white people, we can’t just decide if racism is or is not as bad as it used to be,” he said. “We need to listen to people who actually experience it.”
“Well,” the woman responded, “these days in San Francisco, if you open your mouth about anything that isn’t in line with the left, you’ll get run out of town.”
The woman wished him well and went on her way, leaving Collins to wonder why she had chosen to confide in him. But a bigger question gnawed at him: Why couldn’t more Americans have direct conversations about their disagreements?
Collins, who works in federal government, had been attending Glide Memorial Church in the Tenderloin, which focuses on helping people living on the street and attracts a racially and socioeconomically diverse congregation. He pitched his idea to a pastor, and a few weeks later, Glide hosted the first meeting of Collins’ new project, Different Together.
Different Together meetings draw between 10 and 40 people, ideally from across the political spectrum. After participants agree to basic ground rules — speak about
your own experience; avoid generalizing about people — they divide into small groups to discuss the night’s topic, such as healthcare, policing or Jan. 6, by answering a series of questions or prompts. For instance, a discussion of policing after George Floyd’s murder in May 2020 included the prompt, “Tell me about your experiences with law enforcement growing up.”
Each person in each small group has two minutes of uninterrupted time to share. Everyone else’s job is to listen. If time permits, people can ask one another questions or respond to points made earlier. The process continues through four or five questions.
Different Together leaders don’t publicize topics in advance because they don’t want participants to arrive armed with research. “We want people to come in fresh and speak based on their experiences, versus having all the stats to support their argument,” Collins says. “We’re trying to see what happens when we don’t focus on debating the facts and just
focus on getting curious and trying to understand one another.”
The goal is not to change people’s minds or to feign consensus where none exists. The Different Together process exposes participants to different perspectives. It lets them hear from real people — not strangers quoted in news stories, not bots on Twitter — face to face.
In a world of increasing polarization, Collins says the work of Different Together has helped him be a more reasonable person, one who is committed to discovering the flaws in his own arguments and seeking even a grain of truth in the other side’s perspective. “I don’t want to sub -
scribe to dogma; I want to subscribe to solutions to problems,” he says. “And if I am not making myself uncomfortable by having some of these conversations, then I am more likely to subscribe to dogma.”
Collins shares what he has learned from Different Together in his 2021 book, Mending Our Union: Healing Our Communities Through Courageous Conversations. The project was only possible because of his St. Edward’s education, he says. Collins had never been a strong student until he came to the hilltop, but there he found professors who encouraged him as a thinker and helped him sharpen his writing. Outside
of class, Collins was on the Student Leadership Team, where he learned facilitation skills that he later used to direct Different Together conversations. His senior year, he won a Presidential Award.
Mending Our Union includes a guide for people who want to replicate Different Together in their own communities. Collins is honest with readers that the work is challenging. But he says the reward is having faith in humanity restored — at least for an evening.
“Connecting in a community of well-meaning people to talk intimately about our different backgrounds and experiences — it just does wonders for my outlook on humanity,” he says. “To be reminded that while there’s a lot of valid reasons to be cynical, this world also has a lot of really good people, that restores my hope.”
Walter C. Long MAC ’14 started the Texas After Violence Project in 2007 after years serving as an appellate attorney on death penalty cases. Working on behalf of the defendant, he reexamines cases to find factors that might change the outcome, such as missteps by either counsel; new evidence that could be introduced; and junk science that should not have been considered. Some of his clients ultimately have been executed. The work exposes him to the death penalty’s effects on families of the defendant and victim, prison staff, other lawyers, judges, jurors and even chaplains. With the founding of the Texas After Violence Project, he aimed to encourage more thoughtful, nuanced conversations about capital punishment and the criminal justice system. TAVP has recorded dozens of hours of oral history interviews with people affected by the death penalty. They reveal stories far more complex than the usual political sound bites.
A while back, the death penalty abolition movement decided it was going to take a multipronged approach to the issue. Recognizing that different people cared about different things, organizers decided they would argue all those issues at the same time. So: There’s no evidence that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime. Innocent people have been executed. It’s expensive for the state. It’s disproportionally applied across racial groups.
But all these arguments just invite arguments on the other side. What I wanted when I founded TAVP was to open another space where we can just become aware of what the system we’ve built is doing to us. And then come together in a discussion around, well, ‘How do we create a system that doesn’t cause so much harm?’
We were receiving stories from all sides of the issue: prodeath penalty family members of the victim, prosecutors, defense attorneys, family members of the prisoners. The goal was just to collect that raw experience for sharing with the public.
Our society is driven by stories, and I think official stories — powerful stories — tend to get heard most of the time. They can hide the other stories, and persons who don’t have strong voices, and who don’t have a way to facilitate others hearing
them. There are so many stories just around a death penalty case. And it’s really important for our society to open up space for the full diversity of voices.
There are stories from persons who support the death penalty. And some people may, in fact, feel that they benefited from an execution. And that should be heard. But at the same time, the stories of persons who were very traumatized by living for years under the threat of an execution or by an execution that went through also need to be heard. My training in family systems therapy at St. Edward’s deepened my understanding of the death penalty as a fundamentally cruel system. By empowering the state to wield the threat of death, capital punishment oppresses and traumatizes everyone within its sphere of influence while it hides its own violence from itself in the same way abusive families do.”
One week after the November midterms, 20 students gathered in a Munday Library classroom to discuss Gov. Greg Abbott’s win over challenger Beto O’Rourke. The event was coordinated by leaders in the St. Edward’s chapter of Young Conservatives of Texas and BridgeHilltop, a club that focuses on cultivating constructive political dialogue.
After a quick recap of the election results, BridgeHilltop founder and president Emma Viquez ’23 nudged the discussion toward issues that factored into the race.
“Let’s think about gun safety and gun rights,” she began. “Guns are very prevalent in Texas, which has a lot of gun owners, a lot of hunting, and also a lot of mass shootings. Please speak from your personal experience and share your thoughts on our current gun policy.”
Pedro Galvan ’24, the chairman of the Young Conservatives of Texas chapter, spoke first. “I’m a huge gun advocate, and I want to get my license when I turn 21. But I believe in background checks. A gun should be in the hands of a person who knows how to use it; there should be a process and training.”
BridgeHilltop co-vice president Hailey Green ’24 raised her hand. “I grew up hunting and going to the shooting range. I 100% agree. I don’t recommend getting a gun unless you know how to use it. And having kids in households with guns is a huge problem. It’s your responsibility to lock your weapons.”
Nic Carrillo ’23, the other co-vice president, offered another perspective. “I’m from El Paso, where a friend’s family member was killed in the Walmart mass shooting. I don’t support banning all guns, but a lot of mass shootings involve AR-15s, and maybe those should be restricted.”
Jacob Hughey ’23 raised his hand. “Why do I have to do 120 hours of training to drive, and I don’t have to do that when buying a gun?”
After a few more people had spoken, Viquez summarized the discussion. “It seems like, as a room, we’re leaning more toward gun safety as a way to address the violence we see in Texas right now, rather than restricting access to guns. Is that true?” The students nodded.
Viquez founded BridgeHilltop to give students a forum to discuss charged political issues in a respectful way. The
WALTER C. LONG MAC ’14
"OUR SOCIETY IS DRIVEN BY STORIES, AND I THINK OFFICIAL — POWERFUL STORIES — TEND TO GET HEARD MOST OF THE TIME."
WALTER C. LONG MAC ’14
SYLLABUS :
Who should take this class?
People who want to travel or do business abroad; better understand themselves; and improve their ability to talk with family, neighbors and strangers
Before we can even think about other cultures’ values, we have to examine our own. “I tell my students, it’s like asking a fish, ‘How’s the water?’ and the fish says, ‘What water?’” Peterson says. “It’s really hard for us to understand our own cultural influences because we’ve been surrounded by them our whole life. Once we unpack that, we can start talking about other people’s values and why they may be similar or different from ours.”
Write about the cultural influences that shaped your own value set. Where were you raised? (For instance, did you grow up with a strong sense of Texan identity?) What were your parents’ backgrounds? What role, if any, did religion play in your life? “The neighborhood you lived in, the school you went to, the organizations you joined, your church groups — all of this is part of your worldview,” Peterson says.
Three attitudes are key for intercultural competence: tolerance for ambiguity, empathy and nonjudgmentalism. Her students generally have tolerance for ambiguous situations, “but empathy and nonjudgmentalism are things our Gen Z students don’t see much in the world around them,” she says. “I try to infuse that back into my classes any way I can.”
Intercultural communicators fall along a spectrum of development:
Unconscious incompetence: not knowing the norms and values of another culture and not even being aware that you should know them. For example, a person who starts to wear her shoes into a Buddhist temple and doesn’t understand why she’s asked to remove them.
Conscious incompetence: knowing you’re probably making mistakes in an unfamiliar culture but not knowing what you’re doing wrong. For example, trying to speak a foreign language but suspecting you’re using some phrases incorrectly.
Conscious competence: engaging appropriately with people from another culture but having to actively think about it. For example, having to remind yourself not to make direct eye contact in certain cultures.
Unconscious competence: being truly fluent in another culture without having to think about it; being bicultural. Peterson tries to help her students progress to at least conscious competence.
FINAL PAPER
Self-evaluate your intercultural communication skills and propose a roadmap for further improvement.
LORI
Peterson, a professor of Communication, has been teaching at St. Edward’s for 22 years. Her interest in the study of human communication arose from her earlier career as a social worker, where she witnessed how empathic listening and compassionate responding could transform lives.
Coculture: a culture within a culture; a group that’s not part of the dominant culture. It has its own norms and terminology. Examples include Mexican American culture, LGBTQ culture, military culture.
organization is a chapter of national nonprofit Bridge USA, a student movement to reduce political polarization on campus. Viquez met BridgeUSA founder Manu Meel during a summer academic program in Washington, D.C. She launched the St. Edward’s chapter in Spring 2021.
Now Viquez works with four other board members whose views span the political spectrum. They plan events that focus on topics such as climate change, abortion and marijuana legalization. One popular format is “political speed
dating,” in which groups of four people discuss a series of issues, each one with an allotted amount of time. At the end of the session, Viquez urges participants to think about whether they learned anything new. Other events are structured in the style of YouTubefamous Jubilee discussions, in which people physically move to a different space in the room based on whether they agree, disagree or are neutral on a particular statement.
In order to present arguments on all sides of an issue accurately, Viquez invests a
lot of time researching each issue. For one meeting, she created a presentation about the border, immigration and Abbott’s Operation Lone Star.
“Doing research like that, where you are forced to really dig into the conservative perspective as well as the liberal perspective and their overlap, you can see that both genuinely do care for human life,” she says. “The disagreement is with the policies. When I get into conversation with other people, I hear their experience and their stories and then try to come to a solution: Is there an area where we all can agree?
“That’s always the part that I value the most at my events,” she says. “It makes me feel like I have had some success.”
In February 1983, the Ku Klux Klan staged a march through downtown Austin. Between 50 and 70 Klansmen walked — under heavy police escort — to the State Capitol, passing more than 1,500 protestors who’d turned out to counter the group’s hateful message. At the conclusion of the group’s rally, something went terribly wrong, and the Klansmen, counterdemonstrators and police ended up embroiled in a melee. A Houston television station captured footage of police beating Mexican American activist Paul Hernandez. The police later said that Hernandez had struck the officers first.
Greg Bourgeois ’86 remembers that shortly afterward, one of his professors invited representatives from the different factions to visit class — separately — and talk about their experiences. What did they see? What did they feel? What had they intended to accomplish that day? Students were asked not to offer empathy to the KKK, or justify the police, or valorize the protestors — just to listen to the same story told from different angles.
“What had been presented as a singular event actually was a bunch of different stories coming together in one place at one time,” Bourgeois says. “Delving behind the headlines and seeing what the underlying stories were lit a fire in me to keep doing that in a different context.”
Since 1995, Bourgeois has been finding the underlying stories as a professional mediator. Mediation offers a more efficient, less expensive and more personalized alternative to litigation and arbitration. Mediators are neutral parties who help the opposing parties communicate and work out a solution to their problem. The job requires active listening skills and an ability to discern the intention — or the underlying story — behind a person’s spoken words.
Bourgeois started out as an attorney. Early in his legal career, a judge ordered him and his opposing counsel into mediation. In one day, they were able to resolve multiple cases that had been in litigation for years. Bourgeois was hooked. He trained to become a mediator and, in 2000, co-founded the Lakeside Mediation Center in Austin.
In mediations, Bourgeois urges the parties to shift from position-based arguments — “I’m right, and you’re wrong, because … ” — to interest-based negotiations. This means finding the motivations and values behind the parties’ positions, and trying to find the areas where those values overlap. He also helps each party check their assumptions about the other side’s position.
“If you can help people work through the assumptions that they’re making about the other side, then you can test those assumptions to see if they’re true,” he says. “In many cases, they’re not.”
For instance, in one divorce case Bourgeois mediated, everything was going well until the couple had to decide the fate of their coffee maker. Negotiations screeched to a halt. After asking a few questions, Bourgeois teased out that the coffee maker had been a gift from one spouse to the other and had dramatically different connotations for the two parties. “Everybody has their own story, and until you delve into those, you can’t find the answer,” he says. “But you have to be willing to listen to the other side of the story as well.”
OUR SOURCES SHARED THEIR STRATEGIES FOR CONSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUE IN THE FACE OF DIFFERENCE.
Diversify your sources of information and whom you follow on social media. Think twice before following accounts that are designed to stoke outrage — ones that share attention-grabbing headlines or inflammatory video clips but offer little context.
When you’re in a tense conversation, in person or online, take a deep breath before you respond. In conversations about especially charged topics, Different Together facilitators pause for 60 seconds of silence after each speaker to let others process what they’ve heard.
PAUSE FOR 60 SECONDS.
Particularly for long-term dialogues — such as with a friend or family member — spend some time thinking about your own values before you engage the other person.
What life experiences have shaped your views?
How did you come to hold the beliefs you hold today?
Everyone makes snap judgments based on the hidden biases we hold. Ask yourself about the assumptions you’re making about the person you’re talking with or the group you’re learning about.
What are they based on?
Can you verify whether they’re accurate?
OR
Practice having conversations with strangers before you try talking politics with Uncle Jake at Thanksgiving. Look for events hosted by groups similar to Different Together — try Braver Angels and the BetterArguments Project.
Focus on making more time for face-to-face conversations. TALK
“You need to set aside your own biases when you’re listening to another perspective, and you need to actually absorb what the person is saying in order to give a constructive response,” Viquez says.
Have compassion for yourself as well as the other person. “When you don’t judge yourself as harshly, you can be open to not judging others harshly,” says Long. “You can step into their shoes and try to experience things the way they do.”
Remember that you’re not required to engage with Uncle Jake — or anyone who is being disrespectful or insulting. “Show grace,” Collins says. “But if you extend grace to somebody, and that person doesn’t return it, then they have just isolated themselves from a meaningful connection. That’s the choice they have made.”
In 2019, Austin Football Club became the city’s first major league sports team. St. Edward’s University students and alumni are working behind the scenes — and out in the community — to make it an integral part of the capital city’s culture.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHELSEA PURGAHN
was a little past 9 a.m. on a sunny Friday morning during his final semester at St. Edward’s University when Tony Ho ’21 first heard the muffled cacophony. The grunts. The shouts. The whistles and the claps. The hollow phwump! of the soccer ball.
The metal clink! of the goal posts. The sounds rang out in the distance from his campus apartment, growing louder as he walked to class.
Born in Vietnam, Ho immigrated to the United States at 4 years old and moved to the Austin suburbs in third grade. He picked up soccer four years later, when his cousin immigrated, too. Ho played in middle school and high school and enrolled at St. Edward’s hoping to walk on with the Hilltoppers.
Then reality settled in. Academics took over.
“I saw my friends on the team juggling practice schedules and coursework and was like, ‘Maybe this isn’t what I want.’”
Still, after so many years tuned into the game, after so many balls kicked and so many shins bruised, the ambient sounds of the sport piqued his curiosity. He walked a little faster now. A little taller. He passed the Mary Moody Northen Theatre and the Sorin Oak, and when he looked off to his right, through a clearing in the trees, he was gobsmacked to find the city’s new Major League Soccer team, Austin FC, scrimmaging on the same sunny pitch where he’d once dreamed of playing. The team’s trendy new logo — two leafy live oaks, green and intertwined — was splashed across the midfield.
He stopped. He stared. And in that moment, he says, spellbound by the athletes’ speed, their stamina, their utter physicality — warm with nostalgia for the whole atmosphere of the sport — his desires crystallized. Just months shy of completing his Business Management degree, Ho now saw the path ahead. One day, he thought, I’m going to work for Austin FC.
“If you had told me when I was 12 that I’d be here, I’d probably pinch myself,” he says. Less than two years later, he’s now a marketing coordinator for Austin FC, the first major league pro sports team in the city. “It’s surreal.”
The passion Ho felt that morning during preseason practice, he says, he now feels daily on the job. It’s the passion that keeps him coming back. That game day atmosphere. The people — the fans and his colleagues. And it’s the job’s overarching mission.
“Yeah, it’s soccer. But if you think about it in a different way, it’s more than soccer,” he says. “It’s kind of like, How do you build community?”
AUSTIN had long been a soccer city. The youth leagues were exceedingly competitive. Both The University of Texas and St. Edward’s boasted winning teams. Attendance for Mexican League matches in the city was consistently strong. And though ultimately stymied by infrastructure and other issues, the city twice hosted Division II MLS clubs: first the Austin Aztex, and later Austin Bold FC. Still, Austin was the largest market in the nation without a professional team, says Alfredo Naim ’07, director of fan development for Austin FC.
“There’s always been a really strong soccer spirit,” Naim says. “Austin just didn’t have a way to share it with the world.”
That all changed in January 2019, when, after years of behindthe-scenes maneuvering, the MLS finally welcomed Austin FC as its newest franchise.
“We’re going to unite this city,” said Anthony Precourt, the club’s majority owner. “We’re going to make you proud.”
But the community building started years earlier. When Austin FC began searching for a potential stadium site, they briefly considered open space at St. Edward’s. The conversation didn’t last long, but fast-forward a few years to its first preseason in the spring of 2021, and the club was scrambling to find a practice facility.
Soon, the new Q2 Stadium would fill with thousands of screaming fans. And the St. David’s Performance Center, Austin FC’s new $45 million training complex, would suit the team’s every need. But soon wasn’t soon enough. After surveying several options, the new club contracted with St. Edward’s to practice on the Lewis-Chen Family Field, in the heart of campus, and — as a sign of appreciation — to endow an athletic scholarship for NCAA Division II student-athletes.
“They were here for a few months, and then their practice facility was ready, and their season kicked off and they moved on,” says Gregory Perrin, associate vice president for development and alumni relations at the university. “But it’s a really great relationship.”
To hear them tell it, a magic bewitched Ho, Naim and so many other Hilltoppers during that first preseason, evidenced by the fandom already germinating on campus, the talent spilling beyond the goal posts, the dreams sparked by the club’s distant, muffled sounds.
“Whenever you would walk through campus and see our team finally together after all the struggle, training in the middle of all those mighty oaks, it was cathartic,” says Naim. “You kind of felt like it was destiny.”
TODAY, when fans think of Austin FC, they likely think of its starting lineup of elite athletes. But like every professional sports franchise, the players and coaching staff are supported by publicists, community liaisons, operations managers and more who bolster the team and ultimately the city it represents, too.
And if the league’s 2022 Mark Abbott MLS Club Awards are any indication, the rest of the organization in Austin is a well-oiled machine. The MLS recently named Austin FC — in just its second year — the Marketing Team of the Year, the Communications Team of the Year, the Ticket Sales Team of the Year and the Medical Staff of the Year. Club president Andy Loughnane was named the 2022 Doug Hamilton Executive of the Year.
“In addition to Austin FC’s many business achievements,” the MLS stated in the awards announcement, “the club has fostered one of the most passionate fan bases and stadium atmospheres in the League.”
That’s where Naim comes in. Born in Mexico City, Naim — like the rest of his family — has always loved fútbol. They spent virtually every Sunday at Estadio Azteca, cheering for Club América, one of the city’s three professional teams, with a sea of other fans. But Naim’s father was an elastics manufacturer, and when the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed in 1993, he jumped at the opportunity to expand his market in the United States. He moved both his factory and his family across the border to McAllen, in the Rio Grande Valley.
Naim kept cheering for Club América from afar, and he kept playing soccer himself. When it was time to choose a college, he headed five hours north to Austin, a city with a deep-rooted passion for soccer, even though it didn’t have a pro team. St. Edward’s, too, had always been a soccer school, he says, its Division II men’s and women’s teams often leading their conference. And its international student body made him feel welcome.
“Once I visited Austin and took a campus tour, I immediately fell in love with both the city and the university,” he says. “And as time went on, I kept on falling in love.”
After completing his degree in Business Administration, he became a sales assistant for two stations owned by Waterloo Media — KLBJ-AM and KLZT, a local Spanish-language radio station. He started producing live events for KLZT. And when Mexican League soccer teams toured through the city, he helped coordinate fan fests and other events.
“Whenever we brought Mexican League matches to the Dell Diamond, we got really strong attendance,” he says. “That’s why promoters ended up making Austin a stop for Mexican League soccer. The demand was so high.”
Eventually Naim sold a sponsorship for Blues on the Green, one of Waterloo Media’s biggest events, to Austin FC, yet another way for the city’s new professional soccer club to introduce itself to the community. Naim stayed in touch with his contacts at the club, and when the manager of community
Yeah, it’s soccer. But if you think about it in a different way, it’s more than soccer. It’s kind of like, How do you build community?
“ “
— TONY HO ’21
marketing position opened up in February 2020, he jumped at the opportunity.
“My role is to engage with our fan base and maintain Austin FC’s community relations,” he says. “It’s a lot of relationship building, analyzing markets and behaviors. I use my background in economics every day.”
In addition to his in-house team of three, Naim manages the Oak Ops, a group of about 30 brand ambassadors and community liaisons named after Austin FC’s oak tree logo — itself a reference to the synergy and intertwined spirits of the city and the club. Naim also considers the group a conduit for drawing talented Austin FC enthusiasts into the club, a steppingstone between fandom and full employment. Both Ho and Emely Alvarado ’21, now Austin FC’s media coordinator, worked gigs for Oak Ops before hiring on.
“Those are two huge success stories,” Naim says. “They’ve gone through the journey that we designed, which is specifically to find people in the community who have the qualities — the hunger and the love for the sport — to go through the ranks and hopefully, one day, be in club leadership.”
BORN and raised in Austin, Alvarado was the first in her family to go to college. Her senior year, she started wondering what she would do with her Communication degree. She considered sideline reporting. She received special permission from the athletics department to interview a runner on the cross country team, just for practice.
Then, she says, “things finally fell into place.”
Months before graduating from St. Edward’s, she started working part time as an assistant social media manager for Capital City Soccer, a digital outlet covering all things Austin FC. She first met Naim at an Austin FC event at Easy Tiger, a local beer garden, before the team’s first season. Naim and his Oak Ops crew were selling merchandise from the Verde Van, a customized 1983 Chevy Barth motor home.
“Emely came up to me and mentioned that she loves soccer, that she wanted to be part of Austin FC,” Naim says. “I interviewed her and immediately thought she would be a great asset.”
Alvarado finished out her senior year contracting with Oak Ops. She then worked part time for Austin FC’s media operations department on game days before joining full time as the media and communications coordinator.
She was just two days into the job when her boss pulled her aside before a press conference and asked her to interpret for Jhojan Valencia, the team’s new midfielder from Colombia. Minutes later, she was standing on the sidelines before a pool of hungry reporters and a player she hadn’t met. When Valencia finished speaking, the reporters stared, waiting for her to begin.
Spanish is Alvarado’s native tongue, but translating on the spot — oscillating rapidly between languages and dialects — was difficult. In the beginning, she relied on her phone, typing notes so she wouldn’t forget what the players said when it came her turn to speak. But now, after a year on the job, she’s comfortable with the role. She’s ditched the phone. She pivots with ease. The translation flows without interruption.
“When people meet me, they’re like, ‘You’re so lucky. You get to see the players every day.’ You sometimes get a little used to it,” she says. “But I’m definitely blessed. And I will say this: They’re awesome. All of them.”
By all accounts, the players feel the same about Alvarado. Last fall, a handful of players from the team’s starting lineup appeared on Mate con Vos, a livestreaming show for Austin FC produced, in part, by Alvarado. More than halfway through the
TOP: Fans celebrate Austin FC's first MLS Cup Playoffs qualification on Sept. 22, 2022.
MIDDLE (left to right): Ho, Covarrubias and Naim at Q2 Stadium in north Austin.
broadcast, apropos of nothing, they turned the tables. They started hyping their “little sister,” calling her a “phenomenon.”
“That makes me feel good,” she says. “That makes me proud.”
HO and Alvarado worked their way up the Austin FC ladder, turning part-time gigs into full-time jobs. José Covarrubias ’18 took a different route — he nearly went pro himself.
“Soccer has always been a huge part of my life,” says Covarrubias, now a coordinator with the Austin FC Academy, a feeder club. “I became who I am because of the game.”
His earliest memories from his childhood in Guadalajara are spherical: a soccer ball, an orange, anything he might kick around his grandmother’s house. As soon as he could walk, he says, he kicked. He calls it “an urgency,” and it’s been there from the start.
He joined his first youth fútbol club at just 5 years old. Ten years later, he was playing for a semipro team outside of Guadalajara. At 16, he was playing with an academy for top athletes in Christchurch, New Zealand. After moving with his family to Houston and graduating from high school, he caught up to his dreams. An agent landed him tryouts with several professional clubs back in Mexico.
“I could still play at a high level, and open some doors, and who knows?” he says. “There might still be an opportunity for me to play professionally afterward.”
After Covarrubias attended a summer camp hosted by the St. Edward’s men’s soccer team, the coaches invited him to join. During his senior year, a new coach, Tyson Wahl, started volunteering at St. Edward’s. Wahl had just retired after 11 years in Major League Soccer. After graduation, Covarrubias worked toward an online master’s degree via the Football Business Academy in Switzerland, and when he needed an internship to finish the degree, he circled back to Wahl, now general manager of the new Austin FC Academy. He figured the club’s new youth program could use another hand.
“It’ll be a win-win situation,” he told Wahl.
He was right. Today, Covarrubias is the academy coordinator, running logistics (and occasionally coaching) for five different teams of youth age 13 to 17 competing in MLS Next, the MLS’s youth league. Ideally, he says, some of them will eventually play for Austin FC “and be the heroes that you see on TV.” But more important, he says, is “to engrave in them the Austin FC identity.
“We understand not everyone’s going to be a professional player. That’s just the reality,” he says. “They need to look at the big picture. I mean, look what happened to me.”
Covarrubias opted not to go pro, but he’s found a career that still immerses him in the soccer community every day.
“I feel part of something much, much bigger than myself, and it still ties to that dream of playing professional soccer,” he says. “It’s the same passion, and it drives me, and it drives the people I work with.”
THANKS to alumni like Naim, Ho and others, the St. Edward’s-to-Austin FC pipeline is growing more robust. But all of them will tell you that supporters groups like Los Verdes and La Murga de Austin are every bit as vital to the club as the front office. The band, especially, Naim says, “is something that we’re really proud of.
“ The supporters love it, and as a staff, we love it, too. It’s a huge asset that happened organically. They’re there to support the club, but also to express what the community is all about.”
In fútbol, supporters groups are organized fan clubs independent from the team’s management that fervently promote the brand. Some cities have more robust supporters groups than others, but few in the United States are more vibrant and inclusive than those in Austin, says Naim, whose entire department works closely with each of them.
“The grassroots effort to get the club to Austin morphed into the supporters groups,” he says. “Once we got the stadium, they shifted their focus to supporting the club. The supporters groups truly represent the community as a whole.”
“I felt pretty confident I would have gotten something out of that,” he says. “But that’s what scared me.”
At 18, he was old enough to see the big picture. A single injury could end his professional career, he knew. And if it didn’t work out, he’d be right back where he started, but so many years older, without a degree or serious job prospects. He decided the better option was to get a college education.
And certainly none is louder than La Murga de Austin, the supporters section band. Sometime in 2017, shortly after Precourt’s ownership group started discussing the possibility of an MLS team in Austin, the band’s organizers — influenced by the fútbol atmosphere in Central and South America — started brainstorming. By the time Austin FC was lacing up for its first game, the band was already performing throughout the city, blasting popular cover songs with custom lyrics and chants.
Stephanie (Prado) Dempsey ’08 and her husband, Edward Dempsey ’05, are both members of La Murga de Austin. Neither
Once I visited Austin and took a campus tour, I immediately fell in love with both the city and the university.
“ “
— ALFREDO NAIM ’07
saw it coming. They attended local watch parties for every game while Q2 Stadium was still under construction, but they were initially skeptical of the circus that surrounded them at the bars. The drums. The brass. The chanting. The band’s members acted as though they were marching in a Mardi Gras parade — or, more accurately, a South American Carnaval celebration.
“What are these people doing? Why are they so loud? Why are they doing this?” she remembers asking her husband.
“In the English Premier League, they’re in the stands doing this all the time,” he told her.
“Yeah, but these people are at a bar.”
In the beginning, Dempsey admits, she just didn’t get it. But her attitude quickly changed after the couple attended their first away game in Denver. They spent two days roaming the city with roughly 200 other Austin FC fans, and when they hit the stadium that Saturday, the atmosphere was electric.
“Once you hear those drum beats, and that snare …,” she says, pausing, her eyes lighting up. “When you give yourself up to it, you start to feel the band’s energy. You start to feel the passion, not just for the music, but for the team and the players, too.”
Back home again, she started paying closer attention to the chants, and soon she was practicing hand signals as a wannabe “capo” — a captain who helps direct — with La Murga de Austin every Tuesday, just outside the stadium. She’s never been a musician and doesn’t play any instruments, but she’s been a teacher for most of her career, and after using her inside voice all week, she’s ready to let loose come game day.
“Being able to scream and just let it out — Aaahhh!” she roars with a smile. “It’s almost like my meditation.”
The more Dempsey talks about La Murga de Austin, the more she sounds like Naim, and Ho, and Alvarado and Covarrubias, too. As Ho put it, “it’s more than soccer.” Whether they’re approaching Austin FC from the band or the academy, from the perspective of media or supporter engagement, they’re all motivated, in the end, by Ho’s question: How do you build community?
“I think the club is major for Austin, especially right now, in the times that we live in,” Dempsey says. “This is that connection that’s going to hold us together no matter what’s happening outside of us.”
2018
Year founded
20,738 38
Q2 Stadium capacity
Consecutive home game sellouts, currently the longest active streak in MLS
A brass and drum band steeped in the traditions of murga — Latin American fan support bands — La Murga de Austin leads the chants and cheers that thunder throughout the stadium. The bombo murguero, a colossal bass drum with cymbals (platillos) affixed to the top, drives the rhythm section.
“Green Until Death”
“Ready! Verde!” “Come on, Austin!”
dale, atX!
Golazo!
A spectacular goal, a scorcher
Alvarado was just two days into the job when her boss pulled her aside before a press conference and asked her to interpret for the team’s new midfielder from Colombia.
1. Stephanie (Prado) Dempsey ’08 (with her daughter) leads La Murga to hype up fans before a home game on Sept. 14, 2022. 2. Ho and Naim get prepped on the pitch at Q2 Stadium. 3. Moussa Djitté comes off the bench to score the first hat trick in club history in front of a sold-out home crowd on Sept. 14, 2022, at Q2 Stadium. 4. Austin FC fans celebrate a goal at Q2 Stadium.
IN HER LAST SEMESTER at St. Edward’s University, Leah Pinney ’05 interned with the ACLU of Texas, which shared an office with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition.
“There was a lot of organizing and advocacy going on at TCJC, and I helped with anything they needed,” Pinney says. “Their commitment and passion were tremendously inspiring.”
“When a parent is incarcerated, even for something unrelated to a child, their rights can be terminated and their children placed under state custody,” Pinney explains. “Prior to this bill, there wasn’t a way for kids to return home. This family reunification legislation creates a path for parents that meet certain criteria to petition the court to regain custody.”
BY MELANIE PADGETT POWERSWhen her internship ended, TCJC offered Pinney a job as a youth justice researcher. After taking on various roles at the nonprofit, she became its executive director in 2015. Six years later, she transitioned the organization to become the Texas Center for Justice and Equity, a name that better reflects its mission. TCJE advocates at the Texas Capitol and across the state to end mass incarceration, shift funding toward community supports and reduce racial inequities in Texas’ punishment system.
Pinney, who majored in Political Science, says her education and the culture of St. Edward’s shaped how she thinks about justice work.
“Students were encouraged to be responsive to the needs of others, to engage in building a just world,” she says. “St. Ed’s is about broadening perspectives and learning from the experiences of others throughout history to create just communities today.”
Pinney is proud that in 2021, TCJE persuaded the Texas Legislature to change the law to allow formerly incarcerated parents to get their kids back.
Pinney believes that spending public money on services to support community health and equity instead of incarceration creates safer and more just communities. TCJE was part of a coalition that helped Houston establish Texas’ first-ever Youth Justice Community Reinvestment Fund in 2022, diverting $2 million from the probation department into local services for case management, hot meals, tutoring and counseling for 80 children released from juvenile detention during the pandemic.
She first became involved in criminal justice reform because she wanted to make a difference for those who had been marginalized, who had giant obstacles in their path and who needed a chance to build a better life. Now, as TCJE’s leader, Pinney focuses on supporting others doing that work.
“I think about where we are today and new leaders rising, and I have a renewed sense of inspiration,” she says. “We have an amazing team, and I have a lot of hope for what they’ll do to advance justice and equity in Texas.”
Leah Pinney ’05 has tough conversations with lawmakers to transform the Texas punishment system.TOP OF THE GAME
When Matthew Horgan MSEM ’16 was in Costa Rica conducting research during his final semester at St. Edward’s University, a grocery run took half a day. First, he walked an hour to the nearest bus stop; then, he spent another hour riding the bus to the nearest grocery store. To avoid the four-hour round trip, his neighbors often carpooled and traded food and crops.
“You just felt how important it was to have food access close to you,” Horgan says.
Today, Horgan draws on that experience as
the STEM programming and school partnership manager at Teens for Food Justice, a New York City–based nonprofit.
TFFJ facilitates youthled hydroponic farming programs to combat food insecurity while teaching students how to grow their own food. Farms have been established on five public school campuses, with 1,400 middle and high school students participating throughout the city. Four more campus installments are planned in 2023.
“All of the schools we partner with are Title I
schools, where most students come from low-income families,” Horgan says. “The communities are food insecure and lack access to affordable, fresh produce. They may also be considered food swamps, oversaturated with fast food and other unhealthy food options.”
TFFJ retrofits campus spaces into indoor hydroponic farms, where plants are grown in containers of water rather than soil. The technique allows farmers to grow year-round, even in cold climates.
Students help build and operate the systems, which produce a whopping 10,000 pounds of produce annually per site. Typical crops include lettuces and other leafy greens, herbs and cucumbers.
“The food produced is used in the school cafeterias, and excess is distributed to community food pantries,” Horgan says. “Students also participate in cooking demonstrations. They often admit to not wanting to eat anything green before working on the farm.”
The STEM-focused hands-on activities
Horgan develops help further students’ knowledge of urban farming, environmental sustainability, health and nutrition. Farming can inspire different perspectives, too. When students learn to look at issues through the lens of plant growth, from seed to harvest, they can see promise in new beginnings.
“When you’re growing plants, you see thewhole life cycle and you understand things in a certain way,” Horgan says. “There is an end to things, but that means you can grow a new crop there next week.”
If you love being a Hilltopper and want to stay involved with the university, here’s how to get started.
BY MARLA HOLTIt’s easy to have fun and keep learning when you attend events and connect with your fellow Hilltoppers.
Check cal.stedwards.edu or follow @seualumni on social media to learn about upcoming events.
Attend family-friendly events like the Hilltopper Holiday Mingle (meet Santa), Hoppy on the Hilltop (hunt for Easter eggs with Topper) or an Austin FC game.
Serve your community through chapter service projects planned by alumni volunteers.
Share your expert adulting skills with new grads in the virtual Alumni Leveling Up Series sponsored by University Federal Credit Union. Watch past sessions on the Alumni Association’s YouTube channel.
Return to campus for Homecoming in the fall, when the entire St. Edward’s family reconnects, and Alumni Weekend in the spring, when we bring you reunions and events planned just for alumni.
Cheer on your Hilltoppers as they compete on campus or away. Check gohilltoppers.com for your favorite team’s schedule — you can even livestream select games.
Attend a campus event if you’re visiting Austin or live in the area. Theater productions, speaker series and Kozmetsky Center of Excellence forums are open to alumni.
WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM YOUR ALUMNI ASSOCIATION?
Contact us at seualumni@stedwards.edu.
Being engaged with St. Ed’s excites and inspires me to stay connected to the faculty, staff and administrators and has generated many alumni connections who have expanded my involvement in Houston and in different projects on campus.”
LAUREN HILL ’15, HOUSTON ALUMNI CHAPTER PRESIDENT
I want to continue to see St. Edward’s grow and be a top university. Because the university played such a crucial role in my development, I want to give back so other students can enjoy St. Ed’s as much as I did.”
JUAN CARLOS RODRIGUEZ JR. ’98Give Your Treasure to Support and Sustain
Your financial support is essential to keeping a St. Edward’s education affordable and accessible for all students. Gifts of all sizes ensure the promise of a Holy Cross education.
Give Your Talent to Network and Unite
Your student experience, career expertise and guidance can be helpful to others. Volunteer to share what you know with the vast Hilltopper network.
Attend a college fair with a representative from the Office of Admission and share your St. Ed’s experience with prospective students.
Mentor a current student. Impart your professional expertise, give advice on industry trends and discuss skill sets needed for success.
Share what you know at an on-campus career panel or through the UFCU Alumni Leveling Up Series.
Create an experiential learning opportunity at your workplace through an internship program.
SHOW KEEP IT NEAR AND DEAR
Contribute to the St. Edward’s Fund during the annual Thanks(for)Giving campaign in November in thanks for your own growth and development through a Holy Cross education. Gifts are multiplied through challenge grants and matching funds.
Love Blue, Give Gold is a two-day social media campaign that celebrates gifts of all sizes. Every amount makes an impact. Follow #LoveBlueGiveGold to learn more.
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GET LOUD AND PROUD LEVEL UP
Support a cause that’s meaningful to you, such as the Alumni Association Endowed Scholarship, your school’s excellence fund, or a scholarship fund that honors a beloved faculty or staff member.
Establish an endowment to provide permanent support for scholarships, professorships, department chairs or student research.
Get involved with your local alumni chapter — Austin, Dallas, Denver, Houston or San Antonio — or regional network.
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Become a class reunion ambassador. Your efforts can help create a meaningful return to the hilltop for you and your classmates.
I have chosen St. Edward’s as the primary recipient of my philanthropy because the university is an excellent steward of my resources and supports the values in education that are critical to me: Nurturing the whole student in the Holy Cross tradition of not educating the mind at the expense of the heart.”
ANGELIQUE MONTGOMERY-GOODNOUGH MLA ’06
“My high school experience was incredibly tumultuous. I dealt with chronic health conditions that went undiagnosed for a long time. I missed a lot of school and didn’t get much encouragement from teachers or peers. At St. Edward’s, the professors have been incredibly supportive. They take my ideas seriously and are happy when I participate in class. In high school, I perceived my need for accommodation as a personal flaw. But now that I’ve taken courses in Global Studies and Political Science, I see my situation in a larger context. Learning about disability rights movements has given me a lot of self-confidence back. I understand that there’s not a fundamental flaw in me if my health keeps me from submitting an assignment. It’s just life. And an equitable society has a place at the table for individuals like that.”
Chrissy Munafo ’24 Global Studies
“My freshman year, I was cast as the lead in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the NightTime. It’s a difficult role — a teenage boy in England who has autism. Everyone in the production did a lot of research to make sure we were sensitive in our portrayal. We met with St. Edward’s students who have autism and with parents of autistic children. Bob Tolaro, our artistic director, was really helpful in giving me confidence in what I was doing. My sense is that the show was really well received. A lot of children with autism came to see the show, and they came up to me afterward and said they appreciated seeing themselves represented on stage. I felt like, ‘OK, I did a good job,’ because people said it was sensitive and respectful in the way it was performed.”
Emile Sivero ’23 Acting
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In December, seven students earned their EdD from St. Edward’s. The Doctorate of Education of Leadership and Higher Education is the university’s first-ever doctoral program.
“I never would have done this at any university other than St. Ed’s. I knew they had my best interests at heart and that they were creating a program to develop leaders that are going to look like the people of our community.”
DANIEL GUERRERO, EdD ’22