OPINION Page 2
NEWS Page 3
ARTS & CULTURE Page 19
SPORTS Page 23
Outro: It’s time to go (Erik’s Version)
Meet the newly studentelected SGA members
Journalists of the Future: Writing their stories
UTEP Beach Volleyball leaves everything on the sand
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VOL. 109, NO. 15
APRIL 30, 2024
Assayer of Student Opinion
theprospectordaily.com
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO
PASSING THE
PICK’S LEGACY
Eduardo Flores will earn his bachelor’s degree in organizational and corporate communication this May. Photo by SalmaPaola Baca/The Prospector
B ERIK ACOSTA Y EDITOR-IN-CHIEF • THE PROSPECTOR
May begins to roll around signaling the end of the semester, but for graduating seniors, it is the end of their undergraduate years at UTEP. As seniors begin to plan their graduation outfits, take their senior photos at Centennial Plaza or around campus full of glee and hope for their future, they are also about to become a part of a family that has once been in their shoes decades ago. UTEP has a long generation of alumni who have all became
doctors, lawyers, writers, journalists, professors or parents and some of them have credited UTEP with leaving a lasting impact on their lives. For Jaime Mendez, Assistant Dean for Students who graduated in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, considers UTEP his life. “UTEP has been the majority of my life, and it impacted me from day one when I started as a freshman in the fall of 1988, I came here freshly graduating from El Paso High School and I came here feeling lost because my original plan
was to join the military,” Mendez said. “I wasn’t feeling excited about coming to UTEP but immediately I found that the faculty and staff were inviting and had a good outreach.” Mendez credits UTEP for shaping him as the person and professional he is today. Throughout his time at UTEP, he made lifelong relationships and started UTEP’s Omega Delta Phi which is still standing today. Mendez would later come back to get his masters in theatre in 2006 and a doctorate degree in education in 2020.
While Mendez considers UTEP a place that shaped him, Denise Flores, who graduated in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, said the university helped her understand the importance of family. “UTEP is part of a family, a community that is strong in family and I stayed because of my family because I developed such a good relationship with my professors and peers and I feel like it’s strengthened my idea of family,” Flores said. “I made a lot of great friends here and I think the professors that I had in the past have given a great
example to the leader I am now, especially my professors in the occupation therapy department, they did a great job in facility the therapist I am now.” Flores came back to UTEP in 2007 to get her master’s in occupation therapy, which is now a doctorate program, and is an occupational therapist at Del Sol Valley Medical Center. Flores credits her UTEP professors for what she learned in her classrooms which left a remarkable experience for her just like Cynthia Reyes who graduated in 2010. see LEGACY on page 7