Book Chapter

Whose History?: Expanding Place-Based Initiatives Through Open Collaboration

Texas’s Rio Grande Valley (RGV) population is predominantly Tejano (Texans of Hispanic ancestry). It is a region undergoing rapid growth, transforming from a rural farming and ranching region to a conurbation of municipalities stretching along the Rio Grande River, from Brownsville to Roma. Home to 1.2 million people, by 2050 the population of the RGV is projected to be greater than 2 million (Hoque et al., 2014). The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) is the RGV’s foremost higher education entity. Formed in 2013 from two legacy institutions, UTRGV’s 2018 enrollment was 28,644 students, with 87.8% of students identifying as Hispanic (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, 2018). UTRGV aims to be the nation’s first “B3” institution—bilingual, bicultural, and biliterate (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, 2016, p. 15). UTRGV’s Teaching and Learning (T&L) program is a key producer of Latinx school teachers in the RGV, Texas, and beyond. UTRGV Library’s Special Collections2 (SC) acquires, preserves, and makes rare and unique documents related to the culture and history of south Texas accessible to researchers. Whose History? project facilitators include a T&L faculty member and two librarians: the Head of Special Collections and the Digital Archivist. The T&L faculty member guides lesson plan creation using place-based education (PBE) pedagogical practices, while the librarians assist with teacher-candidate research and the online publication of select lesson plans.

Items in ScholarWorks are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.