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The Region

The University of Texas-Pan American is in the city of Edinburg, the county seat of Hidalgo County, Texas. That is part of the area known as the Lower Rio Grande Valley, commonly referred to as the Magic Valley, RGV, or just The Valley. The Valley is one of the fastest growing areas of the country. People and businesses are moving here because of the warm climate (the average annual snowfall is 0.0 inches), proximity to Mexico, and its natural beauty. The tropical birds, lovely butterflies, and other plants and animals that can be found here are found nowhere else in the country, and the area is loaded with parks, refuges, and nature trails. The beautiful beaches of South Padre Island and the Schlitterbahn Beach Waterpark are less than 90 minutes away from the university. Mexico, with its fascinating shops and travel, is 30 miles away. A weekend visit to Monterrey, the third largest city in Mexico, is just a four hour bus trip from town. San Antonio and its River Walk are just a three hour drive. The Dodge Arena, fifteen miles away in Hidalgo, hosts the biggest regional, national, and international names in entertainment, and is also home to the RGV Killer Bees hockey team and the AF2 Dorados football team. Edinburg, the neighboring cities of McAllen and Hidalgo, and Brownsville have all received the All America City distinction. Plus, The Valley has one of the lowest costs of living in the country. (See The Salary Calculator to compare the cost of living in Valley cities with your hometown.)

The University

The University of Texas-Pan American has seen tremendous growth since joining the University of Texas system in 1989, 62 years after the original college opened its doors. It is the 10th largest of the state's 35 senior institutions, and with over 16,000 students, it is the fifth largest school in the University of Texas system, and the largest university in this part of the state. UTPA offers 56 Bachelor degree programs, 45 Masters programs, and 2 Doctoral programs. It continues to expand and increase its programs to enhance its strong working relationship with the local community (including Mexico) and meet the needs of the population in this rapidly-growing area.

The university's growth includes construction of new facilities. The Academic Services Building, which contains dozens of computer labs with hundreds of computers for students' use, opened in 1995. The Engineering building, with state of the art facilities, opened in 1996. The Science building, which opened in 1997, provides the latest research facilities for biology and chemistry. The International Trade and Technology Building, opened in 1998, houses offices that work with local business and governments, as well as international organizations. The new wing of the Library opened for business in summer, 1999. The new Student Union building opened in 2000, as did new buildings for student housing. The city of Edinburg and UTPA together built a new baseball stadium, which opened in 2001. The new Computer Center and General Classroom/Math buildings also opened in 2001. A new daycare center for the children of students, faculty, and staff opened in 2005. The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio has expanded to the Valley, with a new Regional Academic Health Center RAHC) which opened in 2006. Even more building is planned for the future, as the university continues to grow to serve the region. Click here for more information about UTPA, or click here for a virtual tour of the campus.

The Library

The University Library is a growing part of a growing university. We have recently finished an expansion project, adding almost 50,000 square feet to the Library. The expansion includes a new Technical Services area and two new interactive classrooms for our Library Instruction program, as well as more room for books. We also renovated the older part of the building, and moved departments and collections to new locations. In the past few years we have added new librarian positions for Instruction, Reference, Outreach, Archives, and Automation/Systems. We currently have twenty librarian/professional staff positions and thirty-seven nonprofessional and paraprofessional staff positions. The Library holds about 500,000 volumes, subscribes to over 1000 periodicals, and has access to tens of thousands of full text and/or full image journals on the world wide web. Our memberships in Amigos and Texshare and connection to the University of Texas system help us with our hundreds of web databases, and the UT system benefits our ILL department. Students have access to approximately 120 proprietary web databases from home or office, as well as from the 130 PCs in our Reference and Instruction departments or the 60 wireless laptops we check out for student use. Take a video tour or a virtual tour of the library.

UTPA's Human Resources Office lists the professional staff openings at the university.

by vcarrillo — last modified 11-03-2008 14:59