The College of Education is happy to welcome 11 new faculty members for the 2018-2019 academic year. This year, the Department of Curriculum and Instruction is joined by Paty Abril-Gonzalez and Denise Davila.
Paty Abril-Gonzalez
What institution were you most previously with and what was your role?
I finished my Ph.D. at the University of Colorado Boulder in the area of Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity.
What are your research interests?
My research interests include relationship building among bilingual Latinx/Latino elementary students, their families, and their teachers. I also am interested in Arts-Based Research with Chicana Feminist framings, specifically Borderland Theories.
What sparked those interests?
When I was young, my parents moved our family back and forth across the Mexico/US border. We settled in Denver, where I learned English as a bilingual student starting in kindergarten. At a young age, I was culturally and linguistically aware of my Mexican and bilingual identities.
What are you excited about for your new position at UT?
I am excited to collaborate and research with diverse faculty and students. I am also very excited about working with pre-service and masters teachers interested in bilingual and bicultural education.
What do you hope to contribute to the College of Education or the Austin community?
I hope to contribute a sunny, friendly, and outgoing mentality when it comes to collaborative work environments, based in strong relationship building philosophies.
What is your starting date, program area within your department, and academic rank?
I start on Aug. 1, 2018 as an assistant professor in the Bilingual Bicultural Education program.
Denise Davila
What institution were you most previously with and what was your role?
During the last six years, I was an assistant professor at the University of Georgia (2012 – 2015) and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (2015 – 2018).
What are your research interests?
My research interests center around the use of children’s literature to promote a pluralistic society. My scholarship focuses on the preparation of literacy/English language arts teachers to work with diverse populations of students, and the study of community-based and cross-disciplinary early literacy education programs for ethnically, linguistically, and socioeconomically diverse groups of young children and their families.
What sparked those interests?
Growing up, it was important for my sisters and me to “fit-in” with everyone else. My parents didn’t want us to speak Spanish or to discuss my family’s practice of Latin American espiritismo. The social discourses around fitting-in were reinforced in the children’s books I encountered. None featured characters like me. My personal experiences as a young person sparked my research interests as an adult.
What are you excited about for your new position at UT?
I am excited to work with the extraordinary scholars and students at UT who are pushing the boundaries in thinking about how K-12 educators are prepared to teach diverse populations of students and families.
What do you hope to contribute to the College of Education or the Austin community?
I hope to contribute a deep commitment to cultivating a pluralistic society and to fostering learning experiences that are inclusive of all members of the community.
What is your starting date, program area within your department, and academic rank?
I will begin in Aug. 2018 as an assistant professor in Language and Literacy Studies.
