U Central Matamoros almost ready

After six months of discussions and planning, a UTRGV service center in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, will open its doors in February to serve as a liaison between the university and its students who live in Mexico.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony will take place on Feb. 18.

“We will have a ribbon-cutting on Feb. 18 and that would be kind of a soft opening and then we will move into full operations after that,” UTRGV Deputy President Janna Arney said during a phone interview with The Rider.

U Central Matamoros, which is the official name of the center, was approved by the University of Texas System board of regents’ last meeting, Nov. 14-15. The office “will replicate UTRGV’s other U Central offices on the Brownsville and Edinburg campuses,” according to a news release issued today.

Arney said the center will be staffed with generalists who “will be able to work with students, who are either prospective students or students who are currently enrolled.”

“[The generalists will] help them with questions, their paperwork or whatever it may be that they need, and if they can’t personally do it, they will be a liaison to the campus that will help facilitate that work on behalf of students,” she said.

Asked if there are any plans to add other services, Arney replied, “We are starting with what we believe students will need and then we are going to respond to what they actually need. … Our goal is to serve their needs and to be a resource for them, for their questions, but we don’t know exactly what all those are right now and so, our goal is to learn from what the students need and adapt accordingly.”

The Matamoros service center will be located at Avenida Constitución 57, Colonia Jardín Matamoros. The office will be located inside the Instituto Matamorense para la Cultura y las Artes (IMACULTA) building, which is across from Escuela Preparatoria Federal por Cooperación Ricardo Flores Magón.

This space was chosen by the City of Matamoros for its proximity to Parque Cultural Olímpico and the new U.S. Consulate General in Matamoros that is under construction, as well as its closeness to the Brownsville & Matamoros International Bridge, colloquially known as the “old bridge,” or “puente viejo.”

“It is within a larger building and so, we are occupying a small portion of that, about 1,600 square feet of that much larger building,” Arney said. “It’s very centrally located, it’s a beautiful space, very accessible to students and their families, and it’s accessible to the bridge.”

The space, composed of four offices and a reception area, will be a “rent-free office space in the IMACULTA … building, along with utilities, at no cost to the university,” according to the news release.

Asked how much money has been used for this project, Arney replied, “It’s too early to determine the total funds we will invest, but we will be paying for staff, equipment and signage. Those funds will be paid by the departments responsible for those expenses.”

Student Success, Strategic Enrollment and the Office of Global Engagement are the UTRGV departments that have been involved in the conversations for U Central Matamoros, according to Arney.

She said the goal of the new center is “to bring services to where the students are, rather than requiring them to come to us.”

“Each student that seeks help has a different question and a different need,” Arney said. “And so, we are staffing it with folks who can take care of the majority of those needs or can connect with somebody who can.”

–Rider Online Editor Leslie Medrano contributed to this report.

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