BROWNSVILLE, RGV – Texas Southmost College and the Secretary of Education in Tamaulipas will celebrate an historic partnership on Friday with a Memorandum of Understanding Signing Ceremony.
The MOU will be signed by TSC Interim President Mike Shannon and the Secretary of Education for Tamaulipas, Dr. Héctor Escobar Salazar.
The Consul of Mexico in Brownsville, Juan Carlos Cué Vega will be present for the MOU Signing Ceremony.
The event takes place at 12 p.m. at the TSC Arts Center Lobby, 80 Fort Brown, Brownsville, Texas 78520.
Melinda Rodriguez, TSC vice president for institutional advancement and workforce training will give the welcome and introductions. Remarks will be made by Shannon, Escobar, Cué, and Francisco Galvan, who is the State of Tamaulipas’ trade representative in Texas. Mariachi Margarita will close the event with music.
Rodriguez spoke about the MOU during a Facebook livestream conversation with Rio Grande Guardian publisher Mark Hanna last week.
“We have had great dialogue with the Secretary of Education. Next week we will be signing a collaboration agreement with the Secretary to begin exploring exchanges with students, professors, creating symposiums and workshops and events geared towards the mutual interests of both countries, but also, specifically, at the institutions they represent and Texas Southmost College,” Rodriguez said, during the livestream conversation.
“This is the culmination of looking now, collectively, together, at those opportunities to create bridges where we can not only exchange ideas in teaching, but also foster opportunities for us to create partnerships in the area of workforce training, our traditional degrees, but also new programs in the areas of law enforcement and technology.”
Asked by Hanna what specifically the Secretary of Education in Tamaulipas and TSC are looking at, Rodriguez said: “The canvas is wide and clear. There are great opportunities for both countries and both institutions. The Secretary of Education and Texas Southmost College want to explore those opportunities and we have been specifically speaking about the areas of law enforcement, we have a wonderful criminal justice institute, which is our police academy, and we are looking at opportunities to expand that already and grow our programs.”
Rodriguez intimated that Escobar’s Office is interested in developing law enforcement programs with TSC.
“That is an area of interest for the State of Tamaulipas and how they provide additional training to their law enforcement professionals there. That is an area we are looking at.”
Rodriguez also spoke about the importance of workforce training for Tamaulipas and TSC. Tamaulipas has tens of thousands of manufacturing workers in its maquilas in Brownsville’s sister city in Matamoros.
“This is the beginning of that effort. Not just the dialogue, we are going to roll up our sleeves to see how we can both work together to actually create those opportunities for citizens on both sides of the border,” Rodriguez added.
We're LIVE in Brownsville with Texas Southmost College VP of Institutional Advancement Melinda Rodriguez to discuss the school's role in the community, involvement in workforce training, and YOUR suggested topics. Comment topics/questions as they come to you, and we'll do our best to get to all of them.
Posted by Rio Grande Guardian on Thursday, June 8, 2017
