Alliance for Learning: El Paso: Crossing the Border

By Meg Sommerfeld

When Diana Natalicio became the president of the University of Texas at El Paso six years ago, she inherited a campus she viewed as historically isolated from its surroundings. Known as "the school on the hill,'' UTEP remained aloof from the problems of the community--and the public schools--below.

"We really needed to search our souls for a much more authentic role with this region,'' she recalls.

Though the university drew many of its students from the local districts, and fed its graduates back into them as teachers, "it was not a good working relationship,'' agrees Stan Paz, the superintendent of the 65,000-student...