Our Mission
The Community Historical Archaeology Project with Schools (CHAPS) Program is a consortium of UTRGV faculty, lecturers, and staff who work locally and have embraced the teacher/scholar model in academe wherein scholarly enquiry is intertwined with K-17 education and community engagement. These are scholars who look beyond their disciplines and Colleges in order to create new knowledge that is greater than the sum of its parts. Today it contains the scholarly disciplines of Anthropology (Russell K. Skowronek), Biology (Kenneth R. Summy), Communication (Dina Vera), Education (Rolando Avila), Geology (Juan Gonzalez), and History (Christopher Miller). Our work is made possible through the efforts of our Project Director Roseann Bacha-Garza, who is also a contributing scholar, and Lecturer for graduate and undergraduate students from anthropology, business, geology, and history.
On campus we work with other faculty from Anthropology (Sarah Rowe) and History (Irving Levinson, Charles Waite), with the Border Studies Archive (Guy Duke, Shantal Brissette, and Rocio Diaz) and Special Collections in the UTRGV Library (Shannon Pensa), faculty and students from the College of Business and The University Marketing and Creative Services. Off campus we have developed relationships with the National Park Service, the Museum of South Texas History, the Zapata County Historical Museum, Revive Fort Ringgold, Webb County Heritage Foundation, and the Brownsville Historical Museum.