Francisco Guajardo is the executive director of the B3 Institute and Professor of Organization and School Leadership at UTRGV. Dr. Guajardo was born in northern Mexico and came to Texas with his family as a child. He was raised and educated in the Edcouch-Elsa community and attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he obtained a BA Degree in English (with a Minor in Spanish), an MA in History, and a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership.  Dr. Guajardo worked in K-12 for a dozen years as a high school teacher and administrator. During that time he co-founded the Llano Grande Center for Research and Development, a nonprofit organization that employed a community based curriculum to prepare students for higher education.

Dr. Guajardo joined the faculty in the Department of Educational Leadership at the University of Texas Pan American in 2003. He was the principal investigator of Project Lead between 2005 and 2009, and in 2011 he was a co-founder of the Center for Bilingual Studies, and then became the Executive Director of the B3 Institute at UTRGV in 2016.  Dr. Guajardo sits on national boards such as the Institute for Educational Leadership, the Center for Rural Strategies, and the Rural School and Community Trust.

Dr. Guajardo has held the C. Bascom Slemp Endowed Chair in the College of Education at UTRGV and has an extensive publication record, including three books he has co-authored: Ecologies of Engaged Scholarship (2017, forthcoming), Reframing Community Partnerships in Education (2016), and Weaving Strong Communities (2010). His research interests include Latino epistemologies, community leadership, and storytelling for organizational and community leadership.

CV/VITAE: Francisco Guajardo-vitae

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Francisco Guajardo, PhD
Executive Director
B3 Institute and Professor of Organization and School Leadership
Email: francisco.guajardo@utrgv.edu
BLHS 2.418
Phone: (956) 882-7829

Associate Director and Associate Professor of Hispanic Linguistics
B3 Institute
Email: dania.lopezgarcia@utrgv.edu
BMAIN 1.512
Phone: (956) 882-6503

Mercedes Orfelinda Torres is originally from the Matamoros, México and Brownsville, Texas border region. She holds a BA in Spanish with a Minor in Spanish Translation, an Associate Degree in Translation Studies, and an MA in Spanish, all from The University of Texas at Brownsville/Texas Southmost College.

She is currently the Administrative Coordinator of the B3 Institute at UTRGV, and provides support to the Translation and Interpreting Office with translation projects. She has worked as a freelance Translator since 2005 delivering services to the Curriculum and Instruction Department at legacy institution UTB, and to medical and legal offices in Brownsville.

She participated as Instructor during the Spanish for Faculty and Staff Professional Development for UTRGV in Mérida, México in July 2018.

Mrs. Torres has 11 years of experience lecturing in both face-to-face and hybrid delivery methods of instruction at her alma matter. She also taught Advanced Placement Spanish and Dual Enrollment Spanish at Gladys Porter High School in collaboration with The University of Texas at Brownsville/Texas Southmost College.

She has taught lower and upper level courses, including SPAN 2311/2312 Intermediate Spanish I and II (Summer Bridge Program), SPAN 2313/2315 Spanish Native/Heritage Speakers I and II, SPAN 2321/2322 Hispanic Literature and Civilization I and II, SPAN 3330 Advanced Grammar, SPAN 4316 Acquisition of the Spanish Language, and SPAN 4368 Children’s Literature; and worked as a linguistic graduate teaching assistant.

During 2003-2005, as President of the Honorary Society Sigma Delta Phi, Chapter Tau Chi, she coordinated children's literature readings in Spanish throughout the Brownsville community. In her spare time, she writes short stories in Spanish and calaveras, and has presented her work in conferences and symposia in Brownsville, Edinburg, and Matamoros, México.

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Mercedes Orfelinda Torres, MA
Administrative Coordinator and Spanish for Faculty & Staff Instructor
B3 Institute
Email: mercedes.torres@utrgv.edu
BLHS 2.418
Phone: (956) 882-7829