Steve Bartels, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid

Steve Bartels is a staff attorney at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA) in Austin. He specializes in family law and works with victims of domestic violence throughout Central Texas. He holds a law degree from New York University and earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Texas. Before joining TRLA, Mr. Bartels received a Fulbright scholarship for research in the field of international human rights law.

During his Community Sabbatical, Mr. Bartels will pursue a study of the lack of formal language training within the legal profession. He has identified a systemic deficiency in foreign language training within law school curricula and seeks to remedy this issue in Central Texas through the development of high-tech training modules. Because more than 80% of TRLA's constituents are immigrant Latinos and/or monolingual Spanish speakers, TRLA requires a legal staff proficient in Spanish. To ensure that TRLA attorneys can best serve their clients, Mr. Bartels will develop a computer-based language instruction program for legal services lawyers with the help of faculty from the Department of Spanish and Portugese and the Law School. The program will be accompanied by a companion book with law-themed readings, suggestions for conversation groups, and other language-related activities.

Mr. Bartels will be working with Dr. Orlando Kelm, Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portugese and Professor Eden Harrington of the School of Law. Dr. Kelm's research interests include applied linguistics, computer-assisted language instruction, business language, and language for special purposes. Ms. Harrington is Director of the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law, the director of clinics and internships at the Law School, and teaches several courses related to public interest law.

Victoria Camp, Texas Association Against Sexual Assault

Victoria Camp is Director of Operations for the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault (TAASA). Her areas of expertise and interest include: state and federal funding for sexual violence prevention and response, the development of sound policies to benefit sexual violence survivors, and theories of sexual violence prevention. Ms. Camp holds a Bachelors in Psychology from Colorado State University and a Masters in Educational Psychology from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Ms. Camp will use her Community Sabbatical to more fully research and determine the economic impact sexual assault has on Texas. Successfully calculating and publicizing the financial consequences of sexual assault each Texan bears will increase the attention given to this issue in the public policy arena. Ms. Camp will research data on the prevalence of sexual assault in Texas, identify and calculate the myriad and diverse costs associated with sexual assault, and translate these figures into written documents for dissemination by TAASA and other allied organizations. Quantifying the cost of sexual victimization in Texas will facilitate TAASA's goals of raising awareness in the public sphere of the value of prevention programming and push policy makers closer to recognizing sexual assault as a public health issue.

Ms. Camp will be working with Dr. Noel Busch, Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work, and Dr. Bruce Kellison, Associate Director of the Bureau of Business Research. Dr. Busch's research interests include the study of violence against women and children, social and public policy, and social justice issues. Dr. Kellison specializes in economic development, economics, and politics.

Anna Land, Heart House

Anna Land is the founder of Heart House, a free afterschool program providing a safe haven and academic support to low-income children in Dallas and Austin. Ms. Land serves on the Board of Directors of the Travis County Afterschool Network, as well as on the Board of Directors of the Texas Afterschool Association. She also serves as an Ambassador Emeritus of the Afterschool Alliance's national Afterschool Ambassadors program.

During her Community Sabbatical, Ms. Land will focus more fully on the development of an affiliate model for Heart House to guide its expansion into more neighborhoods. Currently, there are two locations open in Dallas and one location open in Austin, with plans to extend its services to other locales in both Texas and across the United States. In order to best expand the current scope and reach of Heart House, its National Advisory Board will formulate a set of affiliate guidelines by developing a "Heart House in a Box" set of nine manuals and CDs. The creation and implementation of this rigorously evaluated structure, both in existing Heart Houses and in new locations, will ensure that the quality and health of the organization do not depend solely on the founders or other specific personnel, making growth and long-term quality more readily achievable. While a Community Sabbatical grantee, Ms. Land will work with faculty in Management and Community Development to research and develop the most effective set of affiliate guidelines for the future expansion of Heart House.

Ms. Land will partner with Dr. Sarah Jane Rehnborg of the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Dr. Rehnborg is acting director of the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service. She teaches a course at the LBJ School called "Community Engagement and the Management of Volunteers in Nonprofit and Public Organizations."

Rachel McInturff, Armstrong Community Music School of Austin Lyric Opera

Rachel McInturff is the Director of Music Technology at the Armstrong Community Music School of Austin Lyric Opera (ACMS). She is an internationally recognized composer and teacher whose music exists as sound sculptures, generated through various technological means, and who specializes in training musicians of all backgrounds and ages in the use of music technology. Dr. McInturff holds degrees from the Conservatory of Music, University of Missouri-Kansas City (Bachelors and Masters in composition), and recently completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. McInturff will use her Community Sabbatical to complete the equipment and software upgrade to the music technology lab at ACMS and develop curriculum for classes that most effectively integrate the new technology. This newly upgraded facility represents a major creative resource for the community, one in which anyone of any age or skill level can learn about music creation and production in a studio at the peak of industry standards. Once the installation and configuration phase is complete, Dr. McInturff will work with UT faculty to master the new software packages, learn how the new programs interact and how they can best be incorporated into new classes for the ACMS. This comprehensive technological upgrade and course reformation will raise the bar for community music instruction in Austin, providing students of all backgrounds and skill levels with the creative potential of professional-grade tools.

Dr. Russell Pinkston, Director of UT Electronic Music Studios and Professor of Composition in the Department of Music, will serve as Dr. McInturff's prime faculty partner. Dr. Pinkston holds degrees in music composition from Dartmouth College (B.A.) and Columbia University (M.A., D.M.A.). He has written music in a wide variety of different media and has received numerous awards for his compositions, including two prizes from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a senior Fulbright Fellowship in Composition and Computer Music to Brazil. Dr. Pinkston is also active in computer music research.

Harold McMillan, DiverseArts Production Group

Harold McMillan is Founder and Executive Director of DiverseArts Production Group, a multidisciplinary nonprofit art and culture organization. For the past 20 years he has been actively involved in Austin's cultural scene as a music and video producer, musician, writer and publisher, Black music documentarian, and gallery owner. Mr. McMillan holds a M.A. in American Civilization, with a specialty in African American music and culture, from the University of Texas at Austin.

Mr. McMillan will use his Community Sabbatical to restore and preserve DiverseArts' Blues Family Tree Project archive. The Blues Family Tree Project is a program dedicated to combating the lack of representation of pre-1970s Austin African American musicians. As part of this project, DiverseArts sought to document the history, lives, and music of African American musicians who were members of the pre-integration, East Austin jazz and blues scene. Collected materials consist of extensive oral history interviews, photographs, and musical recordings and must be catalogued, copied, and preserved. Moreover, due to a recent fire in DiverseArts' office space, the materials now require restoration and recovery from heat, smoke, soot, and water damage. Through working closely with the Center for American Music and the Texas Music Oral History Project, Mr. McMillan will research resources for and the most effective processes of restoration and preservation for this vital project.

Dr. Kevin Mooney, Lecturer in Musicology and founder and director of the Texas Music Oral History Project, will serve as Mr. McMillan's faculty consultant. Dr. Mooney offers courses associated with UT's Center for American Music, including "Blues and Rock and Roll According to Clifford Antone," taught with Mr. Antone. Dr. Mooney also serves as the Associate Chair of the Center for American Music.

Karen Paup, Texas Low Income Housing Information Service

Karen Paup is a founding co-director of the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help low-income Texans realize the American dream of a quality home in a decent neighborhood. Ms. Paup has worked in low-income housing issues for over two decades. She holds a Bachelors in Liberal Arts from the University of Texas at Austin and a Masters in Urban Affairs from the University of Delaware.

During her Community Sabbatical, Ms. Paup will research the most recent academic work on housing policy in low-income and minority communities and formulate a set of objective criteria with which to assess Austin's current S.M.A.R.T. Housing program. S.M.A.R.T. Housing is a local program intended to increase the availability of Safe, Mixed-income, Accessible, Reasonably-priced, and Transit-oriented housing options for low-income residents. A thorough and far-reaching assessment of this program is necessary to determine whether it in fact serves those most in need, or whether it concentrates housing units in areas with high levels of poverty and large minority populations, perpetuating racial and class segregation in Austin. The results of such a study will support the work of the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service to advocate for and improve effective housing policy.

Dr. Elizabeth Mueller, Lecturer in the School of Architecture, will serve as Ms. Paup's faculty partner. Dr. Mueller's research interests and specialties include community development, housing, poverty, urban politics, and qualitative methods. In recent years, she participated in a community-wide effort to galvanize support for addressing affordable housing needs in Austin, Texas, co-authoring the resulting report "Through the Roof."