A&M International's Cantu to Receive University of Nebraska Alum Award

Dr. Norma Cantu, Texas A&M International University Professor of English, has been named a recipient of the University of Nebraska Lincoln's 1997 College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Achievement Award.

The Award, presented jointly by the College and its Alumni Board of Directors, will be presented May 1 in Lincoln at the University's Morrill Hall.

Lee Denker, Director of Campus Relations for the University's Arts and Sciences Alumni, said the committee was impressed with Dr. Cantu's personal and professional accomplishments.

Cantu, a member of the A&M International faculty since 1980, holds her Ph.D. in English from UN-Lincoln. Her MS in English was earned at the former Texas A&I University at Kingsville and her BS with majors in English, Education and Political Science was earned at the former Texas A&I University at Laredo.

She most recently served as Senior Arts Specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington D.C. Her research areas are folklore, cultural studies, and Chicana literature.

She received the 1996 Rockefeller Foundation's Gateways Award from San Antonio's Guadalupe Cultural Center which has provided funding for her ethnographic analysis of the custom of la quinceanera..

She has published poetry, short fiction and critical essays. Her book Canicula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera, a creative autobioethnography that chronicles her growing up in Laredo, Texas, received the Premio Aztlan in 1996.

She has been named a Fulbright research fellow to Spain twice.

For additional information on Dr. Cantu's award, please contact the Office of Public Affairs and Information Services at 326-2180.

University office hours are from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Monday-Friday.

Journalists who need additional information or help with media requests and interviews should contact the Office of Public Affairs and Information Services at pais@tamiu.edu