Undergraduate Academic Affairs

Ed Taylor


January 22, 2025

Dialogue, disagreement and democracy course highlights reel

Undergraduate Academic Affairs

Photo of Kate Starbird

In the leadership course, “2024: Dialogue, Disagreement and Democracy,” students learned tools to engage thoughtfully with contentious issues. Offered in the autumn of 2024, this class helped undergraduates navigate complex topics, forge meaningful relationships and have productive conversations in a polarized world.


December 20, 2024

Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind, Stayed on Freedom) [video]

Undergraduate Academic Affairs

Photo of Ed Taylor gesturing while talking

Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs Ed Taylor shares his talk, “Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind, Stayed on Freedom)” at the College of Education’s EduTalks: Thriving Generations on March 28, 2024. Taylor is also a professor in the College of Education.


October 16, 2024

Bridging histories in the American South

Undergraduate Academic Affairs

Zoe and LeVera stand outside Crumbville, TX, holding boxes of cupcakes after a tour of Project Row Houses in Houston's historic Third Ward. They are smiling, reflecting their intertwined journeys of family history, values and a passion for nursing and public health.

What if learning about the American South meant building bridges to both the past and the future? Instead of merely skimming the surface of history, what if you could dive deep, discovering the connections between place, community and the resilience born from oppression? What if history became personal, revealing the stories of beloved communities shaped…


September 28, 2022

This autumn, let us begin again

Ed Taylor

Photo of Vice Provost and Dean Ed Taylor

The leaves change together, just as our students transform together through a common experience of learning at this point in time and at this public institution. The turning of the leaves, a new school year, new students coming to campus: It is hopeful and gives us all an opportunity to begin again. In Undergraduate Academic…


February 8, 2021

Reflections on Black History Month

Ed Taylor

Photo of Ed Taylor

Black History Month is our annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a devoted time to recognize Black achievements in U.S. history. Known as African American History Month, the period grew out of “Negro History Week,” born of the idea of historian Carter G. Woodson and other notable African Americans. Since 1976, every U.S….


October 1, 2020

Welcome to the 2020-21 academic year

Ed Taylor

Photo of Ed Taylor

Our inter-connected and inter-dependent community is filled with people who care, and I want to remind everyone to find moments of joy and gratitude in each day.


September 16, 2020

Remembering Bill Gates, Sr.

Ed Taylor

Photo of Bill Gates Sr.

UAA’s Vice Provost and Dean Ed Taylor reflects on the larger meaning of his first meeting with Bill Gates, Sr. in this remembrance and appreciation.


June 10, 2020

I am breathing, but I’m not OK

Ed Taylor

Photo of Ed Taylor

Are you OK? People have been asking me, and I’ve been asking others. I appreciate the question and those asking. Please keep asking. The truth of the matter is that things are not OK. As I write this, I’m staying home because of COVID-19, and a citywide curfew resulting from threats of violence throughout our city and county. I am also grieving the death of George Floyd. The simple answer is I am breathing, but I’m not OK. Nothing about the moment is OK.


September 25, 2019

Welcome to the 2019 academic year

Ed Taylor

Twenty years ago, the building re-opened, transformed from the old physics hall into a space designated for and dedicated to the academic needs of undergraduates. One could argue that, with tens of thousands of undergraduates, the entire campus is geared toward undergrads. But place matters. While the education of undergraduates happens in classrooms and other…


November 8, 2018

Celebrating National First-Generation College Student Day

Undergraduate Academic Affairs

Image for national first-gen college celebration

In honor of National First-Generation College Student Day, we asked a few UAA staff members who were the first in their families to attend and graduate from college how the experience changed their life.



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