The Annual BestFest was held on Friday, October 21, 2016, as part of the week’s Homecoming festivities. The event continues to grow and this year drew an estimated crowd of over 12,000 people. Alumni and community members are welcome to attend this campus tradition, which now features a carnival, top ten artist performance, the Golf Cart Parade, and continues to offer food booths with everything from fried Oreos to hamburgers. The night ends with a bang with a huge fireworks show that most claim is one of the best they have seen.

The homecoming court was introduced during a pep rally which also featured Student Athletes and the Football Team Captains. During this time, people were also getting anxious with the appearance of International recording artist, Magic. Magic held the number one song on the Billboard charts for six weeks with their song, Rude.

With all of the moving parts on this event, the Office of Student Activities would like to thank everyone who helped make it a huge success.

• Environmental Health and Safety staff members helped mitigate the risks that come from food booths, carnival rides, a fireworks show, and electrical needs throughout the grounds. John DeLaHunt, once again, did a great job with the fireworks.
• The Business Contracts Office and Purchasing were great partners in facilitating the carnival and events.
• Disbursements and Travel Services team — Nora Compean, Kelly Rock, and the whole DTS staff — coordinated the many payments for the event.
• Gary Lott and Char Mikulec were helpful in the single point of sale process.
• The UTSA Police Department did a terrific job helping close roads for the Golf Cart Parade, monitoring the grounds and ensuring attendees were safe from the fireworks. Thanks to Captain Douglas Sonego and the entire Patrol Division.
• The facilities team and GCA ensured the area was set and returned to normal in an efficient manner — John Japhet, Matt May and Fred Wiedner made this event go off without a hitch.
• The contributions and volunteer support from across Student Affairs was greatly appreciated. We also want to thank Athletics for their collaboration in sharing part of the venue space during UTSA events.

Events like BestFest are a true collaborative effort spanning many departments, and reflect the leadership qualities of Sam Gonzales and Kathy Funk-Baxter.

Submitted by —
Barry McKinney
Associate Dean of Students & Director of Student Activities

For the fifth year in a row, the Student Leadership Center sent students to the annual Texas Conference for Women in the state capital. This year the SLC sent its highest number of participants, with 36 students in attendance. The conference is held each year in the Austin Convention Center. This year it took place on Tuesday, November 15th and had over 7,000 attendees.

The Texas Conference for Women aims to provide women with inspiration, motivation, skill building workshops, and networking opportunities. The conference featured a health and wellness pavilion, a career pavilion, an education pavilion, a coach’s corner for resume reviews and career mentorship, and an area to make scarves for Special Olympics athletes. The conference hosted over 20 women owned businesses as well as various non-profit organizations, social media roundtables and also a bookstore complete with an area for author signings.

The conference also boasted an incredible line-up of successful empowering women, including World Cup Champion Abby Wambach, fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg, former CBS chairwoman Nina Tassler, and international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney. This does not include the many women leading various break-out sessions over a variety of topics from leadership to retirement.

The Student Leadership Center selected students from various areas of campus in order to have a diverse group represent UTSA. Students were able to bring their different backgrounds to the conference and gain knowledge that will benefit their respective communities. When asked about the conference, students provided excellent feedback, including:

I really enjoyed the conference. It was very motivational and inspirational. It is definitely a conference that others should go to.
— Aniriel Garcia Vazquez, UTSA Graduate Student

The conference was great. I feel like it is really important for men to attend to learn from the perspective of women presented at the conference.
— Alwyn Mathew, UTSA Junior

One thing I really enjoyed was that they broke it down into segments so there was something for everyone. It allowed you to customize your experience.
The conference diversity allowed you to be able to go to any session you wanted too. — Noor Razeq, UTSA Junior

The lunchtime keynotes were amazing. I also enjoyed making scarves and meeting athletes from the Special Olympics. I was able to learn so many things that I can bring back to campus and use in my leadership roles.
— Lauren Lopez, UTSA Senior

If you are interested in more information about our programs and events, please visit the Student Leadership Center website or stop by our campus office in UC 1.002.

Submitted by —
Vincent Perez
Program Coordinator,
Student Leadership Center