For immediate release
Foreign journalists tour campus on border visit
BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS – OCTOBER 30, 2009 – Louise With, the New York City-based bureau chief for Denmark’s Information newspaper, said a three-day press trip to the border has peaked her interest in looking more at the United States and Mexico’s binational relations. 
“It’s always a different experience to meet the people, to get your own hands on experiences and it always means you have new perspective,” she said.
With liked the walking and bus tour of The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College on Friday, Oct. 30. The tour included stops at the Commandant’s House, the Arecibo Remote Command Center and the campus security fence behind the Recreation, Education and Kinesiology Center.
“I’m very impressed,” With said seeing the campus. “It’s nice how it’s built in Fort Brown’s architecture style. It is different from the architecture in the Northeast.”
With, along with four other journalists from China, Italy, Poland and Russia, toured UTB/TSC on Friday, Oct. 30 on the last day of a three-day press tour of Brownsville and Matamoros sponsored by the Foreign Press Center in New York City and the Brownsville Economic Development Council.
“It’s a truly global educational environment,” said Jim Holt, UTB/TSC associate vice president and dean of Workforce Training and Continuing Education. “These folks will go home and write articles mentioning Brownsville. If people have heard of Brownsville, it will cause people to connect the dots.”
UTB/TSC Provost Dr. Alan Artibise told the journalists and campus staff during a coffee and pan dulce social in the Gorgas Board Room that the campus transcends borders through research, workforce development and education.
“We need to think in a regional way with the border as a presence, not a barrier between the two countries,” he said.
On Wednesday, Oct. 28, the group visited UTB/TSC’s International Technology, Education and Commerce Center, which is home to The Language Institute and Business Incubator Services.
The group also visited during their trip the Port of Brownsville, South Padre Island and maquiladoras in Matamoros.
For more information on the tour, call Gilberto Salinas, vice president for Marketing, Communications and Public Affairs for the Brownsville Economic Development Council, at (956) 541-1183 or Irv Downing, UTB/TSC vice president for Economic Development and Community Services, at (956) 882-4238.