EDUCATION: New dean, new ideas: dean brings renewed leadership to TAMIU COAS

By Sean Jimenez
Assistant Editor
Published Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025

This Fall, TAMIU reaffirmed leadership to the College of Arts and Sciences by promoting Marcus Antonius Ynalvez from interim dean to full dean. 

This new chapter is preceded by Ynalvez’s years of experience in social sciences, technology and sociology, which bring new perspectives and global goals to the future of COAS. 

 “Our aspiration is that this university should be an international player, a global player,” Ynalvez said.

He emphasized taking advantage of TAMIU’s border location and unique opportunities.

“We have a big advantage,” he said. “We have a natural laboratory, which is [in] the port area of Laredo, the biggest [inland] port in the Western Hemisphere. The dance of this place, the culture, the languages, the food of this place will need to be shared with the world.”

Ynalvez looks to the future of TAMIU and focuses on its local and global impact.

“We set the standard for our community,” he said. “We need to evolve as technology is evolving. Otherwise, we’ll be left behind. Research in TAMIU should be research in all aspects. It should better our capacity as a community, as a state, as a nation and [our ability] to retain our international standing and leadership in terms of technological advance [and] economic advance.” 

While he focused on TAMIU’s planned advancements, he still valued the University’s past and present successes.

 “We should not forget the past, but we should get the wisdom of the past, all that is in the past, and harmonize it with [the] contemporary,” Ynalvez said.

Ynalvez emphasized that running this operation requires assistance, which is where Associate Dean Kennith Tobin comes in. 

Tobin began working with Ynalvez in the COAS office on July 1, 2024. He earned a doctorate in geology and completed his post-doctoral research assistantship at Princeton.

 “I recruited Dr. Tobin to this job because I so much respect him,” Ynalvez said.

He explained that academics are judged on three spheres: research, teaching and service. 

“In all [of] those three spheres, Dr. Tobin has always impressed me as someone who is very professional, very ethical and someone who is highly reliable,” he explained. “That’s the reason I had to invite him.”

Tobin oversees the research of faculty at COAS, focusing on institutional data and remote sensing of the Earth. He explained that his day-to-day work is project oriented.

Ynalvez explained that science and art should balance and blend, and Tobin helps him with that aspect. This results in students developing into functional problem-solving members of society.

Tobin further said they have been given the green light to elevate TAMIU to the next level. 

“With universities, there is a classification system,” Tobin explained. “Right now, we’re a comprehensive master’s institution. The mandate from the system is that we rise to a Research-intensive 2 institution.”

He explained that to achieve this, TAMIU needs to increase its number of research doctorates over time.

“That’s one of the main initiatives of the college right now,” he said. “We’re looking at counseling psychology.”

Tobin shares that TAMIU looks toward a brighter future in mental health studies.

“Laredo, as a city, ranks dead last in terms of mental health delivery; so, clearly there is a need for this,” Tobin said.

He said the provost hopes this achievement can be reached in 2028-2029. 

Ynalvez has pushed for new innovations throughout his TAMIU career. Long-time colleague, communication Professor Angela Marcela Moran, shared a collaborative project she worked on with Ynalvez in 2019. 

Moran explained that Ynalvez and the prior COAS dean, current Provost Claudia E. San Miguel, pitched her a research project involving student-produced videos on STEM concepts. This program became known as TAMIU’s NSF-IUSE Program, also called USTEM.

“The National Science Foundation gave them $1.65 million for a period of over three years,” Moran said.

She and Ynalvez worked on the program for four years.

“Half of the students would randomly be selected and were going to work with me and Dr. Ynalvez to produce five-minute videos on STEM topics,” she said.

She explained how a large faculty, including her and Ynalvez, worked together to understand these students better.

“We were researching how the videos were affecting their psychosocial outcomes—if they felt a sense of belonging,” she said.

She co-taught with Ynalvez. He focused on the science and content of the video, while she concentrated on teaching camera techniques.

“I think that he’s a great dean,” Moran said. “He’s proven that as interim dean for two years. I think that we learn from each other, like observing each other’s teaching. As a senior faculty, I think he had a lot to do with my trajectory these past years and my success.”

Ynalvez is pushing toward a future expected to put TAMIU and its students on the map.

“We want our students to transform,” Ynalvez concluded. “In the four years that you are here, you should have transformed really high [to where] we are proud of you because you have changed the world, and we will have equipped you for that.”