The UTSA Honors College hosted the tenth annual "Great Conversation!" at UTSA's Institute of Texan Cultures Feb. 23. This year’s event raised $151,340, which goes directly to support students attending UTSA.

            Great Conversation raises money for the Honors College by providing gourmet food and table conversation on a variety of topics hosted by UTSA faculty and San Antonio community leaders.

            The event featured 44 tables, each with a different topic. This year's topics included such themes as “Does race still matter in America?” and “First and Goal: Building a Football Program from the Ground Up.”

            Omar Hernandez, UTSA Public Affairs Specialist said, “The evening is much like a dinner party with conversation as the focus. Tables seat 10 with a different conversation topic assigned in advance to each table.

The conversation is led by a UTSA faculty member or San Antonio community leader with expertise on a topic. Attendees enjoy a buffet supper, and the topical conversation begins over coffee and dessert.”

            UTSA professor and Great Conversation founder Dr. Harriett Romo said that the event is a great way to show off UTSA's great faculty while raising money essential to the success of students.

            Since its inception on Feb. 20, 2001, Great Conversation has helped raise $750,000 in scholarships. 

            San Antonio Express-News Editor Robert Rivard, led the conversation “The Art of Writing a Good Column.” He said that he gives himself at least three hours to write a column.

            “Good writers are also good readers,” Rivard said.

            He began a story about how he started a reading group for the elderly three years ago. He discussed how he was reading one of his favorite books “Travels with Charlie” by John Steinbeck.

            “The patients of the nursing home would sometimes fall asleep while I was reading and wake up and be right back with me in the story,” Rivard said.

            This in turn spurned the conversation into what nursing homes have meant for society.

            Davis Sprinkle, a San Antonio architect, said, “Even the best nursing homes are sad.”

            The conversations were also meant to be engaging, enlightening and sometimes funny. Dr. Alfonso Chiscano, a thoracic surgeon in San Antonio, told a joke about how different he is from his son.

            “I'm a nice guy, and my son Steve is a lawyer,” Chiscano said.

            The conversation once again returned to the topic at hand when Rivard was asked what he thought about writing fiction which he exclaimed, “I find fiction liberating.”

            San Antonio Mayor, Julian Castro, was also at the event. He said that the event was comprised of lively, excellent conversation and was fitting the spirit of the University (UTSA).

            “UTSA is pivotal in creating the brain power we need for San Antonio, and I have 30,000 reasons to be confident in the future of San Antonio,” Castro said.

            Natalie Hall, who was an honors student at UTSA 10 years ago, said, “The event was started as a lecture series 10 years ago.”

            Her fraternal twin Andrea Hall Doolittle, who co-chaired the event, was also in attendance.

            In 1972, Janet Alyn was in the first graduating class at UTSA. She told the table that over the past five years she has been writing a nitty-gritty novel comprised of only memoirs.

            Alyn is a former Education Director for Planned Parenthood of San Antonio.

            Toward the end of the night everyone addressed salutations of gratitude.

Natalie Hall said that she would not be where she is if it were not for the Honor’s College and Great Conversation in particular.

Ann Eisenberg said that Linda Lopez-George played a key role in ensuring that community donations came in.

“We could not have been as successful without her help, especially over the past five years or so,” Eisenberg said.

Lopez-George is the Development Officer for the Honors College.

To end of the conversation for the night, Rivard said that the art of writing a good column is to never stop loving to write.