Center for Research on Teaching and Learning Excellence (CRTLE)
Office of the Provost, Division of Faculty Success
Angeles Margard
The most meaningful class Angeles Margarida attended at The University of Texas at Arlington was in Tanzanian pastureland.
As part of a summer studio course in the College of Architecture, Planning, and Public Affairs (CAPPA), Margarida traveled with UTA classmates and faculty to the Tanzanian village of Roche to
design a community garden. Determined to better know the local residents and understand their experiences, she accompanied several women on a hike to collect water needed for drinking, cleaning, and cooking in their homes.
The women balanced 5-gallon jugs on their heads with one hand and hauled 3-gallon jugs in the other, each container filled with murky pond water from nearby farmland. Margarida, a former collegiate soccer player, says she struggled to lug a single 3-gallon jug and keep up with the women on their 30-minute walk back to the village.
“They’re strong—those ladies can carry,” says Margarida, who graduated in May 2021 with a master’s in landscape architecture. “Listening to people who come from different backgrounds, life experiences, and cultures and providing a design that is tailored to them and will benefit their community? That felt like a very authentic experience to me.”
Margarida says her trip to Tanzania had a life-changing impact, even inspiring and informing her thesis project: “Empowering Artists Experiencing Homelessness Through Temporary Public Art in the City of Dallas.” She is working with individuals who are experiencing homelessness to create a temporary art exhibit featuring murals that address their stories. The murals will be on display in Main Street Garden Park in downtown Dallas.
She says she also hopes to find work at a firm that engages closely with community members on its projects. She traces this desire back to a muddy pond, a group of powerful, intrepid women, and a rewarding project that helped improve the quality of life in a Tanzanian village.
“Without that trip, it might have been a different thesis,” Margarida says. “I never had the experience before of engaging with a community like that. I never would have known how much I enjoyed this type of work.”