Rachel Cruz, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality Studies
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Bio
A native of Seguin, Texas, Dr. Rachel Yvonne Cruz’s love for music began at a very early age--inspired by her mother, Mary, who availed a variety of musical styles and genres. According to her mother, Rachel was singing before she could speak.
Cruz earned the degree Bachelor of Arts/Music from the University of Notre Dame (ND) in Indiana, under the direction of Georgine Resick, Soprano, and the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the University of Texas at Austin (UT), under the tutelage of Gilda Cruz- Romo, Soprano and the late Martha Deatherage, Soprano and Professor of Voice. Cruz has been a finalist at the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Competition and was the winner of the 1996 Roy Crane Award for Creativity in the Arts at UT. Cruz holds teaching certificates in Secondary Music and English as a Second Language. Her teaching career began at Fulmore Middle School in Austin, where she founded Austin Independent School Districts' first middle school mariachi ensemble and taught at Laredo’s Vidal M. Treviño School of Communication and Art.
