Diversity Advocates Honored With Inclusive Excellence Awards

Diversity Advocates Honored With Inclusive Excellence Awards

By University Relations - Communications
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A new Inclusive Excellence award – the Richard Ruiz Diversity Leadership Faculty Award – was created this year to honor late UA faculty member Richard Ruiz.
A new Inclusive Excellence award – the Richard Ruiz Diversity Leadership Faculty Award – was created this year to honor late UA faculty member Richard Ruiz.
Francisco Moreno
Francisco Moreno
Residence Life Staff
Residence Life Staff
The Transition to Teaching team (left to right): Etta Kralovec, Jesse Kelly, Javier Lopez, Alison Van Gorp
The Transition to Teaching team (left to right): Etta Kralovec, Jesse Kelly, Javier Lopez, Alison Van Gorp
American Indian & Indigenous Health Alliance club members (left to right): Kelsey Yonnie, Elizabeth Hunt, Felina Cordova-Marks, Amanda Urbina, Carmella Kahn, Tiffani Begay
American Indian & Indigenous Health Alliance club members (left to right): Kelsey Yonnie, Elizabeth Hunt, Felina Cordova-Marks, Amanda Urbina, Carmella Kahn, Tiffani Begay
Nicolette Teufel-Shone
Nicolette Teufel-Shone
Francisco Galarte
Francisco Galarte
Cazandra Zaragoza
Cazandra Zaragoza

Some of the UA's most notable advocates for campus diversity and inclusion have been recognized as the 2015 Peter W. Likins Inclusive Excellence Award honorees.

Established in 2005 in honor of President Emeritus Peter W. Likins, the Inclusive Excellence Awards recognize individuals or groups who work to create a supportive environment at the UA, build a more academically robust and diverse student body, and recruit and retain diverse employees.

"Right now, we're focused on creating a campus where everybody – all staff, all students, all faculty – can have a really positive experience and they can succeed," said Andrew Comrie, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, at a reception honoring the award winners on Tuesday.

Likins, who served as UA president from 1997-2006, spoke at the event.

"The thing that makes me most proud of my legacy ... is the feeling that I had a chance to influence the evolution of a University culture that is more accepting of diversity," he said. "That's not just what I do, that's who I am."

A new Inclusive Excellence award – the Richard Ruiz Diversity Leadership Faculty Award – was created this year to honor the late Richard Ruiz, who served as head of the UA Department of Mexican and American Studies. The award honors his many contributions to making the UA a better, more inclusive campus. Ruiz passed away in February.

"We will feel his absence for a long time to come, but we will also feel his presence in many ways," Comrie said. "He touched so many parts of campus and the Tucson community."

The Inclusive Excellence Awards are sponsored by the Programs for Inclusive Excellence and the Office of the Provost, in collaboration with the Division of Human Resources and Student Affairs and Enrollment Management. All awards come with a $500 endowment.

The 2015 winners are:

Richard Ruiz Diversity Leadership Faculty Award

Francisco Moreno, professor of psychiatry; deputy dean for the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at the UA College of Medicine,; assistant vice president for diversity and inclusion at the Arizona Health Sciences Center

In addition to being a professor of psychiatry, Moreno promotes and supports efforts by the campus community to increase the breadth and depth of diversity in the health workforce, promote a climate of inclusion and address the needs of the UA's increasingly diverse population. He pioneered the P-MAP program, a post-baccalaureate program that provides an alternate pathway into medical school for underrepresented students. He also led the creation of the Faculty Fellows Mentoring Program in 2013, and established the Diversity Matters and Diversity Seminar series, which is designed to provide opportunities to explore and discuss issues related to creating an inclusive environment and equitable access to care.

Peter Likins Inclusive Excellence Staff Award

Residence Life Staff

UA Residence Life provides housing for more than 6,500 UA students, and employs over 600 student and professional employees who are dedicated to creating safe, welcoming, inclusive communities in UA residence halls. Over the years, Residence Life has expanded its social justice education and advocacy efforts by becoming the first school in Arizona to offer gender-inclusive housing; creating Living Learning Communities to serve African American, Native American and LGBTQ students; providing communications in both English and Spanish; helping establish the campus' Intergroup Dialogue program; offering three gender options – male, female and transgender – on housing applications; and providing Residential Education staff with more than 25 annual hours of diversity and social justice training.

In addition, Residence Life's student social justice advocacy group, Advocates Coming Together, provides peer education on issues of equity and inclusion affecting the UA campus. Residence Life's social justice education efforts are seen as a national model for housing programs, and many of Residence Life's training materials and modules have been used by dozens of campuses across the country.

Peter Likins Inclusive Excellence Program Award

Transition to Teaching, UA South

In 2011, UA South received a $2.2 million Transition to Teaching grant from the Department of Education to prepare science, technology, engineering and math teachers to teach in Title 1 school districts in Cochise, Pima and Santa Cruz counties. The focus of the UA South Transition to Teaching program is to recruit, prepare and support new STEM teachers. Fellows begin teaching after a summer of intense coursework and are supported by a robust mentor network during their first two years of teaching. Fellows work closely with assigned mentors, who are school-based science and math teachers. The program hosts an annual Living and Learning on the Border Symposium, which invites students, local teachers, community members, regional stakeholders and teachers from Mexico to share in a dialogue with international teacher education scholars.

Peter Likins Inclusive Excellence Student/Student Organization Award

American Indian and Indigenous Health Alliance Student Club

The American Indian and Indigenous Health Alliance is an undergraduate and graduate student organization based in the UA Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. The club seeks to enrich and foster the educational and professional experience of Indigenous students at the University. Now in its third year, the club established the Annual Indigenous Day of Health, the Get Moving! Series and the Lunch with a Professional Speaker Series. The club is hosting a 5K/10K run and 5K fun run/walk on the UA Mall on April 25. Proceeds will go toward establishing a scholarship fund for Native American UA undergraduate and graduate students in the health professions and establishing the Dr. Fileberto Lopez III Native American Public Health Student Scholarship, honoring of founding club member Fileberto Lopez, who passed away while a student at the UA.


In addition, the following employees earned Inclusive Excellence honorable mentions:

Richard Ruiz Diversity Leadership Faculty Award Honorable Mentions

Nicolette Teufel-Shone, professor and chairwoman of the Family and Child Health Section in the Department of Health Promotion Sciences in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health; affiliate faculty member in anthropology and nutritional sciences; affiliate scholar in the University of Arizona Cancer Center's Health Disparities Institute

For more than 25 years, Teufel-Shone has collaborated with tribal communities in the U.S. to develop shared, culturally relevant health programs that strive to build community health and resilience. She is co-director of the Center for American Indian Resilience, which provides mentorship for graduate students, and she has served as the primary mentor of more than 20 American Indian graduate students in the past three years.

Francisco Galarte, assistant professor in the Department of Gender and Women's Studies; collaborator on the UA Transgender Studies Initiative

Galarte's research interests are in Hispanic studies and transgender studies. He is an active participant in the Faculty Fellow Program with the LGBTQIA Affairs Office by creating opportunities for students to encounter diverse perspectives outside of the classroom setting. For example, Galarte established the "Queer People of Color Speaker Series," which allowed students to learn about perspectives on how to translate grassroots activism into governmental policy changes.

Peter Likins Inclusive Excellence Staff Award Honorable Mention

Cazandra Zaragoza, director of student opportunities at the UA College of Medicine

Zaragoza started at the UA in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at the College of Medicine in 2007, focusing her efforts on promoting programs around diversity. She later moved into the Office of Admissions as a recruitment specialist. She helped establish "Multiple Mini-Interviews" that transformed the selection process to make it more accessible for students from diverse cultural backgrounds to apply to the UA College of Medicine. In addition, she is an instructor for the Safe Zone training program, which emphasizes tolerance for LGBTQ populations.

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