The 2010 ASU Fall semester brings a new name for the university’s Office of Diversity and a new senior administrator to lead the university’s diversity initiatives.

Kevin Salcido, Associate VP/Chief Human Resources Officer, has announced the Office of Diversity will now be known as the Office of Equity and Inclusion. The new name better reflects what Salcido believes the office should be: both a welcoming place where faculty and staff can go if they feel they have been treated unfairly and an objective office that promotes inclusiveness in all aspects of campus employment. Download Full Image

Kamala Green joined ASU Sept. 20 as the Senior Director of the Office of Equity & Inclusion. Green, who has approximately 15 years of management experience, spent the last 11 years at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in California, where she was an active member of the Lab’s Human Resources Leadership team and most recently served as Senior Manager, Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action. LBNL, a public organization with approximately 3800 employees, students, faculty and guests, is funded by the U.S. Dept. of Energy and managed by the University of California.

“Kamala brings great experience working in a challenging, dynamic research enterprise and has a strong passion for diversity,” Salcido said. “Although the Office of Equity & Inclusion reports to OHR, Kamala will operate independently and collaboratively with all university units to resolve issues and promote a positive work environment.”

Under Green’s leadership, the Office of Equity & Inclusion will facilitate the university’s hiring, promotion, development and pay practices to ensure they are as free of bias as possible. The office also will create and deliver training on how to build inclusive, discrimination-free work environments. Green will be active in diversity outreach internal and external to the university’s community and also will serve as ASU’s ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and Title IX officer.

“Although I will truly miss LBNL,” Green says, “I am extremely excited about joining the Arizona State University team. I look forward to acclimating myself to ASU’s culture and helping the university and the Office of Equity and Inclusion fulfill their overall goals and objectives.

To schedule a consultation on diversity strategy with Ms. Green, contact her at 480.965.9695 or visit the Office of Equity & Inclusion online at cfo.asu.edu/hr-diversity.">http://cfo.asu.edu/hr-diversity">cfo.asu.edu/hr-diversity.

Though the DREAM Act failed to move forward in the U.S. Senate this week, ASU President Michael Crow was in Washington, D.C., to express his support for its passage. He cited basic fairness and the need to provide young people a pathway to employment.

Speaking to reporters from around the nation at a telephone press briefing, Crow said the inability of undocumented students who grew up in the United States to attend college or to find jobs is a tragic loss of talent. Download Full Image

“We’re dealing with children, innocent in their own actions, whose lives should not be delayed while we work out all the complexities of immigration,” Crow said. “It’s about talent acquisition and fairness. High achievement must be recognized. These children should not have to suffer for politics.”

The DREAM Act would permit immigrant students who have grown up in the United States to apply for temporary legal status and eventually become eligible for U.S. citizenship if they go to college or serve in the U.S. military for at least two years. It also eliminates a federal penalty for states that provide them in-state tuition.

Students must have come to the United States at age 15 or younger, at least five years before the date of the bill’s enactment, and be of good moral character.

A vote to send a Department of Defense authorization bill to the full senate failed by four votes on Sept. 21. If the bill had gone to the senate, an attempt to include the Dream Act as part of the legislation was reportedly being considered. Senate Democrats said they plan to take up the act again after the midterm elections.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who also participated in the press briefing, singled out Crow for his leadership on the Dream Act. Other participants were John DeGioia, president of Georgetown University and Myrtle Dorsey, chair-elect of the American Association of Community Colleges.

“Dr. Crow is providing remarkable leadership in so many ways on this issue,” Duncan said. “It’s the right thing to do for our country. We need everyone trained for jobs of the future. We need their skills, their talents, their passion. We have to educate our way to a better economy.”

Crow said that passage of the Dream Act would send a signal that individuals with talent who have worked hard in school can now move forward with their lives while the immigration debate continues.

“It’s an adequate beginning to solving a problem of fairness,” he said. “Most important, we’re completing the pathway to employment.”

ASU invites schoolchildren from all over the state to enter its 26th annual Martin Luther King Jr. essay-poster contest. Winners will receive savings bonds and have their entries displayed at ASU.

They also will be honored at ASU's Martin Luther King Jr. celebration breakfast at the Tempe campus on Jan 20, 2011, along with their parents, teachers and school principals. Entries must be postmarked by Oct. 20. Download Full Image

ASU started the contest 26 years ago to encourage children to discuss the ideals of the late civil rights leader with their parents and teachers. Students are asked to create their entries around the theme, "Beyond the Dream: exchange for a better tomorrow," focusing on a member of their family, school or community who demonstrates leadership through service.

This year’s contest also asks students to envision how they might create a “better tomorrow.”

Essays or poems depicting the theme must be 250 words or less. The winning posters will be made into bookmarks, so they must be oblong in shape – as small as 4 1/2 by 11 inches but no larger than 6 3/4 by 17 inches. Prizes are $150, $100 and $75 savings bonds.

Entries in each of the three categories will be judged by grade level: primary (K-2nd- grade), intermediate (3rd-5th grade), middle (6th-8th grade) and secondary (9th-12th grade).

Winning entries will be chosen on the basis of originality, clarity, creativity and best depiction of the theme.

Entry forms are posted on the website, http://www.asu.edu/mlk/contest.html.">http://www.asu.edu/mlk/contest.html">http://www.asu.edu/mlk/contest.html...

Edward James Olmos, a respected actor and passionate community activist, will present the annual Flinn Foundation Centennial Lecture at 7 p.m. Oct. 12 at Arizona State University’s Gammage Auditorium. The lecture, "We’re All in the Same Gang," is free and open to the public.

In his presentations, Olmos emphasizes culture and racial harmony as the American ideal. Born in Los Angeles to a Mexican immigrant father and a Mexican-American mother, he talks about his heritage and the need to reconcile history books with actual history. He emphasizes the importance of education and personal responsibility Download Full Image

Often at the forefront of social causes, Olmos has been named by Hispanic Magazine as the nation’s most influential Hispanic-American.

Having started out as a rock and roll singer, Olmos branched out into acting in the late 1960s, earning a Tony nomination on Broadway before he moved on to movies and television. In the 1980s he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his role an authoritarian police lieutenant in the TV series “Miami Vice.”

He received an Academy Award nomination for best actor in “Stand and Deliver” for his portrayal of real-life math teacher, Jaime Escalante. He appeared in many other films including “Blade Runner,” “American Me,” “Mi Familia,” and “Selena.” He also had a recurring role in the NBC drama “The West Wing,” and from 2003 to 2009 he starred in the Sci-Fi Channel’s “Battlestar Galactica” miniseries.

In 1997 he co-founded both the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival and the non-profit Latino Literacy Now, which has produced book festivals around the country. A year later he founded Latino Public Broadcasting, funding programming that focuses on Latino issues.

He was one of the driving forces that created “Americanos: Latino Life in the U.S.,” a book project featuring more than 30 award-winning photographers, later turned into a Smithsonian traveling exhibition and HBO special. Olmos also makes appearances at juvenile halls and detention centers to speak to at-risk teenagers, and he has been an international ambassador for UNICEF.

His talk is presented by Barrett, the Honors College. He will be at ASU for several days, joining students for several class sessions and informal presentations.

This is the 21th year for the annual lecture which was established by an endowment from the Flinn Foundation, to bring some of the world’s most influential intellects to campus. It has become one of ASU’s premier events, featuring noted diplomats, scientists, playwrights and authors.

Tickets are required for the free event and are available at the Gammage box office. They also are available at www.ticketmaster.com">http://www.ticketmaster.com">www.ticketmaster.com or by calling the box office at 480-965-3434, though service fees will apply when ordering by internet or phone. Free parking is available in the Gammage lot.

“New approaches to trauma: Bridging theory and practice” will be in the spotlight Oct. 7-9 as scholars and authors from across the United States gather at Arizona State University’s West campus for a conference that builds on recent intellectual work in the field of trauma studies. The event is presented by ASU’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, with support from the Arizona Humanities Council and several academic units on ASU’s West and Tempe campuses.

“While some contention surrounds the boundaries, scope, and content of ‘trauma studies,’ the field has been shaped by 20th century catastrophes including war, genocide, and forced migration alongside everyday experiences of violence, loss, and injury,” said Monica Casper, director of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies in ASU’s New College. “At the conceptual heart of trauma studies is a set of tensions between the everyday and the extreme, between individual identity and collective experience, between history and the present, between experience and representation, between facts and memory, and between the ‘clinical’ and the ‘cultural.’

“It is our hope that this gathering will help us to create new spaces that link theory and practice, both inside and outside universities, in this relatively young, developing field,” Casper said. Download Full Image

Among the noted scholars in attendance will be four keynote speakers.

Dorothy Allison’s address will focus on “A cure for bitterness.” Allison is author of the books “Bastard Out of Carolina,” “Trash,” and “Cavedweller” and has been described by the Boston Globe as one of “the finest writers of her generation.”

Terri Jentz will discuss “Intimate strangers: Reconstructing community years after trauma.” Jentz wrote the acclaimed book “Strange Piece of Paradise” and is now adapting it into a feature film. The book is a deeply disturbing, visceral, and evocative account of the attempted murder of Jentz and her college roommate in the Oregon desert in 1977.

Jackie Orr is a performance artist and sociologist at Syracuse University. She is an award-winning teacher with expertise in contemporary social theory and feminist theory, critical studies of technology, science and psychiatry, and cultural politics. Orr’s keynote, a performance piece, is titled “Necrospeculations (or, Lullaby for Fallujah).”

Maurice E. Stevens is associate professor of comparative studies at Ohio State University. Stevens refuses to separate his academic work from his community work; he has 20 years of experience in mental health and crisis intervention settings. His keynote is “Trauma is as ‘trauma’ does: The politics of affect in catastrophic times.”

Stevens noted that “trauma” is a concept that has its own social history, which has been tied to various political agendas and investments over its brief life span. “Sometimes the concept of ‘trauma’ guides our affect into other kinds of sentimental responses like the desire to ‘help’ or alleviate others’ suffering to such a degree that we will quickly provide ‘support’ in sites of catastrophe without paying close attention to how our methods of providing support also sponsor imperial practices and the introduction of occupational structures walking in step with ‘humanitarian efforts.’”

Stevens said the trauma conference provides an opportunity for attendees to “share strategies and deep insights, and build bonds of connection that will serve, as needed, down the road, in unexpected and delightful ways.”

Casper, chair of the conference local arrangements committee, said she is pleased by the wide range of disciplines represented among presenters and attendees from around the country. “Historically, clinical and psychological perspectives have dominated trauma studies, for example in the understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder,” she said. “But fresh perspectives in sociology, comparative studies, cultural studies, literary studies, gender and race studies, history and other fields have broadened the scope of trauma studies.”

Among the dozens of session presentations scheduled during the conference are “Beauty from pain: The paradox of suffering,” “Memories of progress and loss: The atomic bomb in New Mexico and Japan,” “Culture shock: The experiences of African and West Indian immigrants in the U.S.,” and “Complexities of forgiveness: Early trauma in mother-daughter genealogies.” Presenters represent institutions including Vanderbilt University, George Washington University, Loyola University of Chicago, Roanoke College and New York University.

Conference organizers added a special panel discussion to the agenda on Oct. 9. “Families, separation, and round-ups: The immigrant experience and trauma in Maricopa County” was organized in response to the debates about Senate Bill 1070, according to Casper. “Rather than cancel the conference, as many others in Arizona have been canceled due to boycott, we collectively decided to carry on, but to use the conference as an opportunity to examine these issues in the place where we live and work,” she said. The panel discussion will be moderated by Arizona Republic reporter Richard Ruelas and will feature Victoria Lopez, an immigration rights advocate with the American Civil Liberties Union; Cristina Sanidad, a labor rights promoter with the Arizona Interfaith Alliance for Worker Justice and a student in New College’s master’s degree program in social justice and human rights; and Carmen Cornejo, an advocate for the DREAM Act.

Arts and performance presentations related to the theme of trauma also are scheduled on ASU’s West campus to coincide with the conference.

David Barker will present his award-winning one-man play “Dodging Bullets” Oct. 7-9 at 8 p.m. in Second Stage West, lower level of the University Center Building. The play tells the story of an act of family violence that changed his life forever. Barker is a theater professor at ASU’s Tempe campus.

Richard Lerman’s sound/video installation “Death Valley Cycle 2” will be presented during the conference in ArtSpace West, second floor of the University Center Building. An opening reception is set for Thursday, Oct. 7 at 6:30 p.m. The installation was recorded in each of the 12 calendar months at Death Valley, marking the artist’s eighth anniversary as a survivor of multiple cancers. Lerman is a professor of interdisciplinary arts and performance in ASU’s New College.

The container car exhibit “One Heart Betrayed” will be displayed between Fletcher Library and the Sands Classroom Building during the conference. “One Heart Betrayed” sheds light on the plight of thousands of political prisoners who are imprisoned in steel shipping containers for such “transgressions” as their political and religious beliefs, or for family connections that run counter to authoritarian rule in the African nation of Eritrea.

The documentary “Tar Creek” is scheduled for screening Friday, Oct. 8 at 2 p.m. in Room 265 of the University Center Building. The film tells the story of 40 square miles of environmental devastation in northeastern Oklahoma and the residents who have spent nearly 30 years fighting for decontamination, environmental justice, and the buyout and relocation of their homes to safer ground.

In addition to the Arizona Humanities Council and ASU’s New College, conference supporters include three New College units – the Center for Critical Inquiry and Cultural Studies; the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies; and the master’s degree program in social justice and human rights. Additional supporters are the School of Social Transformation and the Women and Gender Studies Department from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences on ASU’s Tempe campus and the ASU Institute for Humanities Research.

The trauma conference is free and open to the public; registration is required by Oct. 1. For details, contact lucy.berchini">mailto:lucy.berchini@asu.edu">lucy.berchini@asu.edu or visit http://traumaconference.newcollege.asu.edu/.">http://traumaconference.newcollege.asu.edu/">http://traumaconference.new...

Authors Reyna Grande, Alberto Rios and Terry Greene Sterling will give their unique perspectives on immigration during the upcoming “Writers on Border Lines.” The event will consist of a reading by each of the panelists followed by an open discussion. Evelyn Haydee Cruz, director of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law Immigration Law & Policy Clinic at Arizona State University, will also participate.

Sponsored by the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, the reading and discussion will take place Thursday, Oct. 21 at 7:45 p.m. at the Great Hall in Armstrong Hall (Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law) on ASU’s Tempe campus. The event is free and open to the public. Download Full Image

Grande is the author of two novels, including the critically acclaimed “Across A Hundred Mountains” for which she won the 2007 American Book Award and the EL Premio Azlan Literary Award. Born in Mexico, she was raised by her grandparents when her parents left to work in the United States. She came to the U.S. at the age of 9 as an undocumented immigrant and went on to become the first member of her family to earn a college degree.

Rios grew up in the border town of Nogales, Ariz. His father was born in Mexico, came to the U.S. at the age of 14, joined the military and met Rios’ mother while stationed at an Air Force base in England. A Regents’ Professor of English at ASU, Rios is the author of several collections of poetry, including “The Theater of Night,” winner of the 2007 PEN/Beyond Margins Award. His memoir, “Capirotada: A Nogales Memoir,” about growing up on the Mexico-Arizona border, won the Latino Literary Hall of Fame Award and was the 2009 OneBookAZ selection.

Sterling, an award-winning journalist, was born into a family that owned cattle ranches on both sides of the border. Her recently published book “Illegal: Life and Death in Arizona’s Immigration War Zone” takes an in-depth look at the people who navigate the system on a daily basis. She spent 17 months interviewing and documenting the individual experiences for the book. A three-time winner of Arizona’s highest journalism honor, the Virg Hill Journalist of the Year Award, she was an investigative reporter for the Phoenix New Times for 13 years and is currently the Writer-in-Residence at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

For more information about the event, contact the Piper Center for Creative Writing, (480) 965-6018, or www.asu.edu/piper.">http://www.asu.edu/piper">www.asu.edu/piper.

For the first time Arizona State University hosted the 2010 Graduate Horizons summer workshop program for American Indian, Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian college students and college graduates from across the nation.

Conducted by College Horizons, the annual pre-graduate summer program provides graduate college counseling with a particular emphasis on first-generation students and those from rural communities who may not have access to expert advising. Download Full Image

ASU's Graduate">http://graduate.asu.edu">Graduate College hosted the 2010 Graduate Horizons program, which took place July 16-20, with events at Memorial Union, American Indian Student Support Services (AISSS), and Barrett, the Honors College.

Seventy students attended on the ASU campus, along with 55 faculty members, university representatives and American Indian educators. Faculty members partnered with students for individual advising. Small group workshops were divided into specific disciplines or programs, including business, education, health, arts, law, public policy and undecided/exploring.

During the four-day graduate workshops, students completed a statement of purpose, personal statement and a résumé or curriculum vitae. They also discovered test preparation strategies, financial aid resources and determined a graduate program of study and career opportunities.

“This program not only provides direct services to students on the graduate process, but also contributes to the capacity of Native Nations by developing a new generation of professionals with advanced degrees," said Carmen Lopez, College Horizon’s executive director and citizen of the Navajo Nation. "We were extremely proud and excited that Arizona State University hosted our program.

“Transforming higher education entails reaching out, beating the bushes in native communities, creating scholarship opportunities, and expanding access to education for qualified students,” said Peterson Zah, special adviser to President Crow on American Indian Affairs. “Hosting Graduate Horizons this year is one piece of the puzzle to complete our overall goals of getting more native students to graduate school. The program they put on was fantastic.”

A veteran mentor and adviser talks about the challenges of putting students on productive paths

Terry Alford, engineering professor at ASU, describes the most influential mentor in his life as “a teddy bear, but a teddy bear with fangs.” Download Full Image

Engineering professor James W. Mayer, Alford’s adviser during his years at Cornell University in New York, was fatherly and supportive, “but he was a hard driver,” Alford said.

Mayer is now an ASU Regents’ Professor Emeritus of materials science and engineering.

Alford has employed Mayer’s tough-love approach in his efforts as a student mentor and adviser at ASU for almost 17 years.

“Mentoring is a two-way street," he said. "The faculty member and the student both need to be committed to doing the work to make the relationship productive."

Alford is a professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, a part of ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. In addition, he’s chair of the materials science and engineering graduate program.

In 2009 he won an Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award from ASU’s Graduate College, and was an ASU Parents’ Association Professor of the Year nominee.

He has mentored hundreds of students: doctoral and master’s degree candidates along with undergraduates. He served for three years as adviser to the ASU student chapter of the Materials Research Society, and has been the adviser to the National Society for Black Engineers student chapter since 1993.

To his teaching and advising, he brings not only years of achievements in higher education, but industry experience that includes work with major corporations such as Motorola and Texas Instruments, and Sandia National Laboratories.

Alford said his personal experiences taught him the value of mentoring – and of being mentored.

What led you to being a mentor?

I learned from good experiences and bad experiences. I had almost no mentoring as an undergraduate, and that was the bad experience. In grad school [at Cornell], I had an ideal mentor [Mayer]. And that made a world of difference in my life.

What’s the most important thing in mentoring a student?

The whole focus is on helping students create an environment in which they can be successful. It’s an individual thing. You have to find the environment that works for you, one that helps you focus on your goal and not get distracted from it. There are a lot of environments that can sidetrack young students.

What’s the critical thing to being a successful mentor?

You must have an appreciation for the value of mentoring. Without that, you won’t do it with enthusiasm and commitment. But it’s a two-way street. The students must also have a commitment. They have to want to learn. They have to want to do the work it takes to get on track with their education.

What’s the most valuable thing a mentor can teach a student?

The best mentorship provides a vital lesson on how to motivate yourself, how to build your confidence and build the kind of relationships that are going to give you the best chance at success. It goes back to learning how to create a mentally healthy and productive environment for yourself.

How do start to get a student in the right mindset to do that?

First, you listen. You try to understand the student’s goals. You get them to describe what they want to achieve. Sometimes by urging them to articulate their goals it helps them better define and clarify for themselves what they really want.

What’s most challenging for a mentor?

The toughest cases are the ones where you have to tell students you don’t have an answer. Sometimes you have to tell them they need a professional counselor or clergy to help them. Other times it involves a student clashing with faculty members who are your colleagues. You have to be fair and respectful to your colleagues and still try to help the student. You try to keep it positive, but make the student realize there are rarely quick or easy remedies to these types of issues.

How do you know if you are connecting with students?

That’s why it’s useful to have different advisers. Sometimes two people are just not on the same track. If a student comes to me about his education and says, “All I want is a good job and money,” then I’m probably not the best mentor for that person. My outlook is that a job is something that you have to do, a career is something you are devoted to doing. Here we are interested in building careers.

How do know if your mentoring is successful?

You do see some students transform into becoming focused and committed, and they develop a driving force to get a degree, or a particular job, or become an entrepreneur. But it is the minority who take the seed and nurture it right away, who do the work to get themselves connected to the paths to success. You just never know if or when your counseling will bear fruit. It may take five minutes. It may take five years.

What’s an award-winning mentor’s guiding principle?

That makes me think about my mentor, Jim Mayer. I was on a trip to South Africa with him once when he took me to a squatters’ camp in a poor town where they were building a school. I found out Jim was providing books for the school and helping pay for a playground for the children. I had known him for several years at the time and never heard him talk about doing this. There’s a lesson in that about living a meaningful life. You don’t do things for a thank-you or for the glory. You do something because it’s the right thing to do.

For the third year in a row, Arizona State University’s West campus will host the AGUILA Leadership Symposium, a four-day experience designed to provide opportunities for Latino/Latina students entering grades 9-12 to better understand the university process.

The symposium, an integral part of the year-long AGUILA Youth Leadership Institute, takes place July 28-31 and will attract more than 200 students. Download Full Image

This year’s symposium theme is “Creating a Masterpiece.”  The total-immersion event, which includes participating students living in Las Casas, the campus apartment-style residences, will feature prominent artists, scholars, professors and learning activities.  Mock 30-minute classes will introduce students to university-quality lectures and discussions that focus on popular college majors.  A workshop that helps students see themselves as community leaders will culminate in a “Leaders Networking Mixer,” and a college fair will provide information on registration, scholarship opportunities, student life and more.

“Applications continue to grow each year,” says Rosemary Ybarra-Hernandez, founder and CEO of the institute.  “This year is no different; our record numbers will most likely exceed 200 students from across the state.

“We are determined to make the symposium an even greater success in 2010 and have designed the event to provide our students with an unforgettable experience, one that will help them to make connections in the development of a plan for college.  Most importantly, we want to help the students develop a plan for participating in a world that values their minds and their hearts.”

Among ASU faculty who will participate in the symposium is Gloria Cuadraz, an associate professor of sociology in the New">http://newcollege.asu.edu/">New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences.  A fixture on the West campus since 1994, Cuadraz will deliver two mock lectures about her award-winning oral history research in the West Valley community – one focusing on the history of oral histories, another on the theoretical concepts she works with while interpreting data.

“This kind of event accomplishes the important task of introducing these students to college life, academic standards, the culture of the university, and it provides them with the ever-critical ‘heads up’ about the next stage of their lives,” says Cuadraz, who received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and was awarded “Best of the West” honors from WESTMARC in 2006 for her oral history project, “Mexican Americans of Litchfield Park.”  “It also allows them to meet other students who are college-bound and to bask in the excitement of like others.”

Ybarra-Hernandez says the West campus location is an ideal fit for the event.

“We have a great fondness for the West campus,” she says.  “It is the jewel in the West Valley and provides this community with incredible opportunities.  The campus offers such a strong academic environment and a state-of-the-art facility with a variety of educational opportunities for our students, as well as their parents, who are considering college.
“There is a sense of community at the West campus that mirrors our mission in service to our students.”

Cuadraz points to ASU’s focus on community service and meaningful engagement as she prepares for the symposium.

“Hosting this event personifies one of our strengths – that of social embeddedness and involvement with the community,” says Cuadraz, who co-founded and directed the New College bachelor’s degree program in ethnicity, race, and first nations studies for six years.  “The fact that several ASU faculty are participating in the symposium speaks to the qualities and values of our faculty.  We are a part of the community; only by building those connections with the incoming populations of students can we hope to achieve the promises of the New American University.”

The associate professor is also impressed with the AGUILA students.

“The eagerness and enthusiasm of these students is heartwarming,” she says.  “I have never met a more determined group of students.  The knowledge they have gathered from their participation in AGUILA will carry them to whichever institution of higher education they attend.  Of course, we prefer they attend ASU, but I look forward to hearing about their achievements and the leadership roles they will surely come to possess.”

For more information about the AGUILA Youth Leadership Institute and the upcoming Leadership Symposium, visit http://aguilayouth.org.">http://aguilayouth.org">http://aguilayouth.org.

Arizona State University has soared in the number of master’s and doctoral degrees awarded to minority students, according to figures just published in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. The magazine’s annual rankings of “The Top 100 Graduate Degree Producers” were published in its July 8 issue and are based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

For the first time, ASU ranks first in the nation for doctoral degrees awarded to Native Americans, as well as ninth in master’s degrees awarded. Download Full Image

Among Hispanic students, ASU ranks fifth in doctorates awarded and 19th in master’s degrees. These rankings are substantial increases from 2009, when ASU ranked 12th in doctorates and 36th in number of master’s degrees.

ASU ranks 54 nationally for doctorates awarded to African Americans, an improvement over the previous year in which ASU did not place in the top 100. The total number of doctorates awarded to African Americans increased by 200 percent.

These rankings reflect total number of degrees awarded in all disciplines combined. Within specific programs of study, ASU rankings include:

• Doctorates awarded to Native Americans in education rank No. 1

• Doctorates awarded to Hispanics in education rank No. 3, in engineering No. 4 and in physical sciences No. 5

• Doctorates awarded to Asian Americans in education rank No. 14, in psychology No. 15 and in engineering No. 19.

• For Hispanics, master’s degrees awarded in mathematics and statistics rank No. 1, and business and management rank No. 25.

• For Native Americans, master’s degrees awarded for business and education both rank No. 12

• Law degrees awarded to Native Americans rank No. 8

Ethnic minority students who are underrepresented in graduate studies are aspiring to advanced degrees in greater numbers, said Maria T. Allison, vice-provost and dean of the Graduate College. Of the more than 13,000 graduate students attending ASU, nearly 19 percent are from underrepresented or minority ethnic groups. Five years ago, minority students represented only about 15 percent of total graduate student enrollment.

“We are very committed to creating an environment in which all students can thrive and reach their fullest potential,” Allison said. “ASU offers a wide range of social and academic support, which can be particularly important for ethnic minorities and first-generation students.”

Services and support for graduate students include SHADES, a peer-to-peer multicultural mentoring program; Social and Academic Mentoring (SAM); Diversity Across the Curriculum (DAC) seminar series; and the Gates Millennium Scholars Organization (GMSO).

Among the many ASU resources for minority undergraduate and graduate students is Multicultural Student Services, the Native American Achievement Program, the Hispanic Business Students Association, the One Nation Club at the Polytechnic campus, the Hispanic Mother-Daughter Program, and American Indian Student Support Services.