In Brief: HSI Faculty Seed Grant awardees and CUES fellows named

Awardees announced for 2024 HSI Faculty Seed Grant program

Projects focusing on bilingual higher education and mentorship in engineering were among the 10 to receive funding from the 2024 Hispanic-Serving Institution Faculty Seed Grant program. The Office of Research, Innovation and Impact and the Office of the Provost sponsor the program, which is open to all faculty members, and awardees are chosen by a faculty peer review committee. Single investigators can request up to $15,000 of funding, and multidisciplinary applications from two or more investigators representing different disciplines can request up to $25,000. Each of this year's awardees received full funding, totaling around $190,000.

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This year's awardees and their projects are below.

• Genesis Arizmendi, Assistant Professor, Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences | "Pathway For Underrepresented Education and Networking in Training and Empowerment (PUENTE) For Diversity in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology"
• Nadia Alvarez Mexia, Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of Learning Development and Community Involvement, W.A. Franke Honors College | "Honors as Origin for a National Opportunity and Research Support in Hispanic Serving Institutions" 
• Katherine Cheng, Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Psychology | "Enhancing Emotional and Motivational Development to Support Health Equity and Educational Retention in Historically Marginalized University Students" 
• Athena Ganchorre, Assistant Dean, College of Veterinary Medicine, and Assistant Research Professor, Department of Teaching, Learning and Sociocultural Studies | "Creating Rural Engagement Using Augmented RealiTy Education (CREATE) Program: Advancing Diversity in Veterinary Medicine Education"
• Maura Varley Gutierrez, Associate Professor, Department of Teaching, Learning and Sociocultural Studies | "Nuestro Futuro: Uplifting Culturally Responsive Bilingual Education"
• Jhonatan Henao-Muñoz, Assistant Professor, W.A. Franke Honors College | "Advocating for Bilingual and Culturally-Responsive Higher Education Project (ABC Higher Ed)" 
• Kavan Hazeli, Associate Professor, Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering | "Engineering Mentors Promoting Outreach, Wellness, Education, and Respect (E.M.P.O.W.E.R.) " 
• Tarnia Newton, Assistant Clinical Professor, College of Nursing | "The Arts, Health, and Binational Resilience: A Photovoice Conversation on Immigration Journeys through the US-Mexico Borderlands"
• Alyssa Ryan, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and Mechanics, and Assistant Director, Center for Applied Transportation Sciences | "Socioeconomic Status Impacts Transportation Accessibility Among Elderly Hispanic Individuals with Mental and Physical Disabilities in Arizona"
• Marcos Serafim, Assistant Professor, School of Art | "Membrana semipermeable: Data, the ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis and the US-Mexico border"

Find more information on the awardees and their projects on the RII website. More than 30 projects have been awarded a total of $625,000 in funding since the program began in 2021.

CUES announces 2024 Distinguished Fellows and Spanning Boundaries teams

The Center for University Education Scholarship has announced its 2024 Distinguished Fellows and Spanning Boundaries awardee teams.

CUES Distinguished Fellowships support independent faculty research, while the Spanning Boundaries program encourages cross-disciplinary collaborations based on a theme. Awarded projects for both programs must contribute to educational scholarship and address innovation or grand challenges in university education.

The Spanning Boundaries challenge theme for 2024 focused on teaching and learning assistants across disciplines.

"Thanks to the invaluable support of our anonymous donor, CUES was able to fund two cross-disciplinary teams committed to advancing innovation and research on teaching and learning in the classroom," Guadalupe Lozano, who is director and holds an endowed chair with CUES, said about the Spanning Boundaries awardees. "Their projects, studying the impact of teaching teams as communities of practice and critical language awareness as a teaching and learning resource, harness the expertise of 12 career-track faculty and staff members across four colleges and six faculty members across two colleges, respectively."

Distinguished Fellows receive up to $20,000 annually for up to three years. Both 2024 Distinguished Fellowship projects are being funded for three years. Each Spanning Boundaries team receives up to $100,000 over two years.

The awardees and their projects are listed below.

CUES Distinguished Fellows

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• Jennifer Jenkins, Professor, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
  Querencia: Integrating place-based learning in Southwest Studies curricula
• Emily Jo Schwaller, Assistant Professor of Practice, University Center for Assessment, Teaching and Technology, and Assistant Director, Writing Across the Curriculum
  Serving HSI Undergraduates Through Meaningful Writing

Spanning Boundaries Challenge teams

A linguistically responsive Teaching Assistant training model

• Shelley Staples, Professor, Department of English
• Julieta Fernández, Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
• Christine Tardy, Professor, Department of English
• Ana Carvalho, Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
• Cassidy Reis, Lecturer, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
• Shelley Rodrigo, Senior Director, Writing Program 

Teaching teams as communities supporting student belongingness and self-efficacy

• Corin Gray, Assistant Professor of Practice, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology
• Arin Haverland, Assistant Professor of Practice, Department of Environmental Science
• Emily Dykstra, Director, Introductory Biology Labs, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology
• Susan Hester, Assistant Professor of Practice, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology
• Sarah Grace, Assistant Professor of Practice, Department of Psychology
• Elizabeth Eadie, Associate Professor of Practice, School of Anthropology
• John Kanady, Senior Lecturer, Department of Physiology
• Daniel McNabney, Senior Lecturer, Department of Physiology
• Lisa Rezende, Associate Professor of Practice, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology
• Allyson Roof, Senior Lecturer, Department of Physiology
• Alma Tejeda Padron, Assistant Professor of Practice, Department of Psychology
• Laura Van Dorn, Associate Professor of Practice, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Read more about this year's awardees and their projects on the CUES website. Those interested in learning more about the programs or applying for future cohorts are advised to attend virtual office hours to discuss their project ideas with Lozano starting in September.