Heidi Toth

Oct, 17, 2019

At the semiannual Campus Forum Tuesday, Northern Arizona University President Rita Cheng talked about highlights from the university’s 120-year history and the exciting programs, investments, research and innovation that are hallmarks of the university’s promising future.

“Increased research, creative scholarship and public service activity directly benefit our students and their preparation for excellence in their future endeavors,” she told a crowd of hundreds at the High Country Conference Center, with hundreds more watching online. “It is an essential part of how we impact the state by creating a more qualified workforce for Arizona, providing answers to big questions and future challenges and inspiring new inventions.”

Cheng also discussed the changing environment in higher education nationwide, which plays a role in NAU’s retention and recruitment efforts and also affects curriculum and pedagogy decisions. She highlighted NAU’s diverse online programs and our presence on community colleges campuses, making education more accessible to nontraditional students than ever, and realigning or creating new programs to help meet the needs of industry in Arizona and beyond.

“Today’s universities are challenged with redesigning programs to meet workforce needs and those of student interests,” she said. “NAU has not been caught off guard by the changes taking place in higher education today. We have talented teams throughout our campuses focused on the vision that assures our strong future.”

She acknowledged that NAU, along with universities throughout the country, is seeing lower enrollment numbers as there are fewer high school graduates, a booming job market and an unpredictable international environment. Although enrollment growth is lower now than it was five years ago, NAU is addressing that through concerted and creative recruitment strategies to encourage potential college students to consider the university.

Cheng highlighted the new brand campaign that is raising NAU’s profile throughout the state. It is a product of a research-based marketing plan that focuses on NAU’s strengths and highlights what differentiates the NAU experience from that of other universities. She encouraged faculty, staff and students to make the slogan “Bring Your Aspirations” personal as they talked with peers throughout the state and country about their experiences as a Lumberjack.

As the first of NAU’s strategic goals, student success and access continues to be a top priority for NAU programs and employees, both in and out of the classroom. NAU is working on enhancing the student experience, including providing students who are struggling with mental and emotional issues. In partnership with the American Council on Education, Campus Health Services has implemented a four-tiered approach that addresses student needs, the accessibility of clinical services and proactive messaging, norm-setting and communication. This new approach includes six new counseling positions, five of which have already been filled (one of whom is a culturally and language-competent Latinx specialist); developing Kognito, an online program that helps to identify students in distress; creating peer networks and offering additional group therapy; and introducing a workshop to help students learn healthy ways to cope with anxiety.

Other programs to help NAU students include:

• Louie’s Cupboard, an on-campus food pantry for students who are struggling
• Louie’s Leftovers, a program ITS created and advertises through the NAUgo app to let students know when leftover food is available after campus events
• Enhanced gathering and study space for multicultural and LGBTQIA student services and programs, opened last year in the IMQ Center
• Jacks Online, which provides peer mentoring for online students

Cheng discussed the budget the Arizona Board of Regents proposed to the Arizona Legislature last month, which includes $32 million for NAU. If approved, $22 million of that funding will go toward expanded investments in graduate and undergraduate health care programs, including behavioral health; supporting and expanding pathways and expedited degree programs in partnership with community colleges, career and technical education districts and business partners; and investment in cybersecurity programs.

The other $10 million will support NAU’s unique undergraduate mission through investment in enrollment, undergraduate faculty and quality education and additional marketing efforts.

NAU administrators are hopeful this budget proposal will allow the university to regain the balance in the overall mix that disappeared in 2014. Right now, state appropriations make up about 18 percent of the total budget, down from more than 22 percent in 2014. NAU has continued to grow and provide a quality education despite that funding loss, Cheng said, but she hopes to see an uptick in investment from the state.

This is especially critical for an institution like NAU, which serves a significant number of Arizona residents and does so in communities throughout the state and through programs like the Arizona Teachers Academy.

“State funding will help NAU continue to support student outreach, quality instruction and student services while increasing access to higher education for a diverse population of students contributing to Arizona’s attainment goals,” she said.

Cheng discussed the accomplishments NAU is making in its sustainability efforts and education, which were recognized last month by Arizona Forward.

“NAU is well-positioned to lead in the practice and study of sustainability, and it is a core part of who we are as an institution,” she said. “With the Colorado Plateau as our backyard and laboratory, our location has given us a legacy of climate research, leadership and solutions that set us apart from many other universities. We continue to be leaders in environmental and sustainability-focused education.”

She also announced that next semester NAU will have an inaugural class of diversity fellows, a program aimed at recognizing faculty, staff and students who show a commitment to diversity and inclusion initiatives. This semester, NAU has celebrated Latinx Heritage Month, is in the middle of Disability Heritage Month and in November will recognize Native American Heritage Month, which celebrates the programs, partnerships and relationships that connect the university to Indigenous communities throughout the world.

“We are a distinctive university focused on helping our students realize their aspirations, strengthened by the supportive environment fostered by our faculty and staff,” Cheng said. “As we face an increasingly competitive higher education landscape, we must embrace the fact that we are the NAU brand. Personal connections are foundational to this university’s history and are as strong today as they were 120 years ago.”

Watch the Oct. 15 Campus Forum on NAU-TV.

Oct. 15, 2019

Neither Taylor Lambrigger nor Cézanne Rahner has set foot in the Kingdom of Cambodia.

Yet, both NAU alumnae represented the south Asian nation at an international conference earlier this year, arguing passionately on behalf of the Cambodian people, looking for compromises with other countries to help Cambodia both come to terms with and move past its history, a task that is hard to describe.

In fact, the whole experience—known as World Model United Nations, which in 2019 took place in Madrid, Spain—was one the students say should be experienced more than described. This is why every year, political science principal lecturer Gretchen Gee leads a team of NAU students to another part of the world, allowing them to spend a week with peers from around the globe, discussing difficult real-world issues and building relationships that cross borders. These students represent a variety of majors and career aspirations; some have traveled the world while others have never left the country.

It’s almost unparalleled in the opportunities it provides, Gee said.

“This is an opportunity not just to travel as a tourist to another country, but an opportunity to really engage intellectually as well as personally with some of the big issues of the world,” Gee said. “At these conferences, we’re talking about things like how to alleviate poverty, how to help countries best develop, how to help other countries overcome historical trauma.

“Students get to engage in that, not just at an intellectual level but in this personal level in the sense of investing themselves as though they are one of these countries. It’s really firsthand, experiential learning.”

What makes this opportunity possible, when so many other international experiences are out of reach for many students, is generous NAU donors who help fund the trip. For NAU alumni Roy and Delores Morey (‘59), who endow the trip every year, those students are precisely their motivation.

“I served for 22 years as a senior officer in the United Nations,” Roy Morey said. “It was only natural that Delores and I would be interested in establishing an endowment to help support students from families of limited means who may not be able to travel to the competitions.”

Learn more about the NAU Foundation and the many opportunities to donate to causes that are significant to you.

What is World Model UN?

World Model United Nations is an opportunity for students throughout the world; universities send teams to a Harvard-sponsored conference, where students spend a week in committee meetings, discussing issues like genocide, immigration, humanitarian rights and press freedom—real-world, thorny issues that world leaders discuss and debate every day. The students are assigned to represent a specific country and appointed to a committee.

Once at the conference, students spend the week meeting with their committees, going through the issue at hand, debating possible solutions and trying to pick their way through the competing demands of different countries, having similar conversations to those of world leaders and diplomats today.

“It’s a picture of active learning,” Gee said. “You are actively engaged in taking the knowledge that you’ve got, actively arguing the point of your country, and then you have to be listening to all the countries that are talking because part of Model UN is looking for other countries that could be possible allies, finding them and working together to create negotiations and actually write resolutions that you’re going to try to get passed by the entire committee.”

Gee pointed to a debate during the 2019 World MUN conference in Madrid about the refugee crisis. Students representing Libya, a sending country, sat on a committee with Italy, a receiving country. Their conflicting needs required hard conversations about a problem everyone sees but to which no one sees a workable solution. Students come away with an understanding of just how difficult such problems are to solve.

While at the conference, students mingle with their peers, build relationships, learn about their host country and hear from world leaders. In Madrid, Felipe VI, the king of Spain, was the keynote speaker.

This is a different club than Model UN, though the two frequently overlap; in fact, both Rahner and Lambrigger came to World MUN through participation in Model UN. The World MUN team, which requires an application, meet throughout the spring semester to prepare, but the annual international conference, held each year during spring break, is their one big event.  

What benefits do students see?

The program has dual purposes: help students develop skills that will aid them in careers, leadership positions, further education and wherever else they end up in their lives; and help foster a global community with mutual respect and understanding, requiring the students to not only get to know students from dozens of other countries, but also to consider international issues from a perspective that is not their own.

For Rahner and Lambrigger, that meant months of researching Cambodia’s history, including the genocide of the 1970s, when the Khmer Rouge regime executed about 2 million of its own citizens, and how the country has dealt with that since, both from a legal standpoint and also how society has been shaped.

It’s easy to see how some of those skills—debate, public speaking, problem-solving—fit into World MUN and how easily transferrable they are to careers. But don’t think it’s only valuable for budding politicians and diplomats and motivational speakers. Lambrigger, who graduated in May with a double major in anthropology and biology and participated in undergraduate research in forensics during her time at NAU, found an immediate connection to her career goals.

“I hope to help with mass grave exhumation from recent genocides and repatriation of those remains back to communities,” she said. “The committee I was placed in at World MUN focused on post-genocide reconstruction, which was directly in line with my academic and professional interests. Being able to meld those interests with a conference that encouraged creative thinking and multicultural perspectives and travel was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Rahner, who majored in political science and Spanish, directly connected skills from the classroom into her experience at the conference, all of which will inform her future as a lawyer. But those with perhaps less traditional majors should check it out as well, she said.

“Every skill you learn at conferences, from public speaking to analyzing policy proposals to debate and compromise can be applied to diverse future endeavors,” Rahner said. “If I wanted to be a marine biologist or a middle school teacher, I could find a way to use the skills fostered at World MUN.”

Rahner was on the Special Political and Decolonization Committee; she spent the week discussing the rights and protections of secessionist states. The committee touched on democracy building, post-colonialism, cultural and political self-actualization and the proper role of the United Nations. She found herself presenting positions that were at odds with other members’ positions and finding unusual connections to make sure her voice—Cambodia’s voice—was heard.

It’s a busy, tiring and at times an overwhelming week, so in between committee meetings and networking and learning more about the UN and international affairs, students took the time to explore their host cities, experience local culture and sample the cuisine. Rahner talked about seeing original Picassos at the Reina Sofía, riding scooters through El Parque Retiro at sunset and “sampling ridiculously bougie paella.”

The students also get a little time off, so Gee arranges day trips to nearby cities. In Spain, they went to the ancient city of Toledo; exploring it was one of the highlights of Lambrigger’s week. At the 2020 World MUN conference in Tokyo, Japan, the delegation will take a high-speed train to Hakone, near Mount Fuji.

How have donors made this possible?

TheMoreys’ endowment is sufficient to cover the team’s housing each year, which takes a huge chunk out of the total cost for each student. From there, the students turn to other funding sources like ASNAU, the Center for International Education, Dean Karen Pugliesi’s office and the Office of Undergraduate Research to pay for registration fees, plane tickets and food. Typically, students also pitch in their own money. Gee likes that they do the work for this funding themselves, but she never wants the students ponying up the majority of the money out of their bank accounts.

“We’re a university filled with first-generation kids; we’re a university filled with kids who are working their way through school and taking out student loans,” she said. “I am so passionate about not making this a trip for kids who just happen to come from wealthier backgrounds. I really want this to be a trip that kids from modest backgrounds can also take part in.”

Roy and Delores Morey said they both came from families with limited means, but tuition and the cost of living in the 1950s were low enough that they could work during the summers and live off those earnings the rest of the year. As state investment decreased and other costs increased, they saw students struggling more than they had. They also realized that many students, concerned with tuition, rent and food costs, didn’t even consider taking on additional opportunities that would expand their horizons but also add to their expenses.

“We started by endowing a Washington internship for a student to spend either a semester or a summer working in a congressional office,” Delores Morey said. “We then became very impressed with the success of the NAU Model UN team and the high quality of its members, so now that is our second endowment.”

The donations made a huge difference for Lambrigger, who worked three part-time jobs throughout college to pay for living expenses while ensuring she kept her grades up so she could keep her scholarship. Paying for this trip herself would have been out of the question.

“To go to Spain for a week as a college student in many situations is unheard of, so the fact that six of us got to go and live in Madrid for less than $200 each is truly a gift, and I can safely say on behalf of all six of us that we are incredibly grateful for the donations and gifts that made it happen,” she said.

Cultivating donor relationships to help support the student experience has been a top priority for Pugliesi, whose office also kicked in funding for the team to go to Spain.

“The Model UN is an award-winning academic team through which students learn about political systems, international relations and the issues impacting nations around the world,” she said. “The generous support of our donors enables us to send the NAU Model UN team to domestic and international competitions. Without philanthropic gifts, our team would not have achieved national ranking, placing among the top 75 teams in the U.S.” 

For the Moreys, it’s about paying back what NAU gave them and an opportunity to help future generations of Lumberjacks.

“NAU was very good to us and provided us with an education that we used as a stepping stone to achieve a successful and rewarding life,” Roy Morey said. “We are certain that there are thousands of NAU alumni who can say exactly the same thing, and we would encourage them to give back. It is the best legacy anyone can leave.”

Interested in donating to help fund the team to go to Tokyo in 2020? Visit the NAU Foundation website and enter fund No. 5291 (Model United Nations) or explore the hundreds of other giving opportunities available through the Foundation.

Who should apply for World Model UN?

Interested students don’t need to be good public speakers or debaters when they apply, but they need to be willing to learn how to research and engage with ideas and get comfortable speaking in public, Gee said. But she doesn’t want that to scare anyone.

“They don’t have to be great public speakers,” she said. “I like having kids who aren’t great public speakers to start with because I see this as an opportunity to grow, to learn how to be a better public speaker, to learn how to advocate as well as listen.”

That enthusiasm and desire to learn and grow is the No. 1 factor Gee wants in World MUN representatives from NAU. She’s far less concerned with majors—and in today’s global economy, students in any major can find value in such an international experience—and students don’t need to speak another language or have any travel experience. Gee recalled one student who comes to mind for success at World MUN; he’d never left the country before the conference in Brussels, Belgium. Gee roved between committees during the week, hoping to catch students in action, and happened to step into this room just as her student began to speak.

“To see him go stand up at the front and so eloquently defend his position was just so heartwarming,” she said.

Oct. 10, 2019

Disparities in the nation’s juvenile justice system are prevalent and well-documented. According to Law Street Media, it is estimated that more than 61,000 youth in the United States are incarcerated each night. More than 65 percent of those are youth of color.

To help address these challenges, Northern Arizona University’s Center for Health Equity Research (CHER) recently hosted a one-day workshop, in partnership with the Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), The NARBHA Institute and the Arizona Biomedical Research Centre.

The event, “The Consequences of Juvenile Justice System Involvement on the Health and Well-Being of Adolescents, Families and Communities of Color,” brought 170 policymakers and influencers to Flagstaff, including local and national judges, attorneys, social workers, probation officers, health care providers, community members and researchers, as well as state, county and city officials, to examine strategies for transforming the nation’s juvenile justice system. More than 250 others attended the event via video conference.

CHER director Julie Baldwin and Mark Carroll, chief health officer and vice president of discovery and development at The NARBHA Institute, moderated the workshop along with other members of the NASEM Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity.

“We see this as a critical launching point for dialogue and action around this topic, both locally and nationally,” Baldwin said.

Keynote speakers at the event were Scott Bales, executive director of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) of Denver and former Arizona chief justice, and Judge Kathleen Quigley, from the Pima County Juvenile Court and a Northern Arizona University alumna.

Bales cited compelling statistics, such as the fact that African-American youth in Arizona are referred to the juvenile justice system 3.7 times more often and American Indians are referred 1.8 times more often than Caucasian youth. About one in five referrals resulted in detention; however, youth who are American Indian had a detention rate of two and a half times that of white juveniles. He said that African-American youth are charged five times more often and Hispanic youth are charged three times more often than white youth.

Quigley said one of the key goals of the Arizona courts was to reduce the number of juveniles in detention and to connect families to services. She focused on positive changes in Arizona for youth in the juvenile justice system, such as the state’s recent achievement of reducing admissions to detention by 50 percent—in fact, she said, a few Arizona counties have reduced their numbers so effectively that they were able to close their detention centers and turn them into youth recreation centers. As an example, Quigley noted one Apache County community in which more than 300 youth have engaged in one of the converted youth centers, representing 95 percent of the students from the local high school.

“Navajo County and Apache County are leading the way and there really have been impressive outcomes,” Quigley said.

Three panels of juvenile justice experts from Arizona and other states participated in a series of discussions, “What we Know about the Effects of Involvement with the Juvenile Justice System on Health Outcomes for Vulnerable Populations,” “Alternatives to Juvenile Detention in Building Systems of Justice and Equity” and “What Do We Still Need to Learn? Where Should We Go in the Future?”

Throughout the day, experts discussed challenges in the juvenile justice system, especially for communities of color; they also shared successful, established programs and policies that serve as models for the nation.

A special group of young adults, counselors and parents also shared their experiences in the juvenile justice system with attendees during a lunch session.

The presentations are available on the workshop website.

Photo: From left, Judge Kathleen Quigley, an NAU alum, talks with Julie Baldwin and Carly Camplain from the Center for Health Equity Research at the juvenile justice workshop on Sept. 26.