Kudos to these faculty, staff, students and programs
Do you have a spotlight item to share with the NAU community?
E-mail your announcements to Inside@nau.edu, or use our online submission form.
- Northern Arizona University’s director of cross country and track & field, Mike Smith, has been awarded the Bill Dellinger Award as he was named the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA ) National Men’s Coach of the Year. This is the fifth time that Smith has been named National Men’s Coach of the Year, and the third consecutive year. Smith is only the second person to win this award three years in a row.
- Frederick J. DeMicco, executive director and professor from the School of Hospitality and Restaurant Management, had a new article recently published on Hospitality Net. In his article, “Lodging Opportunity: Strategies for Planning for a Successful University Based Retirement Community,” DeMicco and co-author John Spooner discuss University Based Retirement Communities (UBRCs) and how they offer retirees a strong intergenerational connection, opportunities for personal and intellectual growth and more.
- Senior Christopher Castillo was featured in a commemorative video of the inaugural AZ Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) Summit by a partner HSI institution, the University of Arizona. The inaugural AZ HSI Summit brought together faculty, staff, administrators, students and community partners to showcase and exchange evidence-based practices that are effectively and intentionally supporting Latinx students and building capacity among faculty & staff to teach and lead at HSIs and to create opportunities for networking and community building across AZ HSIs and Emerging HSIs.
- Honors College senior Anthony Zapata was named a finalist for The Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University. With the guidance of NAU’s Office of National & International Scholarships and Fellowships, Zapata completed a rigorous application and university presidential endorsement process to compete for a finalist position. Zapata graduates in spring 2023 with a degree in health sciences-public health and a minor in biology. He had various roles such as student researcher for the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute, presenter at the Undergraduate Research Symposium, Honors peer mentor and co-founder and president of the Public Health Service Club.