Kudos to these faculty, staff and programs.
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- Fred DeMicco, professor in the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management, was an invited panelist at the 2024 Lodging Conference held in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Oct. 9. DeMicco’s panel, titled “People and Culture: Creating an Impactful Strategy,” explored innovations in employee recruitment combating hotel staffing shortages and increasing diversity.
- NAU alum Emmett Burnton earned the Arizona Educational Foundation’s 2025 Arizona Teacher of the Year award. A teacher at Boulder Creek High School in Anthem, Arizona, for nine years, Burnton was recognized for his status as a role model, club sponsor and the founder of Duel of Fates, a local business designed to redesign history curricula. He is Arizona’s official candidate for National Teacher of the Year.
- Six faculty members from the College of Education presented at the 2024 Arizona Hispanic-Serving Institution Summit, describing the goals and initiatives taken by the school’s Hispanic-Serving Institution task force. These faculty members included:
- Claudia Rodas, Department of Educational Specialties associate teaching professor
- Cynthia Villarreal, Department of Educational Leadership assistant professor
- Carmen Arciniega, Early Learning and Development Center mentor teacher
- Heather Lindfors-Navarro, Department of Teaching and Learning assistant professor
- Alma Sandigo, NAU-Yuma associate teaching professor
- Gerald Wood, Department of Educational Leadership associate professor
- Susana Hernandez, an assistant professor for the Department of Educational Psychology, was selected as a 2024-25 faculty fellow for the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE). Hernandez’s fellowship is designed to support her scholarly and career-centric initiatives to uplift Latine communities.
- STEM Education assistant professor Sam Severance co-authored the article “IF science AND making AND computing: Insights for project-based learning and primary science curriculum design,” published in Studies in Science Education. The study argues that adopting concepts from computing curricula could significantly improve the effectiveness of education initiatives in other STEM fields.