UTSA education scholar Anne-Marie Nunez receives award for scholarship

From left are Liliana M. Garces (University of Michigan), Anne Marie Nunez (UTSA) and Maricela Oliva (UTSA)

By David Thompson
Professor and Chair, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

(Dec. 22, 2011) -- Anne-Marie Nuñez, UTSA assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies, has received the Mildred Garcia Award for Exemplary Scholarship (tenure-track faculty category) from the Council on Ethnic Participation of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE). Nunez, a faculty member in the ELPS higher education program area, received this award at the 2011 ASHE annual conference in Charlotte, N.C.

Nuñez, whose scholarship focuses on college choice, college outreach and college transition, joined the UTSA faculty in 2007 after receiving her Ph.D. in Higher Education and Organizational Change from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a prolific early-career scholar, having already published in such top-tier journals as the American Educational Research Journal, Review of Higher Education and Harvard Educational Review.

The Garcia award is given annually to one tenured faculty member and one tenure-track faculty member whose "seminal, scholarly" research focuses on issues related to underrepresented populations in higher education. The award is named for Mildred Garcia, president of California State University, Dominguez Hills. Garcia recently was appointed by President Barack Obama to the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, along with a handful of other college presidents including UTSA President Ricardo Romo.

ASHE promotes collaboration among its members and others engaged in the study of higher education through research, conferences and publications. It is committed to diversity in its programs and membership, and produces the highly regarded journal The Review of Higher Education.

This is the second time a UTSA scholar has received the Mildred Garcia Award for Exemplary Scholarship (tenure-track faculty category) from the ASHE Council on Ethnic Participation. Last year, Professor Laura Rendon in the UTSA Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies received the honor.