Seven outstanding faculty, staff and students have received the 1998 Equity and Excellence Awards at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The awards are given annually to those faculty, staff and students who exemplify excellence in their professions and in education, and who have demonstrated a strong commitment to equity and diversity issues on campus and in the broader community.
The recipients are senior dance Instructor Letitia Williams, Financial Aid Counselor Debra Frazier, Pre-Collegiate Development Program Coordinator Chris Pacheco, graduate students Priya Jha and Margarita Olivas, and undergraduates Shamae Harris and Chalane Lechuga.
Each recipient received a $200 award at the 13th annual Equity and Excellence Awards Banquet, held on April 27 in the Glenn Miller Ballroom.
The awards were presented by Chancellor Richard L. Byyny, Vice Chancellors Jean Kim, Paul Tabolt and Phil DiStefano; and Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of the Graduate School Carol Lynch.
Biographical information on the award recipients follows:
o Letitia Williams, a CU-Boulder faculty member for 20 years, teaches understanding and valuing of diversity through such classes as "African-American Dance" and "Dance as a Universal Language." Williams, who also is involved in several K-12 outreach efforts, founded the highly acclaimed student touring group, Harambee, and serves as artistic director.
o Debra Frazier has been a CU-Boulder staff member since 1991, working as a financial aid counselor and serving on several campus and university-wide diversity committees. She also is the Office of Financial Aid's liaison to the Minority Engineering Program, the Minority Arts and Sciences Program and the McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program.
o Chris Pacheco became a CU-Boulder staff member 13 years ago when he took a position with the Pre-Collegiate Development Program, which supports first-generation college students. The program, which he now coordinates, offers summer and first-year bridge programs to approximately 300 high school and college students a year and has a 97 percent success rate for placing high school students in college.
o Priya Jha, a doctoral student in comparative literature, taught writing to ESL (English as a Second Language) students and worked with culturally diverse teens in the Upward Bound and Pre-Collegiate Development programs. She also helped start the Women's Resource Center at CU-Boulder and organized an international graduate student conference on cultural studies.
o Margarita Olivas is a doctoral student and part-time graduate instructor in the communication department, also teaching courses for ethnic studies, women's studies, sociology and continuing education. Olivas, who was nominated for the award by her students, also is active in local schools, where she works with at-risk youths and has started a new support group for Latino girls at Boulder High School.
o Shamae Harris graduated in May with a bachelor's degree in kinesiology. In her early years at CU-Boulder, she worked as a teacher's assistant for a writing course on race, class and gender topics. She also was involved in educating the campus community about affirmative action through the Black Student Alliance and United Â鶹ÒùÔº of Color, which led to her appointment as the University of Colorado Student Union's student administrator to student affairs during her senior year.
o Chalane Lechuga graduated with a double bachelor's degree in ethnic studies and English this spring. While at CU-Boulder, she was active with the Chicano and Mexican-American community, belonging to MECHA, a student organization that promotes the cultural and political issues of chicano students, United Mexican American Â鶹ÒùÔº and other student groups. She also coordinated a conference in August 1997 that drew 200 Latino women from across the country.