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• Sara Alemán, professor and director of Ethnic Studies, and four students presented at the National Association for Ethnic Studies annual conference in Atlanta, April 3-5. The students—Daniel Lomeli, Erin Hollingsworth, Phyllis Sweet and Crystal Uchino—were panelists and presented papers on the theme of the conference, The Politics of Ethnicity.
• The national charitable organization Engineers Without Borders named the NAU chapter of Engineers Without Borders the top participating chapter in a recent national fundraiser. The fundraising initiative, titled "America's Giving Challenge," was sponsored by Parade magazine and the Case Foundation. The challenge encouraged the use of social networking and web tools to empower individuals to support causes they care about. The national Engineers Without Borders raised enough funds to earn one of the top spots in the competition; earning $50,000 in addition to the money they raised themselves. The NAU chapter came in number one out of 135 participating within the national organization, earning $5,000 for the chapter to use to support its members and online projects.
• The Service Professionals Advisory Council awarded two individuals with Leadership Awards at its annual meeting on April 8:

  • Heather Farley, program coordinator for the Center for Sustainable Environments, for her "dedication and determined willingness to go above and beyond the duties of her job to bring sustainability to the forefront of campus culture."
  • Andrew Needhammer, dance coordinator for the Community Music and Dance Academy, for his "tireless leadership of the dance program at NAU, as well as his many contributions to the Flagstaff community."
    

  Two individuals also received Honorable Mentions:

• Betsy Putman, senior development officer for The W.A. Franke College of Business, for her "demonstrated excellence in creating a sense of community between the university and the greater Flagstaff community."

• Scott Nichols, research project coordinator for Biological Sciences, for his "outstanding, caring contributions to the biology department staff and animals, well above and beyond the duties of his job."
• Several faculty authors are participating in the Northern Arizona Book Festival, April 25-26, including:

  • Sylvester Allred, principal lecturer of biology
  • Monica Brown, associate professor of English
  • Ekkehart Malotki, retired professor of languages
  • Anne Minard, part-time faculty in Distance Learning
  • Martin Sommerness, professor in the School of Communication
  • Gary Nabhan, professor of environmental sciences